TSA terminates its contract with Rapiscan, maker of pornoscanners

The TSA has given the boot to Rapiscan, maker of about half of the pornoscanners in use in America's airports:

TSA gave Rapiscan until June 2013 to come up with a software upgrade to prevent the scanner from projecting the naked image. TSA officials said Rapiscan won't be able to meet that deadline.
"TSA has strict requirements that all vendors must meet for security effectiveness and efficiency since the use of this technology is critical to TSA’s efforts to keep the traveling public safe," the TSA said in a statement.

Yes, they seriously named their pornoscanner company "Rapiscan." Seriously.

TSA ends contract with Rapiscan, maker of full-body scanner [Hugo Martin/LA Times] (via /.)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: aviation • corruption • pornoscanners • security theater • seriously

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Donald Petersen

I do have trouble remembering to pronounce that name with a short A sound in front, it’s true.
- awjt
  
  I don’t know how it ever got transformed into “pornoscanner.” I mean, “rapescanner” has been right there in front of us all these years.
  - http://www.facebook.com/postelwait Cameron Postelwait
    
    i know, pornoscanner makes it sound like a good thing.
  - ocker3
    
    No evidence of the machine in fact raping anyone or the photos being used in a rape case? Porn however makese sense, naked pictures of people.
    - http://twitter.com/TylerTinsley Tyler Tinsley
      
      no the scanners dont rape, that only happens if you opt out for the “enhanced pat down”
      - ocker3
        
        that’s groping, assault, touching, not rape. the link is just too tenuous
      - Daemonworks
        
        Depends on where you live, actually. In some places, groping and rape are classed as different levels of severity of the same crime.
        
        Which they are, really.
vonbobo

“TSA has strict requirements that all vendors must meet for security effectiveness and efficiency since the use of this technology is critical to TSA’s efforts to keep the traveling public safe,”

Wow! Now the TSA is deploying sentences that have the ability to give me a headache.
- Daemonworks
  
  The problem is that they have maximum, not minimum requirements.
Conan Librarian

I keep misreading it as RapEscan, maker of pornoscanners
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  I read it as RapeyScan.
picaflor

so…do they get to keep all the stored images or are they now property of TSA?
Slartibartfatsdomino

Don’t panic! I’m sure Michael Chertoff will find other ways to milk the taxpayer for unnecessary products/services as long as the fear levels are…. Oh, wait a second…. Panic!!! Muslim brown people are coming for your white wimmenz!!!
- oasisob1
  
  “Muslim brown people are coming for your white wimmenz!!!”
  
  I certainly hope so.
Joshua Ochs

Unfortunately, the existing scanners are being redeployed to other government buildings and agencies. So now you never know where you’ll be subject to them. Meanwhile, Rapiscan still gets their money.
- http://twitter.com/strugglngwriter strugglngwriter
  
  Coming to an Elementary School near you
EH

Strict requirements!
http://humanvoice.wordpress.com/ tomob

How much was spend on these machines?
- EH
  
  Several Ivy-league educations, if you know what I mean.
- flickerKuu
  
  Billions
http://vincenzoravina.tumblr.com/ Vincenzo Ravina

And the TSA can sell the images of your naked body to advertisers!
- Boundegar
  
  Only if they can cross-connect the scanners to Instagram.
  - oasisob1
    
    I should learn to read the replies, before posting my own.
  - James Penrose
    
    There’s a flash drive socket on the console. Technically it is “disabled” but it’s a software switch that admin types can change.
- oasisob1
  
  Or just post them on Instagram. Yesterday was opt-out day, btw.
http://twitter.com/james4765 Jim Nelson

Aw, man. Now how am I going to inflict monochromatic bear porn on government employees?
flickerKuu

Can we get the billions of dollars back we spent for them? So much for starving people, or home foreclosures, when we just spend a few billion for some giant paper weights. Someone needs to be imprisoned or at least fired and fined for this debacle.
BillStewart2012

Replacing 250 X-ray scanners with 669-730 Terahertz scanners isn’t a big improvement in civil liberties (though most of the new THz scanners have the software feature that only shows the operators cartoon stick figures of your naked body, color-enhanced for any “suspicious-looking” things like that rumpled Kleenex or Starbucks receipt in your pocket.)

And at least these are less likely to cause skin cancer (not that the THz scanner folks necessarily have a well-defined methodology for proving that microwaving your butt is safe, but at least they don’t seem to be deliberately misrepresenting badly designed tests the way the X-ray products did.) And you can still ask the TSA operators why they’re not allowed to wear dosimeters that might detect a risk of cancer.
http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar

Okay, boys, the fellows in Marketing have stayed in all weekend, and they’ve come up with three strong candidates for branding our new airport security scanner. Let me just bring this up onscreen . . .

1) Invaso.

2) Violatron.

3) Rapiscan.

I’m getting a lot of vigor from option 3. Does anyone else have any strong feelings about any of these?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  It’s pronounced ah-swee-pay.
- Rindan
  
  “Hu hu, lets call it the RapeyScanner, cause it strips you naked and rapes you with x-rays!”, said Fred the Engineer with all of the social grace of a child savage raised on and island by wolves. Jeff the engineer lol’d.
  
  Six months later…
  
  On one side of the table sat marketing and sales, on the other side sat the engineering manager and a couple of engineers.
  
  “It sounds like you guys are ready with this thing, what is it called?” asked one of the marketing minions. ”We usually need to tweak the name to better execute on our dynamic sales growth projections, but we love engineer input. Dynamic input creates internal dynamic synergies.”
  
  With enthusiastic glee Fred the engineer responds “RapeyScanner! Get it! Because it ra…”, and at that moment Tom, the engineering manager dove into the conversation cutting off the Fred, “because it is so fast! It is rapid! Rapid! RapiScanner!”
  
  The table goes dead silent as stunned looks pass between marketing and sales minions. Tom’s heart sinks. There was no way they were going to buy that lie, and by the offended look on Fred’s face, it looked like Fred was about to try and re-explain the joke just in case they were too dense to get it the first time. With mounting horror, Tom sees Fred open his mouth to indignantly explain that the product strips people naked and rapes them with x-rays, but before Fred can speak, a red faced marketer slams both fists down on the table and declares, “Brilliant! RapiScanner!” A chores of assent fills the marketing and sales side of the table. The engineers seem confused, but Tom ushers them out before the confusion wears off.
http://borborygmist.influxofdust.com/ Wayne Dyer

I was a little taken aback when I saw that the head of Rapiscan is named Deepak Chopra. But then I realized that I of all people should be sensitive to folks having famous names.
dave3

The question now is: Where can I go now to get pornscanned?
Velocirapt42

Screw the naked pics, I never set foot in one of those because they never got calibrated. Ever.
http://twitter.com/nonofyrpenguins NoneofYourPenguins

TSA is probably one of the biggest boondoggles in the post-911 world we live in. I don’t even think Congress is done screaming at them for all the billions of wasted tax dollars that have been spent to the tune of zilch practical results. Here’s something related to maritime port security:

http://www.workboat.com/Blogs/WorkBoat-Watch/TWIC-is-still-useless-and-a-big-waste-of-money/
bolamig

When we put computers in charge of detecting threats, all sorts of hacks become possible.
GagHalfrunt

To be fair, the Rapiscan name dates back at least to 1993, when the company was only making metal detectors and x-ray baggage scanners. No-one was thinking “we’ve invented a full body scanner – let’s call it Rape-scan!”
http://twitter.com/pickledbeatnik pickledbeatnik

I always thought that was an ironic company name coined by the populace who hated the porno scanners. Turns out it’s just an unfortunate coincidence!
http://profiles.google.com/steve.nordquist Steve Nordquist

Scantron Bonne and MyShakeypeople never took off as properties, so the Lerindijk Group had to pick other 30-year-old inscrutable names to get into the right trust circles. Will the private sector catering to people who want validation as clandestine, hot, militarized, unstoppable or clothed in the holy green fire of Buddy Jesus be able to make good of these things? Hey, I think I found the false bottom of my interest in such things! (I can tell by the pixels it’s been sitting on a wood chair with a towel on it…)
glittalogik

“TSA … keep the … public safe”
It’s cute that they think anyone still buys that.