Mark Baard
Parallel Normal
December 5, 2007

Happy to help: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Continental Airlines tell USA Today that customers can aid the fight against terrorism by allowing security personnel to scan their mobile phones. Continental says travelers love “the convenience.”

The Transportation Security Administration’s scheme to scan mobile phones instead of boarding passes strikes me as highly hackable.

More significantly, it provides Homeland Security an excuse to point scanners at travelers’ mobile devices, which often contain their personal, and sensitive, private information.

Mark my words: this three-month pilot project (see below) is just the first of many that Homeland Security will launch to gain further access to the contents of mobile phones, even to commandeer them for intelligence and data gathering.

From USA Today, today:

The two-dimensional bar code, a jumble of squares and rectangles, stores the passenger’s name and flight information. A TSA screener will confirm the bar code’s authenticity with a handheld scanner. Passengers still need to show photo identification. The electronic boarding pass also works at airport gates.

My question is: What else can that handheld TSA scanner scan?