You make a good point. If hackers can get jobs as security consultants, why can’t this guy get a job challenging the screening process?

I’d feel safer if this guy said the system worked.

Mixed feelings.

On one side, external testing always works better than internal. Open-source programming and blogging have proved that point brilliantly.

On the other, I can see why the gov’t wants to discourage this sort of thing very strongly. If hundreds of commies and saddammies decide to play this game, TSA will be kept so busy dealing with false threats that it will be more likely to miss a real one.

One such act can be viewed as beta-testing; many such acts must be seen as sabotage. Given the apparent motivations of this dude, I suspect he is thinking along the latter lines.

I don’t know about sabotage. The guy apparently told the feds where and when he was going to test them, and then tested them and left the proof. Saddamites and Democrats others less friendly to the Bush admin wouldn’t do this—they’d just do their damage without warning. It seems to me that Mr. Heatwole was trying to show them some loophole that he’d discovered, and they’re prosecuting him for it.

They can’t catch Bin Laden, they can’t catch Saddam, they can’t catch the anthrax jobber, they can’t keep the Islamofascists out of Guantanamo, but boy they sure caught this guy (after several weeks of the “dangerous articles” being in place, and several emails), by gum, and he’s gonna PAY!

Faugh. They ought to tell this guy to go forth and sin no more, and fire the top three layers at TSA and the Justice Department. A greater demponstration of institutional incompetence coupled with arrogance is not often seen.