Project Junction

Box cutters = metal detectors.

Bomb in sneaker = everybody take your shoes off.

Bombs in underwear = full body search.

The current approach to airport security is “defense in depth,” i.e. reacting to and every new threat as it surfaces by buying new equipment and implementing new procedures. This just adds layers on top of layers of complexity and increases the costs of air travel.
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to find and defuse the bad guys before they get to the airport?  Impossible, you say? The recent DARPA network challenge makes me think that early identification of bad guys might just be possible.  They moored 10 red balloons across the US to see how people would organize and use viral networks to find them.

MIT took less than one day to solve the puzzle.

Change the contest from find the  “red balloon” to “find a potential bad guy.”  Add an incentive.  Use business intelligence analytics to sort through the real time data streams coming in to filter for key bomb making materials, countries whose citizens may be more statistically predisposed to do such cowardly acts, certain behaviors and so forth.

The key is to provide a forum for every person in the world to collaborate.  Defense in depth is eventually going to cripple the air travel industry as it results in excessive cost and inconvenience.  We’re spending billions of dollars to protect against a few bad guys.  Let’s take a different approach.