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Comment by pmichaud | Hacker News Reader

Would it be difficult to simply shape the plastic explosive around a part of your body to make it blend? I don't mean to be crass, but for example, what if you created a penis shaped sheath around your real penis? Wouldn't that just look like a larger penis to the scanner? Breasts would be easier maybe. But what about just fat rolls on the belly of a fat man?

This technology is unworkable in practice.

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Anyway, this is ignoring the obvious hiding place which the backscatter machine can't possibly resolve: the rectum. You could store a huge amount of plastic explosive in there in a form which would be very easy to retrieve (just shape it like a stiff shit.)

Can't wait till they plug this hole. (So to speak.)

Thankfully, Al-Qaeda has no familiarity with heroin smuggling 'mules'. Wait, what's that you say? They've got base camps in the world's major heroin-producing region and make money from heroin? Hmm.

Heroine is not smuggled out of Afghanistan through rectums, no, it goes out in caravan trucks with security detail.

Christopher Hitchens wrote an article for Slate a week ago pointing out that a recent (successful) assassination in Saudi was carried out with a body cavity PETN bomb.

If it's I think it is, it was an unsuccessful attempt of assassination of a Saudi prince, with a high rank in the anti-terrorism agency, although he barely escaped.

Supposedly the assailant was thoroughly searched and finding nothing suspicious , the security people let him approach the prince. The bomb was detonated by remote control, through a message or call to his cellphone.

The assailant's body did a pretty good job of containing the explosion. The assailant didn't make it, but everyone else relatively okay.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/28/eveningnews/main53...

why bother when you have 1000s of cleaners, baggage handlers, caterers etc who are allowed onto the plane unsearched and unchecked.

Of course they are subject to extensive background checks = are you willing to work for less than minimum wage?

I don't know about the other job categories, but fast food workers on the wrong side of the security checkpoint do get screened every day before work.

They go through the security checkpoint though - have you ever seen an xray machine and metal detector at the road entrance that all the tankers, food trucks, fedex and baggage arrives through?

Why bother removing it?

Given the clueless people usually used for bombings, the guy would probably drop it down the airplane toilet by accident and lose it.

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