My carbon footprint has got to be ridiculous

In a recent conversation between Thom Yorke and David Byrne in Wired, Yorke describes how Radiohead conducted a study to assess its carbon footprint, in the hopes of then being able to reduce it. But their biggest impact upon the environment turned out to be something out of their control: all their fans driving to their concerts.

It makes me wonder about my carbon footprint. It has to be ridiculously huge. Not because I drive to work, but because I fly. It’s one of those crazy tales of an academic couple, two professors who can’t, because the market is so tight in their fields, find tenure-track jobs in the same city. So I fly to work. Actually I drive to the airport, fly to a city 400 miles away, then drive again to campus. Two days later I do the same thing in reverse to get back home. As I say, my carbon footprint has got to be ridiculous.

In fact I know it is.

Using Friends of the Forest’s Carbon Calculator, I’ve just found that my flying to work churns out about 23 metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. The average American releases under a half metric ton of carbon dioxide from flying.

This is not just ridiculous, it’s despairingly ridiculous. I can refuse all the plastic bags I want at the grocery store, but in the end I’m one of the killers of the world.

Goodbye 2006, Goodbye US Airways

It’s been one long fall. And it’s finally come to a close. Late December is when everyone comes out with their “best of” or “worst of” lists, so I thought I’d throw together a few lists. There’s no best and no worst, simply a snapshot of some of the things that made life as a commuting professor so grueling these past five months (and which explains why I haven’t posted in weeks). Come to think of it, this is more like a Harper’s Index than a proper list…

Number of novels read and taught since the beginning of August: 13

Number of those novels featuring characters named Asa: 2

Estimated average length, in pages, of each novel: 400

Estimated number of student papers read, in pages: 1,950

Estimated time spent grading those papers, in hours: 975

Percentage of students who “stopped attending” (as the registrar puts it) but were still registered for my classes: 8

Frequent flier miles earned since August: 54,484

Number of peanut butter jars confiscated by TSA screeners under the “no liquid” ban: 1

Percentage of successful smuggling attempts of lip balm aboard aircraft: 100

Number of times the 9 volt battery, digital watch, stress ball, and random twist-tie in my carry on baggage were mistaken for bomb components: 1

Joking with weapon-like toys

Warning Sign at Dulles AirportA few days ago I posted about the absurd attention the FBI has shown in a computer science student who created a fake boarding pass generator.

The true threat of a simulated boarding pass is not that it would allow terrorists to board a plane (and get an exit row seat, no less). No, the true threat of a simulated boarding pass is that it reveals that an actual boarding pass is meaningless when it comes to security. The fake boarding pass destroys the alibi of the real boarding pass.

It’s a crisis of simulation. And now I’m thinking that there’s no better space to analyze the anxiety that surround simulations than airports and airport security.

Consider the photograph above, taken at Dulles International Airport. “Weapon-like toys” are just as prohibited as real weapons.

I’m reminded of something the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard wrote years ago, wondering which is more threatening to the state: a real bank hold-up or a fake one? Baudrillard suggests that “a real hold up only upsets the order of things, the right of property, whereas a simulated hold up interferes with the very principle of reality” (from “Simulacra and Simulations”–the same Baudrillard essay which inspires Morpheus in The Matrix to say, “Welcome to the Desert of the Real”). To those who doubt his claim, Baudrillard says, “Go and organize a fake hold up.” And you’ll find out that a fake hold up is treated exactly the same as a real one. “You will unwittingly find yourself in the real,” Baudrillard warns.

So it is with airports now. There is no room in the system for simulation, even in play.

So what’s a terrorist to do? Perhaps the answer is right there, in the message on the sign. If “weapon-like toys” are banned, why not turn to toy-like weapons?

Fly the Fiendly Skies

This is the scariest freaking business I’ve read in a long time: Christopher Soghoian, a computer science student who had created an online generator for fake boarding passes–solely to point out how ludicrously ineffective airport security is–has been visited several times by the FBI, most recently, with a 2am warrant that allowed the Bureau to seize every single piece of tech in the student’s home. (See a scan of the warrant at BoingBoing).

The kid (he’s 24 years old) is simply highlighting that TSA airport security is “security theater”–providing the illusion of security while actually not protecting anything or anyone. Anybody can print their own online boarding pass and use it to get past gate security (as Andy Bowers illustrated in Slate nearly two years ago); and anyone can easily use two boarding passes to not only get past security, but to board the plane under a false ID.

What’s most amazing is that Soghoian is simply revealing flaws in a system that desperately needs fixing. But the federal government is treating him as a terrorist.

Who’s to say that millions haven’t already printed their own fake boarding passes and done what Soghian is only suggesting?

Who’s to say that I, who travel every week from Charlotte to Dulles International Airport, haven’t used Photoshop to doctor an online boarding pass copied from usairways.com to get through security?

I have.

It’s simple, and any idiot can do it.

You take a screenshot of your real boarding pass (right before you print it) (and most airlines allow you to “check in” online, meaning you can call up your boarding pass right in your web browser). And then you edit that screenshot in Photoshop. Substitute your seat assignment, your flight number, whatever. As long as it looks vaguely like US Airways real online boarding pass, you can get right through security.

I did this.

Even though I was a paying customer and had a real boarding pass, I generated a separate fake one. I forged one. Just to test the system.

I got through.

I boarded and flew and landed home.

Now I’m worried. Is the FBI going to come after me? Seize my computers and flash drives and scanners and printers? I did what the terrorists could do. Does that make me an enemy of the state? I broke federal law (DHS Code Title 49, Volume 8; October 1, 2004 rev. [Page 302]. I knowingly lied to a federal official. Security fraud. I committed it.

Or did I?

What if I didn’t print a fake boarding pass. What if I only thought about it. What if I’m lying right now. Who’s to say that I haven’t printed fake boarding passes. Who’s to say that I have.

My lips are sealed.

Except they’re not.

I did this and you should too.

Fast Food, Homeland Security Style

Here’s a placard (larger image) on a parking shuttle bus at Dulles International Airport, outside of Washington, D.C.

I’m very appreciative that they let me know, well before I enter the terminal, what I can eat, and whether it’s “pre-security” or “post-security” dining. So I can plan in advance such critical traveling strategery as, do I buy my double mocha skinny latte here, by ticketing, or there at Gate B, after I’ve been body cavity searched?