Archive forJanuary, 2008

Air Your Security Gripes on TSA Blog

Frustrated by long airport-security lines? Certain those screeners aren't paying attention? Wondering why your grandma always gets frisked? The federal government wants to hear -- or at least read -- your gripes at the "Evolution of Security" blog the Transportation Security Administration introduced Wednesday. And it promises those complaints and suggestions won't vanish into thin air.

The blog, at http://www.tsa.gov/blog, is getting a rather "blah" response from aviation analysts and passengers advocates who say it will do little to improve process or perception.

"This will just make it easier for them to receive complaints for them to ignore in the name of national security," said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association.

In the blog's initial post, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley said the goal is to provide a forum for the agency to explain why travelers must go through certain steps at checkpoints since interaction at airports is often harried and halted, resulting in "feedback and venting ... circulating among passengers with no real opportunity for us to learn from you or vice versa."

"We will incorporate what we learn in this forum in our checkpoint process evolution," Hawley wrote. "Our postings from the public will be reviewed to remove the destructive, but not touch the critical or cranky."

Terry Trippler, a Minneapolis-based airline expert, applauded the idea but said TSA "was in the right church, just not the right pew yet."

And that church could become anything but sacred. Trippler said he envisions the blog quickly degenerating into an online vacuum where a handful of habitual complainers force TSA officials to respond to them, while other self-appointed security "experts" pontificate on the best ways to improve the process.

Even worse, he said some travelers will avoid the blog for fear of retribution from the government.

The TSA already is fighting an uphill battle in the court...

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U.S. Mock Disaster Drill: Trains, Planes and Bloggers

It is the government's idea of a really bad day: Washington's Metro subway trains shut down. Seaport computers in New York go dark. Bloggers reveal locations of railcars with hazardous materials. Airport control towers are disrupted in Philadelphia and Chicago. Overseas, a mysterious liquid is found in the Tube, London's subway.

And that was just for starters.

The fictitious international calamities were among dozens of detailed, mock disasters confronting officials in rapid succession in the U.S. government's biggest-ever "Cyber Storm" war game, according to hundreds of pages of heavily censored files obtained by The Associated Press. The Homeland Security Department ran the exercise to test the America's hacker defenses, with help from the State, Defense and Justice departments, the CIA, the National Security Agency and others.

The laundry list of fictional catastrophes, which include hundreds of people on "No Fly" lists arriving suddenly at U.S. airport ticket counters, is significant because it suggests what kind of real-world trouble keeps people in the White House awake at night.

Imagined villains include hackers, bloggers, even reporters. After mock electronic attacks overwhelmed computers at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an unspecified "major news network" airing reports about the attackers refused to reveal its sources to the government. Other simulated reporters were duped into spreading "believable but misleading" information that worsened fallout by confusing the public and financial markets, according to the government's files.

The $3 million, the invitation-only war game simulated what the United States described as plausible attacks over five days in February 2006 against the technology industry, transportation lines and energy utilities by anti-globalization hackers. The government is organizing another multimillion-dollar wargame, Cyber Storm 2, to take place in early March.

"They point out where your expectations of your capabilities may be overstated," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the AP. "They may...

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It’s a Phone! A GPS! — It’s nuvifone, Not iPhone!

On Wednesday, Garmin International unveiled the nuvifone, a slim, all-touch-screen device that combines a 3.5G phone, a Web browser and a personal navigator with an appearance similar to Apple's iPhone.

"The nuvifone is an all-in-one device offering unmatched integration of utility and function in a single mobile device," said Cliff Pemble, Garmin's president and COO. "This is the breakthrough product that cell-phone and GPS users around the world have been longing for -- a single device that does it all."

Personal-Navigation Features

When powered on, the 3.5-inch screen displays three primary icons -- Call, Search and View Map. Users initiate a call by tapping the Call button and selecting a name from the contact list or using the on-screen keypad.

When the nuvifone is docked onto its vehicle mount, it automatically turns on the GPS, activates the navigation menu, and enables hands-free calling so the user can begin routing to a destination.

The nuvifone's personal-navigation features include preloaded maps of North America, Eastern and Western Europe, or both, and allows drivers to find a specific street address, an establishment's name or search for a destination by category using the nuvifone's built-in database with millions of points of interest.

Turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions guide the user to a destination. If the user misses a turn along the route, nuvifone automatically recalculates a route and gets the user back on track, speaking the names of streets along the way.

The nuvifone includes Google local search capability. Nuvifone users can search for locations like "coffee shops" and Google will sort the results based on the user's current location and relevance. The nuvifone also provides e-mail along with text and instant messaging.

Where Am I?

A "Where am I?" feature lets users touch the screen at any time to display the exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and...

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