Bruce Schneier is reporting on a TSA leak concerning individuals performing what would appear to be test-runs of airport security screenings. I, obviously, have a few of my own theories.

• Profiling does not work

• On that we may be happy - supposedly, the TSA will admit to it and stop persecuting religious and ethnic groups solely on some idea that they could be terrorists. On the flip-side, however, there is the unpleasant thought of unnecessarily restricting and/or scrutinising every body that goes through airports. Sure, that’s all right insofar as security is maintained, but more and more we are being watched on our every move. Where we used to be free to move in a country as we saw fit, new restrictions could come into place that make it as unpleasant as possible to do so - at least via airplane. This, in effect, would be a brilliant strategy: not outright denying transit, only making it unreasonably complicated. People would willingly sit home and continue about their lives, skipping that long-awaited holiday to someplace else because they cannot be bothered to undergo all this process.

• Tests might be done by TSA”sleepers”

• It is a known practise of many outlets to test their own employees randomly and in secret. Retail has “mystery shoppers” that do just that - I’m sure so does the TSA. Of course, they would come clean sooner or later, but what they know is not always what the public is told. It would then be very easy to accidentally blow things out of proportion and create a scare.

• What have they NOT flagged?

• As always, the question remains. The point of such an excercise would be to see what does get through. In all probability we will not see any of the aforementioned devices and contraptions used in a possible airjack - but there might be other items that the TSA has failed to flag, and somebody somewhere might be hard at work thinking about the next step of a large attack.

The cops and robbers games that are played all throughout security fields are quite interesting. You would think that the TSA could hire some smart kids to think up weird ideas and devices that could be used - and then learn how to protect against them. But, as with computer security, we know there will always be somebody even smarter. Really, think of how much we could progress if all these minds were put to better use - not thinking up ways of blowing each other up.

Then, there’s always the idea that the TSA only wants to give people the impression that they ensure safety. Whether its too hard or just a way to further restrict our freedoms - we shall see.