Yep. That’s right. You can thank those “As Seen on TV” folks for the reason the Transportation Safety Administration is spending gajillions of your tax dollars (okay, $300 Million, but it’s still a butt-load of money). Sound nuts? Not so much. You see, any ceramic knife is completely undetectable by conventional magnetometers (the walk-through gadgets at most airports). Heretofore, ceramic knives were pretty rare. Not anymore. Thanks to an obscure company known as the IdeaVillage Products Corporation, $20 at any Walmart will get you a knife that you can effectively smuggle on just about any flight from any airport that doesn’t already use full body scanners to screen passengers. (But wait…you also get a plastic sheath – at least in the one that you get at Walmart.) I presume most terrorists will throw away the vegetable peeler (unless they have some kind of bizarre plan to skin the passengers, I suppose).
Now if this doesn’t scare the ever-lovin’ crap outta you, I don’t know what will. Remember, the 9-11 terrorists took over their planes with box-cutters. The Yoshi Blade knife is to box cutters what an AK-47 is to an AIrsoft pistol.
Now if you REALLY want redline the ol’ freakout meter, go watch that Clint Eastwood/John Malkovich flick, In the Line of Fire. In the 1993 suspense thriller, a lone gunman intent on assassinating the President has a custom gun made from a ceramic material that can be smuggled in, past security, to use in his evil plan.
When I saw the movie, I assumed that this was a case of willing suspension of disbelief, and that a ceramic gun would be unworkable. I was wrong. Turns out, it’s entirely possible to use ceramics to build a gun that is invisible to X-Ray scanners.
Apparently, diamond hard Zirconium Oxide is 40 percent stronger than steel. (Who knew?) Nobody I know has manufactured such a weapon. But if it’s possible, it is likely to happen, sooner or later.
I’m kinda surprised it hasn’t happened already. I can’t imagine it would be a commercial product, but I can see it as something that would be sold only to the military. Problem with that, of course, is that it would only take one or two to get out into the wild, before you could take down just about anything or anybody.
Please understand, I’m not trying to give anybody ideas. But like white hat hackers, I believe the only way to defend against a problem is to expose it to the light of day.
As much as I detest the idea of full body scanners (as an invasion of privacy, if somebody wants to see me naked, that’s their problem, and I’m not payin’ for a scanner lens that cracks, either), I think it’s a necessary evil, in this day and age. I’m just hoping that, once they add these, I can keep my shoes and belt on, and not have to go through the security checkpoint half undressed.