FBI raids home of fake boarding pass maker

Oct 31, 2006 12:05 PM

           

A 24-year-old computer security student working on his doctorate at Indiana University-Bloomington recently created a Web site that allowed anyone with an Internet connection and a printer to create and print fake boarding passes for Northwest Airlines flights.

Federal law enforcement raided the home of the site's creator, Christopher Soghoian, taking computers and other equipment and leaving behind a search warrant. Soghoian had decided not to sleep at home that night.

"I came back today, to find the glass on the front door smashed," Soghoian said on his blog. "Inside, is a rather ransacked home, a search warrant taped to my kitchen table, a total absence of computers and various other important things."

The passes Soghoian's Web site created looked virtually identical to the ones printed from Northwest Airlines' site and are intended to get someone past security -- but not onto an airplane.

Users could create the boarding pass by entering their name and plugging in information about the flight -- flight number, gate, seat number, departing city, destination, departure and arrival times and class.

Soghoian knew he would be opening up a can of worms by writing the program and creating the site, but says it's the only way to show people how deeply flawed airport and airline security are.

"I don't want to help terrorists or help bad guys do bad things on airplanes, but what we have now is what we in the industry call 'security theater.' It's made to make you think you're secure without actually making you secure," Soghoian told ABC News. "As a member of the academic research community, I consider this to be a public service."

The Transportation Security Administration says the Web site is illegal and that using one of the bogus boarding passes would be illegal as well. But, TSA officials also believe that it would do little to aid anyone looking to do harm to airline passengers.

"While you may be able to get access to the terminal's interior through the security checkpoint," Ann Davis, a TSA spokeswoman told ABC News, "TSA assures that every individual introduced to the sterile environment beyond the checkpoint and their accessible property have been thoroughly checked and screened."

U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called for Soghoian's immediate arrest upon learning of the Web site. He backed off that position a few days later: "Under the circumstances, any legal consequences for this student must take into account his intent to perform a public service, to publicize a problem as a way of getting it fixed," Markey said in a statement. "He picked a lousy way of doing it, but he should not go to jail for his bad judgment. Better yet, the Department of Homeland Security should put him to work showing public officials how easily our security can be compromised."

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