Terahertz Scanners See Inside Sealed Packages

[DeepZenPill]

Don't much like the sound of this:

Kodo Kawase and his team from RIKEN (The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research) have demonstrated a system that detects the presence of illicit drugs that are concealed within an envelope.

http://optics.org/articles/news/9/10/22/1

 

[GawdsGift]

well mdma and aspirin or a far cry away from sustanon and deca. i can see dbal being a problem here along with other orals, but as for liquid substances??? i didnt read anything about it.

did they say when this should hit airports and post offices? also it said it would ONLy be used for suspicious packagesdue to the 10 minute process.

scary for the future, but it look slike it may be a few years before the technology is good enogh to sell to the airports and post offices and even then onbly the LARGE ones wil probably get it, and with the amazing amount of packages they get a day. picking out a supicious package will not be easy.

PEACE

 

[DeepZenPill]

Although it only mentions meth and E in the article, I can see it being applied to many more substances.

 

[Sigmund Roid]

The x-ray scattering spectra taken from several incoming and outgoing x-rays are compared with a database of known substances. It would be a piece of cake to add gear in the database as well.

 

[plornive]

The x-ray scattering spectra taken from several incoming and outgoing x-rays are compared with a database of known substances. It would be a piece of cake to add gear in the database as well.

Is it possible to insulate a chemical with something to change the pattern?

 

[Sigmund Roid]

Is it possible to insulate a chemical with something to change the pattern?

It is a great advantage to turn something crystalline (for example test powder or dbol pills (pills contain tiny crystals)) into an amorphous substance. Crystalline matter in a mono- or dichromatic x-ray machine with multidetector and movable x-ray source will give a distinct spectrum with sharp peaks, while an amorphous material will show a dampened cosine function which is far less distinct. Liquids are by definition amorphous, so test liquids should be less suspicious. This apparatus can also measure absorption which is a function of the sample thickness and the effective atomic number (Zeff). The specific ratio of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen can be calculated from the measurement of Zeff, and can be compared with the database to see if it contains contraband. For disrupting the determination of Zeff it can be effective to blend in other materials (like zinc powder which has a hight Zeff and could easily be separated afterwards). For the x-ray spectra it just adds a few extra peaks, and any semi-intelligent program can still find the right material from the spectrum.

However, the vials themselves will show up on the screen of the conventional transmissive polychromatic x-ray machines which do not use scattering techniques.

 

[Sigmund Roid]

Oh, the topic was about microwave detection. However, such techniques are already used by x-ray machines. The advantage of microwaves is that they can be easily tuned to various wavelengths, while x-ray machines cannot, unless one uses a free electron laser, which are quite big, expensive and complex.

 

[plornive]

It is a great advantage to turn something crystalline (for example test powder or dbol pills (pills contain tiny crystals)) into an amorphous substance. Crystalline matter in a mono- or dichromatic x-ray machine with multidetector and movable x-ray source will give a distinct spectrum with sharp peaks, while an amorphous material will show a dampened cosine function which is far less distinct. Liquids are by definition amorphous, so test liquids should be less suspicious. This apparatus can also measure absorption which is a function of the sample thickness and the effective atomic number (Zeff). The specific ratio of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen can be calculated from the measurement of Zeff, and can be compared with the database to see if it contains contraband. For disrupting the determination of Zeff it can be effective to blend in other materials (like zinc powder which has a hight Zeff and could easily be separated afterwards). For the x-ray spectra it just adds a few extra peaks, and any semi-intelligent program can still find the right material from the spectrum.

However, the vials themselves will show up on the screen of the conventional transmissive polychromatic x-ray machines which do not use scattering techniques.

I am not versed in physics, but I am fairly well versed in pattern recognition and distribution segmentation. Maybe it's possible to design custom masking blends to mix with a substance - especially if the algorithms used are known.

I guess there is no way to actually distort the microwave beams at the point from which an image is being taken... that would only occur in the equipment itself, and be corrected in for each spectral snapshot anyway I would guess.

Great post, thanks.

 

[IJ26]

just add this to the list of things that make me nervous when waiting for a package. Honestly though there is no way they could use something like this on all packages the manpower required would be impossible to come up with.good post regardless

 

[lincoln]

This will never have widespread usage because:

Perhaps the biggest drawback of the current system is its measurement time of 10 minutes.

Even if they get it down to 30 seconds per envelope, it is way to slow.

 

[Fonz]

Although it only mentions meth and E in the article, I can see it being applied to many more substances.

Do you haver any idea just how expensive a terrahertz scanner would be?

Way too expensive to apply to normal mail.

The most likely even is that Govt. facilites and other critical facilities adopt the scanner. But it won't go farther than that.
At least not in the short or medium term.

Fonz

 

[GawdsGift]

^^^^^ a sorce you can trust with opinions.

i agree and i had a question, if the packages had a lead wrapping. like if you wrapped amps or bottles in lead and then put them in the box to ship wouldnt that kill the exray machines??? just somethign to think about. i mean if a little lead can prtoect my nuts when gettting a exray why cant it hook up my package?

 

[GawdsGift]

whao my karma button is jacked up, i tried to give fonz karma and listed every one who ever gave him karma WEIRD

 

[Fonz]

^^^^^ a sorce you can trust with opinions.

i agree and i had a question, if the packages had a lead wrapping. like if you wrapped amps or bottles in lead and then put them in the box to ship wouldnt that kill the exray machines??? just somethign to think about. i mean if a little lead can prtoect my nuts when gettting a exray why cant it hook up my package?

LOL.....

The lead idea could work.

A terrahertz scanner uses waves with extremely high frequencies. High frequencies = very, very short wavelengths.

1 terrahertz = 1.0 * 10 exp(12) (s-1)

Wavelength(Lambda) = 1.0 * 10exp(-12) metres

The frequency and wavelength are within the infrared region of the EM spectrum.

Lead is able to stop Alpha and Beta rays which have higher frequencies(1.0 *10exp(14) +), and therefore shorter wavelengths.

Problem with this, is that in the imaging scanner....all you would see is an opaque image. That would give you away. Also lead weighs a lot(Its very dense).

Fonz

 

[Fonz]

Oh, the topic was about microwave detection. However, such techniques are already used by x-ray machines. The advantage of microwaves is that they can be easily tuned to various wavelengths, while x-ray machines cannot, unless one uses a free electron laser, which are quite big, expensive and complex.

Free electron laser?

Damn...I haven't heard of that particular laser since the days of the "Star Wars" program.

Fonz

 

[XBiker]

You are thinking of the "Death Ray" Fonz. It was part of the "Death Star" in the Star Wars series.

 

[GawdsGift]

it was my understanding that we are portected with ups in a cutomer privacy clause, if they cant nmake out the image in the exray scan due to the lead they would have to send it becasue we are guaranteed privacy.

or would that be cause for failure?

 

[ripper2]

i like how it stated:
“The ability to check the contents of a suspect envelope without violating the correspondence rights has been long sought after,” said Kawase.

isnt' checking the contents of an envelope violating the corespondence rights regardless of how its done?

 

[rvd_brock]

You are thinking of the "Death Ray" Fonz. It was part of the "Death Star" in the Star Wars series.

I think Fonz was referring to Reagan's Star Wars program back in the 80's.

 

[Fonz]

I think Fonz was referring to Reagan's Star Wars program back in the 80's.

Yep.

Fonz

 

[DeepZenPill]

Well I wasn't implying this would be widespread, but potentially down the line it may be put into operation. Especially if you consider how the US government likes to implement ridiculous "security" measures.

No, they won't check every letter, but the article mentions checking suspicious letters. What's one reason that packs get seized or sources get popped? Suspicious packages. If this was put into place, domestic packs wouldn't be as safe as they are now.

 

[XBiker]

I think Fonz was referring to Reagan's Star Wars program back in the 80's.

No need to duck on that one, bro. It went right over your melon...

 

[GawdsGift]

^^^ agreed its a good post man, you have to expect the regulars even myslf to refute it though, i mean even if we knew it was going to happen at every single place of mail distribution we would tell ourselves it wasn't going to happen, just like we tell ourselves it wont happen to us when referring to anything negative, to reassure our own spychie that we will be ok, nothing is going to happen to us., the package being held at the ups fopr processing for the last 30 days is just a glitch, that guy across the street tacking pictures at my house probably just wants to buy it, and my nuts realy arent that much smaller? lmao.

good post. something to watch out for, for sure. but the likelyhoood of it happenig probably isnt great, PEACE