Website prints fake boarding passes

Minneapolis: A computer security student said he set up a website that prints fake boarding passes to show that terrorists would have no trouble getting around the US government's no-fly list.

The passenger name on the fake boarding pass is "Bin Laden/Osama," although travellers can put in their own name or a fake one and change the flight information, too.

Christopher Soghoian, a 24-year-old doctoral student at Indiana University, said he set up the site to prove that the Transportation Security Administration is not taking airline security seriously.

Screening

Others have pointed out before that savvy computer users could modify an airline webpage to print fake boarding passes, but Soghoian took it a step further and automated it.

"Before, any 12-year-old could have done it," Soghoian said on Friday. "Now any 30- or 40-year-old could do it as well."

Soghoian said terrorists on the no-fly list could use a fake boarding pass to avoid the no-fly list because IDs are only checked when the passenger passes through security screening. So someone could use a fake boarding pass with identification that matches and get through the screening.

Fake name

They would then need a real boarding pass presumably bought under a fake name to get on the plane.

There also have been reports of travellers flying without identification at all. That "essentially means the no-fly list does not work", Soghoian said.