Chicago Travel Anecdotes and TSA Security Bypasses
The hosts recount a recent trip to Chicago for a conference, highlighting a successful attempt to bypass standard TSA lines using a "priority" status bluff. They discuss the psychological effect of appearing authoritative with props like clipboards, hard hats, or reconstructed security badges. The conversation transitions from personal travel stories to the broader culture of airport security.
chicago· tsa· priority line· airport security· clipboard· hard hat
00:00 I'm gonna get you Vladimir, I'm gonna get you! Not even a nominee for the 2012 Let it Ono Peace Prize, but your loyal slave here in the capital of the drone star state, Austin Tejas. In the morning everybody. I'm Adam Curry. And from Northern Silicon Valley where apparently I'm mumbling, I'm John C. Dvorak. It's Crackpot and Buzzkill. In the morning. Again one of those non sequiturs that people who didn't hear the pre-show just won't be able to appreciate.
00:39 Exactly. It's no good. Well, maybe I'll get a letterman does honey. He has no problems people don't complain Yeah, well, he also makes a what 20 million a year. Yeah, what's that's what I'm trying to say Yeah, that'll work My goodness my goodness so much going on and so good to be back at Camp Mofo here John Did you go any good restaurants in Chi town? Um, let me see we went to We went to this breakfast place, which I don't know if it's a chain or if it's a... Have you ever heard of Yolk? Yolk? I-O-L-K? Yeah. No, but the yolk's on you. That was really... that was a nice breakfast place. We... Let me see. We went to an Italian place. I can't remember. We had a burger at the Ralph Lauren restaurant. Just sounds like you went to nothing. Yeah, well, we did... it was work. You know, I show up, it was like...
01:43 We were tired and got up early, went to the conference and it turned out to be really good. So everything, the timing was all messed up and we stayed there for hours and hours just because we liked it. And that kind of messed up food and everything. On the way back though, nice from Chicago, We did our Austin trick and we went through the priority first class line at TSA with our coach tickets. I love doing that. You know, because it's funny and they even they even have an airport person standing there and with Mickey, I don't know man. She just goes like priority. Normally they want to see your ticket or something. Just goes priority and they're like OK and they opened the rope and we go right in.
02:36 You know if I do that it's like priority, like oh yeah? You get out douchebag. Oh yeah, why don't you show me your ticket douche? But she has an aristocratic look about her. But I think it's just the attitude. Well she's tall and she's aristocratic and she's got an attitude, right, exactly. It's like walking around, you grab a clipboard and you can go anywhere. If you're like, you know, you can just go into a factory, just walk in with a clipboard. We went to Blackburn. And a hard hat. You got it made. A hard hat. A hard hat and a clipboard. A hard hat. And you can go anywhere. It's true. And then we just walked through the magnetometer. There were two lines and they were shuttling everything. We just went up there, just went to the magnetometer. Oh, okay. Yeah, you come on through. So it was very nice going back. This is almost like the scene in the Star Wars movie.
03:30 Which one? These aren't the drones you're looking for kind of thing. Oh, okay, whatever. I do like, I'm gonna try the hard hat and the clipboard. I'm gonna see how far we can get with that next time. You're so right though. And just some kind of badge. Just something dangling on a rope around you. Yeah, actually a couple different badges and a couple card keys. Just all hanging in there. So even though it was really nice to be in Chicago, it was also fantastic to just be, you come back to Austin, just like, Just a breath of fresh air. At one of the hackers conferences, I ran into the guy who had one of these cards. They had deconstructed most airline personnel cards and they created these cards for the people that went to the conference. It wasn't a forgery at all. It was a complete reconstruction from scratch of what a card might be like.
