Tag: security

Our First Experience Using The CLEAR Checkpoint

We’ve had access to TSA PreCheck lanes at the airport thru our Global Entry membership for over five years and it is one of the most wonderful things we’ve ever signed up for. It  transforms the procedure of going through the security checkpoints from a cattle call to something closer to just a minor inconvenience. However we’ve noticed that while there never used to be any line at the PreCheck lanes, there now can be quite a wait just to get to the point to verify your ID. In Orlando, this is partially because of more people having PreCheck as well as people who don’t belong in the line (usually foreign tourists) waiting and then being told they’re in the wrong line and they have to go wait again in the standard line. At other airports, like LaGuardia in New York and O’Hare in Chicago, we’ve had to wait 10-15 minutes in the PreCheck line just because of the number of travelers and a limited number of check in lines available.

I’ve been going back and forth about enrolling in CLEAR. It’s a third party program that bypasses the normal check of your ID and Boarding Pass. You know, the part where you walk up to a TSA agent and hand them your ID and Boarding Pass and you awkwardly stand there while they look at the paper and look at you.

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Travel Safety Concerns? This Interactive Map Shows The Safest And Riskiest Places In The World For Travel

If you travel a lot, you know there are some places that may not be as safe as others. Your Mileage May Vary in terms of what you do with that knowledge. But whereas you may know that a particular country may have a high crime rate, you may not be so sure about how certain places rank if you needed emergency medical assistance or how safe their roads are. Well, there may not be an app for that…but there’s an interactive map for it!

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Why Did I Need To Take Off My Shoes?

Going through the TSA checkpoint in Orlando can be miserable. Lines get really long, and that’s just to get TO the checkpoint. Once you have your ID inspected, you need to wait for the security check of your baggage and possibly your person as well.

Our experiences aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be, since we get access to the TSA Precheck lanes by having Global Entry. The lines aren’t usually very long and we’re typically through security in less than 15 minutes.

Unfortunately, last Saturday, I went through my first major traffic jam in the TSA Precheck lane.  Continue reading “Why Did I Need To Take Off My Shoes?”

Airports Are Offering A Way To Bring Your Water Bottle Through Security Checkpoints

We’ve all seen it. Groups of people going through their carry on bags, throwing away bottles of water or soda before going through the TSA checkpoint. Even worse are the people who forgot they had a water bottle in their backpack and have to go through extra security once it’s discovered. While you may have thought “What a waste,” no one was doing anything about the problem. Until now.

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So, About Those Millions of Hotel Key Cards That Were (Are?) Vulnerable To Hacking…

You may have never heard of them, but a company named Assa Abloy is a global provider of electronic key and hotel locking systems, to the tune of 400,000 buildings in roughly 166 countries. And in early 2017, two employees of F-Secure, an international cybersecurity firm, unfortunately discovered that due to a design flaw in the company’s older software, called Vision, the electronic locks of all those millions of hotel rooms worldwide were vulnerable to hackers.

Of course, people have been hacking electronic keys for years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much. But this case was different.

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