[IP] TSA and airlines use Soundex to match terrorist names

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

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Dave Farber  +1 412 726 9889



...... Forwarded Message .......
From: Peter G Capek <capek@us.ibm.com>
To: dave@farber.net
Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 12:19:29 -0400
Subj: Re: [IP] TSA and airlines use Soundex to match terrorist names


Soundex, if that's what they're actually using without change, wasn't 
designed to deal with possible deception.  It reduces a (last) name
to a single letter (the first letter of the name) and a 3 digit number.    
So, changing a name from Klein to Clein would thwart it.   Better techniques
are available, but Soundex remains widely known (I don't know how widely 
used it is these days) despite its age.

Peter G. Capek
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
Yorktown Heights, NY   10598-0218
(+1 914) 945-1250       IBM Tieline: 8-862-1250            Fax:  X 4426

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Subject:        [IP] TSA and airlines use Soundex to match  terrorist names




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Dave Farber  +1 412 726 9889



...... Forwarded Message .......
From: Richard Wiggins <richard.wiggins@gmail.com>
To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 05:54:41 -0400
Subj: TSA and airlines use Soundex to match terrorist names

The Washington Post reports that TSA uses a scheme based on the
ancient (1918) Soundex algorithm to vet airline passenger names
against its list of terrorists:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18735-2004Oct8_2.html

The article also says that travelers who had false positives were able
to pass screening by adding their middle names or middle initials when
purchasing tickets.  Clearly the matching is primitive.

/rich

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