DigitMemo.com

Officials at LAX are introducing a bold new idea into their arsenal: random placement of security checkpoints. Can game theory help keep us safe?

Anxious to thwart future terror attacks in the early stages while plotters are casing the airport, LAX security patrols have begun using a new software program called ARMOR, to make the placement of security checkpoints completely unpredictable. Now all airport security officials have to do is press a button labeled “Randomize,” and they can throw a sort of digital cloak of invisibility over where they place the cops’ antiterror checkpoints on any given day.

Developed by computer scientists at the University of Southern California and believed to be the first program of its kind to be used at an airport, ARMOR aims to thwart terror plots during the early, surveillance phase.

Airport officials have at least one new task for the software. Soon ARMOR will begin jumbling the placement of the bomb-sniffing canine patrols too, says Butts. Other potential uses are too secret to talk about. Butts says that the new random placement “makes travelers safer” and even gives them “a greater feeling of police presence” by making the cops appear more numerous. That’s good for visitors, and, officials hope, bad for would-be terrorists.