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Comdex Bans Bags From Show Floor
ckd writes: "CNET is reporting that COMDEX organizers have a new security policy--no bags except vendor supplied plastic bags will allowed on the show floor. "While on-site, you should CARRY A PHOTO ID (DRIVER'S LICENSE OR PASSPORT) ON YOU AT ALL TIMES." They want you to leave your laptop in your hotel room, too! Oh, and no cameras at the keynotes, either. But they haven't announced that they're planning to strip search people ... yet."
On one hand security is good in the wake of events in the close past, but on the other hand when does an event miss it's point for security?
Honestly, I don't see the banning of non-Vendor bags as a "security" measure. I see it as a "protect-the-people-who-are-here-profit" measure. It may have aspects of both, but its definately more the second one. Why not just simply have a mandatory security screening of all carried items before they are allowed into the premesis?
Attending COMDEX would be one of the things I look forward to most in my computing career. I'm only a highschool student now, but I hear very interesting things of the convention, and I'd enjoy talking to the vendors and seeing their flagship products firsthand. There's something about being able to see the new Athlon MP board, or a new video card, or the latest development in RAID technology, in person, that a catalog can't do, no matter how many pictures they put in.
Heres the scenerio. Man brings bag of anthrax in pants pocket(or even better, crotch it) to show. He breaks in to the maintenence room, spreads it in to the outlet duct of the HVAC system. Now, anthrax is hard to spread, but you still might get a few people. It takes about 8,000 spores to infect a person, from what i read somewhere. Im sure you could get a few people with a small baggie full.
This talks about visitors to the show. But, what about the maintenence staff that works there? The janitors? Heck, even the people running the show. We'd hope they all are honest and reputable. But then, if it was my life, I'd want them checked too. Heck, if i was trying something, i'd pose as a maintenence man! More freedom to go anywhere, carry large items, did the organizers think of that?
I like the fact that they're at least trying to do something though.. Maybe they should be just a little less restrictive. I mean, its a computer show! And people can't bring their computers in?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&o
...as though I would go to a Comdex, anyway. The last one I attended was Spring 92, I think...Atlanta. It was large, and the porn and CDROM vendors had begun showing up in overwhelming numbers. The real COMPUTER people were always lonely, as all the geeks were crowded around the Penthouse Interactive booth, squirming and staring, or singing bad karaoke at one of the many booths that offered it.
Comdex has lost its lustre, while increasing the lust. (Not that there's anything wrong with lust...) I don't see it appealing to many but the most neophyte computer consumers. All the real industry types stick to more focused conferences. Myself, I will only attend developer conferences in my specialties, or pay for training courses with small, narrow topic coverage. The big shows are nothing but comic book conventions.
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
This reminds me of something I saw on the CBC a couple weeks ago, when the anthrax panic was at its height; the city hall of Moncton was evacuated because of an anthrax scare. (For those of you who don't know--almost everybody which is exactly why this was so ridiculous--Moncton is the third biggest town in the Canadian province of New Brunswick).
I mean *HONESTLY*, who on earth would target COMDEX, something that has absolutely no importance to the general (non-technical) public? From a terrorist's point of view (which is what you try to take if your aim is an intelligent security policy) it's obviously of no use to attack a target that people would have to explain why it was that striking it meant something. The WTC and Pentagon were big and well-known. And even if everyone on Slashdot knows who Larry Ellison is, I think it's safe to say that for the general worldwide public he is not a household name.
Let's try concentrating our security efforts on realistic threats and not ridiculous paranoia--otherwise groups or conventions might start deliberately giving the impression that they're a potential threat to terrorists just to seem important (God forbid!).
A thing thats always bothered me. I have carried an IPAQ on an airplane with me. Now you look at that IPAQ. Lets see, what have I had to do to get the IPAQ through the gates and onto the airplane? Well, I simply handed it to the guard and hit a button to make it turn on and off. You could simulate what would make your average security guard happy with hardly nothing. You could fit enough explosives, or, a small caliber pistol in the case of an IPAQ easy.
It frigtens me how easy it is to get stuff right through the metal detectors, and through personal security checks. I shouldnt be afraid. I still fly, I know a determined terrorist could hijack a plane anyways.
Oh well, jsut food for thought.
jeremy
I've noticed a trend lately. More and more places are banning things that they've wanted to ban in the past, but were worried about the backlash from under the guise of "increasing security." Banning non-vendor bags and laptops in no way increases security, but the first does increase the visibility of vendor advertising. The second improves traffic flow by minimizing those cumbersome laptop bags and by keeping people from whipping them out at a vendor table
Similarly, my college's stadium is now banning bags along with a whole slew of other items that could be used for sneaking food and drinks in, which has been their primary irritation in the past. Now, under the guise of improved security, they can ban items that would've angered fans too much in the past.
Basically, the COMDEX people are taking advantage of the current political environment to sweep some minor annoyances under the rug. It's a disturbing trend right now.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Isn't giving up your ability to carry a silly little bag worth it knowing that you won't be blown up by a hidden bomb.
Nope. I will carry a bag with me and be secure in its contents wherever I goddamn please. I pay damn good money every goddamn year to make sure I don't have to worry. Unfortunatly, the morons I give my money to are more interested in fucking spying on everyone than making me safe.
"Gee, lets continue to sell fertilizer and fuel oil to cash customers, even though we just had a building blown up with it! Even though these guys need a license to store it, we won't require a license nor even proof of identity to buy it! Oh, but we better spend a few more billion tapping everyones email. Oh, and after you get done reviewing everyone's cell phone conversations for the words "The Eagle Is Blue, Mustafa" you might want to look into stopping the sale of anthrax to nations on the known hostile list. Just make sure you get all the cell calls first, mmkay? Oh, and if you get any more phone sex calls like that last batch, save em for the office party on Friday."
Oh, and I can't just stop paying them. How's that for a contractual fuckup??!?!
.sig: Now legally binding!
Comdex isn't Interop, and it's been a long time since Interop was Interop either. The only good reason to haul a laptop around the show floor is to do 802.11 scanning. This is a huge show, and you're there to see the sights and pick up either information or trinkets from vendors, exchange business cards, and maybe get job interviews. Your PDA may be helpful, but your laptop is just dead weight.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
At the kick-ass Whitman College (www.whitman.edu) I'm now taking microbiology as well as Islamic civ. This has provided me with some nice insight into recent events, so getting to the point:
One mL of a liquid Anthrax culture probably contains well over 30 million cells of Bacillus Anthrax (I've done counts of related bacteria). If just those cells were induced into sporulation, dried, and ground so that the clusters were of the right size to inhale (weaponized), a sandwich baggy would be over-kill. If distributed into the HVAC system, everyone in the building would likely be infected. Fortunately, while anthrax is easy to culture (most bacteria are), it is fairly difficult to
weaponize properly.
If they were to use smallpox though, things would be far uglier. If someone managed to bring a concentrated sample of smallpox virus in to a big show and stationed themselves strategically, they could probably infect half the people. The nasty bit is that those infected people would then go home and start infecting everyone they came into contact with for the next 10 days, without knowing, while the virus incubated. After 10 days, the show people would start to get REAL sick, while the people that they infected would run around for another 10 days, infecting more people. INSTANT epidemic, since vaccinations were stopped over 30 years ago
It's like a pyramid scheme, but instead of money you get a nasty, disfiguring, sometimes fatal disease.
--
"I think the best medicine for the human soul is kind words, chicken soup,
and lots of whiskey."
- Professor Ashfield
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
For christ's sake, if they want people to be safe at Comdex, just let them strap on their sidearms. When's the last time anyone went berzerk and committed mass murder at a gun show?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
...down the drain. Remember when the NCC was the biggest show going, when they were able to completely fill McCormick Place in Chicago, and then dwindled down to 20, count'em 20 tables before the NCC show organizers saw the handwriting on the wall and converted the NCC back to a research-only show?
The Computer Dealers Exposition (that's what COMDEX stands for, boys and girls) outgrew its original charter almost a decade ago -- how many dealers make the trip in? Damn few that I know. Today, it's the press and the companies themselves that make up the bulk of the show, along with employees of the Fortune 5000 companies that are still making enough money to keep the travel budget stuffed.
Speaking of the press, have you noticed that a lot of magazine and newsletter titles have closed in the past 12 months? Have you noticed that the amount of computer-trade ink has fallen off tremendously? For example, we just lost SmartPartner Magazine today, according to reports.
I know quite a number of the members of the press who have decided to forgo the annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas, either because they don't have jobs/assignments or because they want no part of a large, concentrated crowd of people at something that is uniquely United States.
One benefit to the Death Of COMDEX is the end of the maniac development cycle that requires companies to "show something" according to a calendar set by someone else. We may well see all software companies release software when it's ready, not when the booth bimbos hit the floor.
And that would be an improvement.
One thing that scares me is influenza and similar viral diseases. Debilitating, fast spreading, deadly even in some natural forms, rapidly mutating...and the biggest factor for a military or paramilitary group is the ease of vaccination against a specific strain.
Develop a modified strain with a high mortality rate, release it in an area...after a few days or weeks send in your vaccinated troops and they mop up while it burns itself out.
Attending COMDEX would be one of the things I look forward to most in my computing career.
Forget COMDEX. It's been a complete waste of space since at least the mid-80's. How many disk vendor and MicroSquish MSCE body shop trade show booths do you need to see?
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I got the letter about this with my pre-registration badge yesterday, and I was only slightly annoyed about this, and I realize they have their reasons.
However.
It says that no exeptions to this rule will be made, period -- this is where it sucks because I'm going with my girlfriend (a computer geek too) and this policy will impact her. She has to use forearm crutches which kind of monopolize the use of her hands so she can't carry anything except by using a knapsack slung on her shoulder. Are they going to fuck over an entire group of people over this?
And to all those who are just going to say "you should carry her stuff for her" or "get a wheelchair", you can save it -- it's the principle of the thing that counts here.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Do you honestly think anyone buying nitrate fertilizer for the purpose of blowing up a building will already have a criminal record or an open FBI investigation? Or do you believe it is OK to deny farmers the right to buy the supplies they need just because they belong to a particular organisation (read: "militia") viewed by the left as suspicious? In other words, do you really think that restrictions on buying the ingredients for an ANFO bomb would be either practical or effective?
You could go further, you know. Don't let anyone buy gasoline (a very popular substance for arson - not to mention the main ingredient in napalm!) without photo ID. Maybe have a five-day waiting period for buying gas, so they can check you out and make sure it's only for your car.
What's that, you say? That would put an obnoxious and unnecessary burden on ordinary law-abiding citizens such as yourself?
Unlike the former USSR, the US gives you the right to emigrate, pretty much no-questions-asked. [Now, the right to immigrate to another country without making the proper arrangements might be another thing altogether, but that's the other country's bailiwick.] Oddly enough, it seems that very few of the people who claim to have such serious grievances against our government take advantage of this amazing offer. Might you all be ... *gasp* ... bluffing?
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
People aren't terrified; people are hysterical. They're not really scared, they just feel like they have to do something.
People are thinking "some guy could walk in here carrying some disease and kill everyone". Yes, he could. And "someone could plant a bomb here and blow us all up". Yes, that's possible. Or "maybe some crazy terrorist has nuclear weapons and he's going to blow up planet Earth". Yep, could very well be. That's always been possible (to a degree) and that always will be possible (more so with each day that passes).
Doesn't mean it's any more likely today than it was yesterday or 30 years ago.
The attacks on the WTC and Pentagon were not based on madness or religion. They were not attempts to kill a lot of people. There are much better ways of doing that. They were political acts, against symbols of the USA's military and economic rule. Even the airline names were carefully picked. And although of course I don't approve of them, I can understand them. It seems that most americans can't.
Some time ago there was a war in Somalia. People were killing each other with knives, stones, machetes, etc. Sometimes with their bare hands. Someone asked an observer if that meant this was a particularly violent conflict. He said no, it just meant they had run out of bullets.
Using airplanes full of people to blow up buildings is no more "cruel" or "barbaric" than using a cruise missile. Certainly no more cowardly. But some people (most people) just don't have cruise missiles. And some people (most people), when left with nothing to lose, will not mind losing what they have, especially if losing something so worthless (their life) can have such a big impact.
The way to avoid being blown up or infected or assassinated is not to isolate yourself and shoot everyone that comes too near. The way to avoid being struck by your enemies is to have no enemies.
The strikes on the WTC carried a message: "you are not out of range; if we really want to hit you, we can." I've known that all my life (possibly because I live in Europe and we've had a few thousand years of history and wars and revolutions and all that sort of stuff); most americans seem to have discovered it in the last two months. And they think they have to do something about it, because they can't stand the thought of being vulnerable; of not being untouchable. Today on the BBC I saw this american congressman (or maybe he was a general) saying "We have to bomb Afghanistan because we have to do something and we can't think of anything else to do". The only problem is, it's not accomplishing anything (apart from killing people that don't even know what's going on, making more enemies and worsening the USA's image worldwide).
And this brings me back to the silly security measures and to the way this hysteria is being used to limit people's freedom. If the only thing you can think of doing has no practical effect, then don't do it. Think of something else, or don't do anything. If someone really wants to strike, they will always be able to strike. I don't know if these "security measures" are a deliberate attempt to take away people's freedom and give more powers to the state or if they're just good-natured (but misguided) attempts to keep people "safe". Either way people should stand up for their rights and refuse to have their freedom taken away. It's not that "the terrorists win", it's just that people lose. Someone said that a nation that can't balance security and freedom doesn't deserve either.
I'm not a religious person; I don't believe there's life after death. But I still consider my freedom more valuable than my life.
Over here, there was some attempt to ban patrons bringing in drinks not supplied by the sponsor of a major sporting event. Things like water.
More recently, I was stripped of my water bottle at a major outdoor music festival ostensibly because it may have been alcohol and was forced to buy water at extortionate rates.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Untrue. Weapons are not banned; you have 2nd Amendment protection on that, and if we don't need an armed militia now, then when will we need one?
What is happening is that people carrying weapons (not just firearms) are banned. The statement couldn't be clearer: if you have a weapon, and aren't wearing a uniform, we will assume that you have criminal intent.
Don't ever let anyone tell you that they're banning your weapon, or that your weapon poses a security risk. They're making a "guilty until proven innocent" judgement about you, they're just too weaselly to admit it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Tom Clancy, Frank Herbert (the White Plague), and a whole bunch more have long had scenerios like this in their stories.
:)
Conferences are easy targets. People coming from all over the state/country/world meet in a single place, do stuff for a day or three, and then leave.
During that day or three it is very easy to rig up some sort of aerosol-delivered "bad thing". That guy at the booth spraying the "air freshener" every 10-15 minutes, for instance.
After the conference, people all fly back to their home and whaddayaknow, you've got stuff spreading all over the place.
And what's in that air freshener?
I think everyone's a little hyped up on the whole Anthrax thing, when there are a BUNCH more lethal, contageous, and readily accessbile critters out there; ebola, smallpox, the list goes on. Such critters are WAY easier to contract and spread.
While I applaud everyone's attempt to make people FEEL better with these various public displays of "security tightening", I believe that a lot of these measures only comfort the "soccer Mom" types. Jack said it best with "the truth? you can't HANDLE the truth!"
For instance, airport security here in Canada recently forced people to remove Poppies from their jackets because the little pin that held them on was "sharp and dangerous". Give me a fscking break!
Meanwhile, I'm boarding the plane with a number of even MORE dangerous "weapons" that the security people are clueless about. How about pens and pencils? Quite effective at stabbing people. How about my car keys? One of the first things my girlfriend learned when she took a self-defense course was how to grip her keys and rake them over or stab them into a would-be attacker's eyes. How about that laptop security cable I carry to lock down my laptop? Nice little garrotte, never mind my belt, shoe laces, etc. How hard would it be to sneak in some wire under/inside a belt? I've seen a number of big-assed country style belts set off a metal detector and then be passed through with only a swipe of the hand-help detector. Who knows what's really inside or underneath it? How about my eye glasses? Pop out a lens and you've got some pretty sharp objects. Never mind some of the frames from Oakly and company these days... they can be considered weapons in and of themselves.
And my personal pet peave; how does powering on a laptop prove that that is all that it is? The 60 year old lady at security making $6 an hour wouldn't know a functioning laptop if she saw it... a couple hundred bucks spent at Radio Shack would do well enough to fool her and even some somewhat "professional" or informed computer people. Besides, what's to say the entire laptop shell or case for that fully functional laptop isn't made of explosives? Talk about the ULTIMATE "blue screen of death".
The answer? I think we just gotta stop being paranoid and get to know our neighbours better. How many apartment buildings have untis in them that are full of "conspirators" whose neighbours go out of their way to NOT get to know them or what they're doing?
The best security force we could hope for right now is a bunch of nosy neighbours with lots of free time on their hands.
$0.02 (CDN)
It doesn't prove everything, but it does prove something:
No check is perfect. Their job is to achieve the maximum effectiveness in a minimal amount of time. As a result, most of their checks are designed to elicit a response from you. Also, their job is to find people with weapons that intend to use them, not just find weapons. People on a mission will act differently (nervous, attentive, scared, determined) than people just catching a flight (bored, inattentive, impatient).
and shackled! And blindfolded. And all ears and noses plugged. No wait, let's operate on the spinal cords of infants and start cutting all but the nerves which regulate breathing and heartbeat. Absolutely no sensory input or mobility for anyone, then we'll be safe!!
"What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."
-Thomas Jefferson, 1787
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It's like the smart people of London. Back in the days of the IRA bomb scare someone thought of the swell idea to remove all the garbage cans from the streets. That way, the IRA crowd would have no way to plant bombs and would revert to peaceful beekeeping.
The truth is, actions like these only serve to give the public the illusion of safety, to provide an example of determined action. If someone really wants to cause havoc they will, garbage cans or not.