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Schneier On the War On the Unexpected
jamie found this essay by Bruce Schneier, The War on the Unexpected. (It originally appeared in Wired but this version has all the links.) "We've opened up a new front on the war on terror. It's an attack on the unique, the unorthodox, the unexpected; it's a war on different. If you act different, you might find yourself investigated, questioned, and even arrested — even if you did nothing wrong, and had no intention of doing anything wrong. The problem is a combination of citizen informants and a CYA attitude among police that results in a knee-jerk escalation of reported threats... After someone reports a 'terrorist threat,' the whole system is biased towards escalation and CYA instead of a more realistic threat assessment... If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security."
people using the excuse of a boogieman in the shadows to lash out against those they don't understand and/or fear?
unheard of in all of human history.
America is at war with terrorism. America has ALWAYS been at war with terrorism.
Is a war against an emotion... Anything which can cause fear is therefore subject to the war. In that way it's the perfect war for politicians.
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It's not exactly the same though. We have all these "zero tolerance" rules now that are just ridiculous. Completely irrational responses to benign behavior on an unheard of level, etc.
It's exactly what the terrorists want. It's so obvious we are playing right into their hands it just doesn't make sense that our government could be that blind.
This sounds like a throwback to the 50's and early 60's when "Communism" was the buzz word, and a conforming America was key to not being "outed" as a Commy.
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I think it's time for new moderator points.
"+1 Terrorist" and "-1 Sheep".
Whether you want to swap the signs depends on your political preference.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Choice 1: Over react and be labeled a fascist.
Choice 2: Do nothing and be blamed when people die.
No wonder we only get shit bags running for public office.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
people are spoiled and every time something bad unexpected happens they can't accept it. result of living in one of the safest and affluent societies on earth.
so if something does happen the media jumps on it with all kinds of "investigative" reporting about how some insignificant clue had been dismissed or how some proposed law wasn't passed that could have prevented this. and they attack government agencies in the process along with congress getting involved with subpeonas and investigations. so the police to CYA just start to investigate idiotic things and bugging people
More likely the kind of reactions he's talking about has to deal with thrill killers. The 9/11 guys didn't do so much that was out of the norm to ring any real bells (yeah, yeah, I know, if you were there it would have set off the alarms in your head. yeah, I know that.) but the actions of thrill killers is often noticeable by those around them because of long time association and a change in behavior.
But my real wondering is: Since when has Slashdot become the outpost for the war on terror articles? Everything posted here anymore seems to be political. What was that Taco was saying the other day about loosing control of his website? Dude, it's already happened.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
If you think that the next administration - Republican or Democrat - is going to be substantially different, you haven't been paying attention for very long.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I hear NPR mention a "war on terror", and I want to call in a correction/complaint.
A war on terror or fear is quite different than a war on terrorism.
And a war on terrorism is quite different than a war against terrorists.
And of course a war on terrorists is quite different that a war against a specific group.
A war against an generic term, a tactic or unspecified groups of people cannot be won.
(It cannot be lost either).
How about:
Choice 3: React appropriately and install security measures that work, without unduly stressing people?
The problem isn't that there are two extremes the people in power must choose from, the problem is that the two choices you gave are actually being done at the same time.
Mod parent as realist. We get punished for not being paranoid, and then labeled fascist for doing what the public demands, because the media tells them to demand it.
Would slashdot post a counter-terror expert talking about computer security if he had no experience whatsoever in that field?
Then why would slashdot post a computer security expert talking about counter-terrorism or law enforcement when he has no experience whatsoever in that field?
"It Just Don't Look Right" is a time-tested law enforcement mantra. It isn't something George W. Bush cooked up after 9/11 -- it's around because so many crimes, and so many terrorist plots have been busted up by investigating the unusual and unexpected.
Oh things will change....you know that ficus plant that W. keeps round....the liberals are toally getting rid of it when they move into the White House
Everyone knows that there will be further terrorist attacks on the U. S.
I love how this "fact" is just thrown out there and accepted as true, without giving a time frame. It's technically true, but utterly meaningless. Sure, somewhere between now and infinity years from now, there will be a "further terrorist attack". Great, I better prepare!
By casually using this talking point, you're promoting the irrational fear that you argue that you are trying to avoid.
The important questions, which get glossed over by things like the above declarative talking point, are "What is the likelihood of an attack within the next N, N+1, N+2... years?" and "What is the expected severity/method of such an attack, should it occur?" and "What is the likelihood that any given person will be affected?"
Even if terrorists pulled off a 9/11 once every year or destroyed one shopping mall a week, your chances of actually dying in a terrorist attack are utterly miniscule. A rational person, when confronted with such numbers, should not be afraid.
If everyone is scared shitless, they've won.
If we're willing to give up rights, they've won.
If our new and improved homeland security is nothing more than security theater, they've won.
If our retaliation is to wage war against a nation that wasn't affiliated with the attackers, thus causing us to waste lives, money, time, and goodwill in an effort that is only destabilizing the region, they've won.
Face it, we were attacked, and 6 years later we still don't have any meaningful protection.
"get with the freaking program", indeed.
You expect people without a fundimental understanding of chemistry of basic physics to give you a realisitic threat assesment? These are the same folks who have conflated an urban legend about mixing two chemicals, and managed to make it so I can't take a bottle of gatoraid on a flight. And you remember right after 9/11, all of the guardsmen with guns at the airport? Well they all had empty clips.
The real problem is these idiots are in charge. When we start to respect knowledge and wisdom, and elevate those posessing both in abundance, only then will this crap end.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
This administration? Do you really think that this is where all of this started? Man, you're fairly naive.
Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City.
And even that's not the beginning.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
You have more chance of being killed next time you get in a car or try to cross the road. Or being murdered by your neighbour. Or having a heart attack from to omuch fast food.
The terorist threat is TINY and shouldn't have been allowed to affect life at all.
Whether that woman was wearing a burkha or not is immaterial. Your disproportionate levels of fear are the problem here.
There's a link at the bottom of TFA talking about how someone couldn't get through security with a Improvised Electronics Device.
This tells me that the TSA agents are incredibly poorly trained. (No I'm not just now coming to this conclusion.) Whenever a TSA agent sees something suspicious, they absolutely have to investigate, but they need to know how to investigate. The first thing is they should have a list of things that could possibly damage an airplane. Bomb, wepon (gun, taser, etc.), maybe a transmitter aimed at disrupting cockpit communications or instruments. Then they should look at the suspicious device and determine if it has any of the critical parts for actually causing harm. Is there an explosive? No? Then it's not a bomb. Is there a large power supply? No? Then it isn't a transmitter capable of disrupting communications, or an electronic wepon.
Our first responders absolutely need the ability to tell the difference between a bomb and a moonite on a lightbrite. (Possibly by looking for an actual explosive.) That they can't speaks volumes about the effectiveness of the war on terror. Exposed wires should be a giant tip off that anything dangerous should also be in plain sight. No one is going to build a rats nest of wires and then carefully conceal the actual explosive behind a clever trap door. If "they" are going to disguise it, they are going to disguise all of it.
Anti-abortion groups don't design bombs by committee. Only the government does that. Anti-abortion groups (or whatever other kind of group you want to substitute) have a guy who knows about making bombs, and he makes them with no input other than size and yield. There may be a second guy who knows about hiding bombs. The point is, these two people are smart. Individually, everyone else in the group is likely reasonably intelligent. It's only as a group that they become dumb enough to place bombs at clinics frequented by pregnant women in an attempt to keep fetuses alive.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
A fallacy the "war on terror" (and the war on drugs for that matter) is a way for a set of people to describe complex social problems in a way that they can easily manipulate people. It is much easier to convince people to give up there freedom, etc in the name of helping to win a war. Stop using these terms.
So you don't tune your IDS to AVOID false positives? That's what Schneier wants us to do here.
Because right now, we're tuning the country to generate a whole lot of them by rewarding irresponsible behavior. Yes, you do look for patterns and unusual things, but you'd better also filter out false positives or you'll never see the malicious attacks. Thus, his entire point is to focus on things that are actually malicious instead of these stupid false positives.
We're acting out of emotion instead of logic, and we're making ourselves less safe as a result. Does anyone truly want to be less safe? Then we must defeat our true enemy: terror. Not terrorists, but the actual fear they create. If we do not master our fear, it will consume us, and the terrorists will win.
Once upon a time, brave leaders told us that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself.