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Bruce Schneier On Airport Security
the4thdimension writes "Bruce Schneier has an opinion piece on CNN this morning that illustrates his view on airport security. Given that he has several books on security, his opinion carries some weight. In the article, Bruce discusses the rarity of terrorism, the pitfalls of security theater, and the actual difficulty surrounding improving security. What are your thoughts? Do you think that we can actually make air travel (and any other kind of travel, for that matter) truly secure?"
Terrorists are like fools, they will always build a better one.
How about we treat the problem instead of the symptom. Give them something to loose or care about. When you have nothing you have nothing to loose.
Nope. "Truly secure" means defended infinitely well from all risks, which implies infinite cost. The minority of us adults who are mentally adult understand that everything is a cost/benefit tradeoff and nothing justifies the effort to render it "truly secure".
To be sure, an individual's own life is worth very very much to him, and he is free to spend his money on protection, but that's not the context of this discussion. The context of this discussion is how much wealth should the tribe expend protecting its assets (including its members, none of whom are infinitely valuable).
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Is to either remove all people from flights, or somehow put them all into a coma for the duration of the flight.
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
The answer: No.
The sooner most people grow and learn that "Shit Happens (tm)" and that no one can every prepare for every eventuality, the better. The "Security Theatre" is just a new opening for corrupt politicans and power-hungry individuals to remove more freedom from people.
Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
Terrorism is the smallest of security problems for air craft. The greatest issue is the rapid delivery of diseases from all corners of the world which threatens all of us all of the time. For example a common flu strain will easily kill far more people than we lost on 9/11. Rarer strains could wipe out millions.
The simple answer is to allow far less travel even inside our borders. International flights should be extremely limited. That will not only insure better health and safety but will also diminish the availability of air craft to terrorists as well.
Nations such as the old USSR that restricted travel were not totally wrong in that policy.
Terrorists prefer easy targets. This is much less likely if they have to assume the plane (or bus.. or train) might be full of people carrying weapons.
No.. I'm not an NRA activist or a 'gun wacko'. I don't even own a firearm, but I do know that people used to carry guns on planes and that the stupidity with hijacking actually went up when passengers were required to disarm. I'd like to see terrorists run the risk of being shot dead in order to carry out their idiocy.
> Given that he has several books on security, his opinion carries some weight.
One would hope that experts be judged by quality rather than quantity.
Bruce Schneier has earned street cred in the industry over many years of work. He knows security top-to-bottom, cryptography to psychology to economy.
Once in a while some media outlets decide to air an actual competent professional instead of a fud-mongering buffoon, and people in the industry send them to Bruce.
. . .simply, that as far as the TSA and similar efforts go, the Emperor not only has no clothes, nobody ever remotely NEAR him has a stitch on.
About the only people doing airline security right are the Israelis, and their model only works because of the relatively limited scope of El Al's operations.
The Christmas Day "panty bombing" showed cascade failures in the intelligence and investigation systems that are the only effective methods of defense against terrorism.
In a RATIONAL world, **one** terrorism flag (i.e. one-way ticket, buying with cash, no luggage, watch list, etc) would yield pulling the passenger aside and "enhanced investigation": two flags, and the person is getting a very thorough body and luggage search, and three or more flags, it's grab the latex gloves, because it's a strip-search and fine-tooth comb search through luggage and posessions.
But, alas, because some people don't bother checking, or reporting (assuming it's their job to do so. . .) in a timely matter, really obvious cases are allowed to pass, and the aftermath of Enhanced Security Theater does nothing but inconvenience the public, and potentially cause so much noise as to effectively mask any REAL events or dry-runs in progress. . .
“I feel better with the heightened security because I feel safe,” said Belisle, who was flying to Washington, D.C., to visit her son in Virginia.
Source: my local newspaper this morning. We call it security theatre. It's annoying, wasteful, ineffective in our minds. For much of the world, it's a teddy bear that keeps the closet monsters away. People just feel better.
SIG: HUP
"When somebody can commit an atrocity and no laws are changed as a result, only then will I agree that we have achieved maturity as a society."
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Roughly 16,000 people were killed by automobiles in the first six months of this year. Roughly 22,000 were killed by preventable medical errors. If we crashed two or three 747s per week, we still wouldn't be at that level of deaths. If the money we waste on TSA were spent elsewhere, we'd be ahead of the game.
Now look at how many people die every year from other causes.
If you are in the USofA, you are more likely to be killed by someone in your own family than by a terrorist.
But that is the problem.
Because terrorism is so rare, when it happens it is covered in the newspapers, on TV, on the radio, etc. Repeatedly. For weeks.
Finally the right idea. Why should we gift-wrap defenseless sheep for the bad guys?
Bruce points out that the no fly list only gets checked when you purchase the ticket, and your ID isn't checked when you actually use it. For example, bad guy steals a credit card and buys a ticket under a fake name. That gets him a valid ticket and avoids the no fly list
Next, the bad guy takes a boarding pass and modifies it in photoshop to show his real name, and uses that fake boarding pass along with his real id to get through airport screening. Security checks if his id matches the name on the boarding pass, but they never check the computer to see if the name is on the no fly list or even if the boarding pass is valid.
Finally, the bad guy can rip up the fake boarding pass and use the real boarding pass purchased with the stolen credit card at the gate and gets on the plane. Notice throughout the whole process, nobody checked if the bad guy's id against the no fly list?
If your name is on a no-fly list, you send a different guy who's name is not on the list.
If you cannot find someone who's name is not on the list, you buy guns and go on a shooting rampage inside the terminal where all the other travelers are standing in line, holding their shoes.
The terminal closes and all the flights are re-directed to other landing strips. If you pick the terminal right and the day right, you pretty much shut down all travel in that sector.
The USA has declared for several years a "War on Terror". The USA (and many other nations to be fair) is a state that fears visitors bringing their own nail scissors to its shores. The USA is seriously thinking of asking people to keep their hands in view and not visit the toilet 60 minutes before arriving as this is seen as a real threat to its national security.
These actions don't seem rational to me. The country with a military spend ten times greater than the next largest country, probably with a military the size of most of the rest of the world is scared of individuals approaching its shores bearing nail scissors? These seem to be the action of a terrified, irrational people and nation. Therefore, if the USA (and others) have declared a War on Terror*, then the USA being terrified means the emotion Terror has won. What happens now?
*I would note that I have a problem with the concept "War on Terror" as I don't see how you can declare a war on a human emotion. Is it possible to have a "War on Joy" for example? Perhaps you could declare a "War on preventing terror in Americans" and find ways of stopping Americans being terrified but I think this would be a tricky task. A lot of people are quite frightened of spiders in their bath tubs after all.
I think "War on Terror" is short for "War on people who use non-conventional forms of warfare against us that do not declare war on us as a sovereign nation" but I fear that this is difficult to bound in any way so actually means "permanent warfare against any individual or group that we, by our definitions, define as guilty of violent action against us and/or a threat to us at any time in the future". If it is not against another sovereign state, can war be declared, and can it be agreed to be ceased? References really welcomed to any well written definitions on what a "War on Terror" means. I'd really love to find some well argued definitions.
Listen up, pal. I don't know who you've been talking to, but the media isn't here to report facts or put news in perspective. We're here to sell ads. If we don't blow everything out of proportion around the clock, what is going to keep you glued to our 24 hour news^W entertainment cycle?
And how many were killed by guns in america? At a guess, the same number as road fatalities.
(if this doesn't get neg'd out of existence I'll be amazed)
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
He's gonna get the 400 pound guy with the flab slabs and the man-boobs instead.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I think the biggest mistake that we appear to make is that we think these people attempting to pull of these attacks are dumb. I think we grossly underestimate their intelligence, almost as if it's dangerous or anti-American to think of them as smart and very capable. In response to their failed attempts, we institute rules that'll potentially prevent that specific attempt in the future, and any person of average intelligence can see how absurd it is to think that will make us any safer, as if there's not a thousand other ways to commit such an act. In turn, that makes us look absolutely foolish. Shouldn't we at least try to look like we're outsmarting them?
I ran into Bruce Schneier at an airport once. While we were waiting for a plane, I asked him if he would show me a "cool computer trick". He popped the RAM out of my laptop and quickly tasted the edge with the gold leads. He then told me that at 11:23pm the previous night I had visited ideepthroat.com with Firefox. Damn he's good.
AMERICAN airport security is stupid, I'll agree to that. Having every single little old lady from Peoria, Il. take off her slippers before boarding a plane is asinine. The Fed. needs to do only two things; sky marshals, and send the idiots who head the TSA (perhaps after firing the lot of them currently in place and replacing 'em with a fresh pack of idiots) to training in Israel for a few months. That's it. All the scanner machines and removed shoes can't match one man who is allowed to board with a gun and some proper anti-terrorist training org-wide. That's security, and it won't cost billions.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
As it happens, you're wrong -- total gun deaths, about 3000/year in the U.S., including crap like gang shootings (which account for around half of 'em, last I heard).
Contrast that to somewhere around 30,000 auto-related deaths, and 100,000 deaths caused by physicians' errors.
Clearly, we need to ban doctors!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Bruce Schneier knows Alice and Bob's shared secret.
Most people use passwords. Some people use passphrases. Bruce Schneier uses an epic passpoem, detailing the life and works of seven mythical Norse heroes.
Bruce Schneier's secure handshake is so strong, you won't be able to exchange keys with anyone else for days.
Bruce Schneier once decrypted a box of AlphaBits.
Vs lbh nfxrq Oehpr Fpuarvre gb qrpelcg guvf, ur'q pehfu lbhe fxhyy jvgu uvf ynhtu.
Bruce Schneier writes his books and essays by generating random alphanumeric text of an appropriate length and then decrypting it.
Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat
If we built a Dyson sphere around Bruce Schneier and captured all of his energy for 2 months, without any loss, we could power an ideal computer running at 3.2 degrees K to count up to 2^256. This strongly implies that not only can Bruce Schneier brute-force attack 256-bit keys, but that he is built of something other than matter and occupies something other than space.
When Bruce Schneier observes a quantum particle, it remains in the same state until he has finished observing it.
Though a superhero, Bruce Schneier disdanes the use of a mask or secret identity as 'security through obscurity'.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Close to the number people who were killed by people wanting to kill someone that had a gun available as one of their means of doing so?
Do you think that we can actually make air travel (and any other kind of travel, for that matter) truly secure?
Isn't it already as secure as anything else?
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
It isn't that we allow any random person to walk onboard with a firearm, it's that we allow the airlines to manage their own security. This would likely result in the total elimination of terrorist events on planes at a substantially reduced cost. These companies are multi-billion dollar firms that are threatened every time some poor indigent person who happen to be born in a country suppressed by the U.S. wants to put a final end to his PTSD, and they're not going to be run by congressman trying to send pork projects to some random place in the U.S. They'll take real actions to provide real results since they know that they'll lose tons of business if they don't because their competition won't be making the same mistake.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
The sooner most people grow and learn that "Shit Happens (tm)" and that no one can every prepare for every eventuality, the better.
I agree with this statement generally. However you need to realize that there are a large number of people with buckets of shit who will quite happily rain it upon you when it becomes easy enough to do so. People like to point out the chance of being killed in a terrorist attack is really low - the solution then is not to raise the odds until it's more likely to be killed by terrorism than even X you are comparing odds with,
This is where I think Bruce misses the mark, he claims there are very few people willing to blow themselves up. Iraq/Afghanistan shows us plainly this is not true. What people are not willing to do, is to enter in a plan they think has little chance of success. You can find a lot of martyrs but not a lot of patsies.
So the real problem is, what security measures actually have some, vs. no, effect. I would argue a lot of the things prohibited or new rules being put in place (like not being able to tell passengers the name of landmarks out the window!) have as close to zero percent chance of preventing any attack as to make no difference. These rules, should all be abolished or re-thought. All rules need careful risk assessment applied to say, is this really helping or is it just there because one guy did one thing and it was the first thing we thought of to stop that?
The "Security Theatre" is just a new opening for corrupt politicans and power-hungry individuals to remove more freedom from people.
Now this I think is unfair, the rules are put in place by committees of people that really are looking to make people safer but with little understanding or concern for the well-being of all the people who are not terrorists, or at least that aspect gets lost in the process. They also show no understanding of how they can leverage or rely on fellow air travelers who are indeed more than happy to help with air security by detaining people as they act.
"Security Theater" is a term Bruce and others like to throw around a lot to dismiss the efforts to improve security. And yet they ignore the very real value of illusion in warfare throughout the years. As I noted there are a lot of people perfectly willing to blow themselves up, but they are not throwing themselves at plane travel because they THINK they will get caught and not be able to carry out the plan. As we can see from the attack that's not really as true as they think, but large number of people still think it's really hard to work around the system and so they do not try.
Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
And here's the term that is most overused of all, and the least well understood. Yes if you give up a little liberty for the gain of a little security you deserve neither. But what about the gain of a LOT of security for a little liberty? When the equation is far more asymmetric is it not also more compelling?
This is why my thinking that the end game of airport security is this - full body scans, mandatory ID to board planes. But not like todays world of scans - you stand on a platform for 10 seconds with your carryon in hand, and the device scans all of you along with your boarding pass. No human looks at the scan, no human asks you what you have - you just go on your way. Computers (not humans) analyze the image for potential issues, and flag people for more complete screening before you actually board. Then you as a traveler have no delay, but you still basically catch most people trying to bring a bomb of any size aboard a plane, and you still have the current aspect of not as many people willing to even try an attack because they think the magic box will get them. People are against showing ID to board a plane but it's what it's going to have to come down to in the end, because the reality is this
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually the number is about 4-5x times that. I am remembering 14,000, but you can find a breakdown on the NRA site (http://www.vpc.org/nrainfo/phil.html): 11,920 firearms homicides in the USA in 2003.
You have to train a lifetime to become a Ninja, and you have to learn a lot of useless skills like clever ways to poison people. Further, the equipment is expensive and must often be custom forged and relentlessly cared for.
A Pirate can be trained in a matter of days and requires no more expensive equipment than a pile of shabby rags and a rusty flintlock pistol. What they lack in manners and aim, they make up for in volume and gusto.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
When I was a kid, my friend bought two "Delta Darts" knives and gave me one. They are 3 sided blades, and were made out of very plastic. They'd make it right through the metal detectors, and probably even the carry on xray.
I've long since lost mine. It's probably sitting in a landfill somewhere. If an underage kid can mail order one without his parents knowing, why would we think that a "terrorist" couldn't do the same?
I'm happy to know that I'm allowed to board flights with a weapon. I have an 8 pound laptop, and should the need arise, I'd be more than happy to use it. I'd also hope that the airline would reimburse me afterwards, but that's less questionable.
He was really correct about our security theater. There's always another way for them to do things. What would a chartered ocean going freighter full of explosives do at any major port? How about a chartered business jet?
The freighter would pack more punch, but the jet would get closer to the target. According to the wikipedia page on cargo ships, the smallest ocean going ship would be categorized as "Small Handy Size", with a capacity of over 44,800,000 pounds. Consider what happened in Oklahoma City bombing. That was only 7,000 pounds of explosives (roughly equivalent to 5,000 pounds of TNT). It virtually destroyed the Murrah Federal Building, and damaged buildings for a 16 block radius. If my math is right, and assuming the same configuration, that would make for the equivalent of 32,000,000 pound (16k tons) of TNT (think just a shade larger than Hiroshima).
Bringing that close to dock in New York, that would be catastrophic. Well, assuming it could be detonated properly. I don't know enough about such things, and I don't suspect anyone's intentionally blown up a freighter full to it's load capacity with only explosives. It's usually too difficult to move that much mass in for anything strategic. That's why we like nukes now. At least we like to have them. The biggest bomb that we drop now is the MOAB, with a yield of 11 tons. So, like 1454 MOAB's being dropped simultaneously.
Not that I'm suggesting this to anyone. It's simply an example of what could be done. There are lots and lots of ways that "bad things" could happen, beyond our control.
So, we defend against what we've seen, so those won't be repeated, and pray we catch the rest. But yes, good detective work and good intelligence would get us a lot farther than any number of TSA agents you can have cupping your nuts, and feeling up your wife's boobs. Not that it's not always good. Sometimes it's been a long lonely trip, and that warm hand in my crotch is a welcome change. :)
(I think I just invited myself off the list for people to do pat-down searches on.)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
our current security is fairly good at preventing physical metallic objects that could be used as weapons.
No, it's not. I've taken my umbrella on flights since 9/11, and if I had to choose between that and a knife, I'd give the other guy the knife every time.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
As a fellow martial artist, could I ask that you please stop advocating? You are making the rest of us look really, really silly...
It was mostly meant to be a joke. There's actually a ninja school near me (a branch of Genbukan), and the instructor seems kind of crazy. Nobody says humor can't carry a moral.
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Let's say that we make airline flights 100% terrorist proof. Then what? Simple, the terrorists move on to bombing other things. Can you imaging the panic that would happen if they bombed a large high school graduation? There are a nearly infinite number of potential targets for terrorists and it is impossible to secure them all.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Who fucking cares?
It's safer to fly without screening than to drive across town.
But, you'll pay for your own handcuffs - and the privilege to wear them. Now, where's my embedded microchip?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The funny thing is cost. In human lives.
One 747 exploding over Boston would take 200+ lives and cost (including compensations to families) around 200-300 million USD.
The extra security theatre all around the world is costing every single passenger 2 extra hours of their live and all those extra costs for the extra screenings and detections. Only in the USA more than 2.5 million people travel by air every day. There are 650 000 hours in a human life of 75 years. So the security theatre that this terrorist act caused kills 4-5 people every day in the USA alone. Or around 40 people in the world.
Therefore, if the extra security stays on for a week, it will kill more people and cost more than if this plane would have crashed.
In fact, if we remove almost all security theatre from all airports and the terrorists start crashing one airplane every month, we all as a society would be winners in that.
But now - the terrorists have won: the created terror and caused great self-incured expenses on the Western World. That was their exact goal. And they have fully realised their goals with this attack.
can find a breakdown on the NRA site um... that is link to an anti-gun site, not the NRA...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Security at the expense of liberty is not worth it, in my opinion. I'd rather the be free and risk the chance of being blown up, than be subject to more rules and regulations so that I can live forever.
People are against showing ID to board a plane but it's what it's going to have to come down to in the end, because the reality is this is the most efficient way to actually catch people who are trying to do bad things vs. trying to simply find the tools used to perform an attack carried by any random person.
That's correct, and that's because that's a real security step (along with things like only allowing checked luggage on if it accompanies someone). It's where you can correlate whether the person is someone who is "likely to be of interest" and where you can verify that the airline is only carrying those who it thinks it is. (Even then, that's not a perfect solution, but a perfect solution would be economically crippling and so won't happen.)
Note that terrorism by suicide bombers is not the only real threat that has to be defended against. Out-and-out crazies are at least as big a problem, and some measures are there to defend against that too. (Note that the "security theater" is much more effective against that threat.)
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
was completed by early morning on 11 September 2001.
Once upon a time, people hijacked airplanes. Airplanes were flown to Cuba, Russia, Taiwan, Mainland China, Africa, wherever people wanted to go for whatever personal or political axes they had to grind.
After this, the ICAO convened a treaty in 1970 which required that any country that flew airplanes treat hijacking as a felony. No exceptions. In the old days, if an airline pilot flew from (China/Taiwan) to (Taiwan/China), he would get gold, women, his name in the paper, etc. as a propaganda tool to show that (Capitalism/Communism) was a superior form of government which people yearned for. No more. Do that today, you go to prison. Period.
Even wacky countries we don't like much like Libya, Cuba, North Korea, etc. are signatories to this treaty. Hijack an airplane, go to jail. No exceptions. Anywhere.
It was a very effective treaty. As a result, a set of "rules of engagement" came up around hijacking. Keep calm. Don't make any sudden moves. Fly the airplane wherever in the world the hijackers want to go. Wherever you land, there will be negotiators if they play nice, and SWAT teams in reserve if they don't. Getting in a fight in the air can only endanger innocent people's lives.
After 2001, nobody is EVER going to follow those rules of engagement again.
I think that you hit the nail on the head there. It's easy to stop terrorism if you have no moral or ethical limitations, but as soon as you limit yourself to what is acceptable, it is almost impossible. For example, you could put a hundred million in a bank account and announce that it will be used to put a price on the heads of the family and friends of anyone who commits an act of terror against the U.S. Then carry out the threat. It won't take long to dry up their supply of volunteers. Or go one step further and nuke their entire village or city. Highly effective, but not at all palatable.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
We don't have enough terrorist numbers to say that the "Security Theater" is effective or isn't effective. Terrorists have targeted planes for almost 50 years, and the latest security was put in place mostly after 2001. The numbers prior and afterwards aren't much different.
Personally, I think the term "Security Theater" is perfect. I think effective security (body scans and computer image recognition) fall outside that term, as they might actually be effective.
I would go further on the ID issue. IDs should be provided via secure sources. Why trust IDs provided by a passenger? A person could be vetted for travel in detail at some security office, and issued a user name or ID number. Providing THAT to security would allow their picture to be viewed and compared to the individual. Doing an ID check once, in detail, by people trained to do so is going to be far more effective then expecting lightly trained individuals to usefully evaluate ID documents over and over every time a person flies.
This is, if tracking the IDs of individuals is really what we want to do.
But these kinds of changes are not "Security Theater." These are changes that make a difference in our security.
Like enabling cell phones on planes. This has been proven to INCREASE security and does not pose any risk to navigation equipment. Yet still, cell phones are not allowed, and planes do not have the technology to enable cell phones in flight.
Personally, I am tired of not being able to take a jar of homemade Jelly on a plane. Tired of leaving my knife at home. Tired of the waits as thousands if not millions of mistakes are made daily by security staff to no ill effect on our security. (My son has flown with a full sized tube of toothpaste, and my wife with a swiss army knife in their carry on bags, which slipped easily through security. All by accident, but stll).
You make this claim, that terrorists don't attack because they are deterred by the idea of security, with no evidence. Here's some very good evidence why your theory is bunk: there are literally millions of highly visible targets in this country with no security. Anybody who wanted to could attack them trivially, compared to the relative difficulty of attacking an airplane. And yet, nobody does. There have been a handful of attempts over the past decade (most of them prompted or at least significantly helped by FBI informers), but nothing really successful (unless you consider Fort Hood, which clearly is a separate issue). If there really were all of these potential terrorists in the US, why would they just give up after deciding airlines are too hard? Why aren't they attacking all our undefended targets instead?
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
The #1 issue with cellphones is the fact that when you are in an airplane up in the air, your phone is in range of so many towers (and passing between towers so fast) that your phone would overload the network rather than get a stable signal.
There is talk of micro-cells in airplanes that would allow your phone to connect to them instead of anything on the ground which would overcome the problems.
no additional airplanes have hit buildings since 2001...
How many were there prior to 2001?
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
You make this claim, that terrorists don't attack because they are deterred by the idea of security, with no evidence. Here's some very good evidence why your theory is bunk: there are literally millions of highly visible targets in this country with no security.
But not ones that kill a lot of people. And the guys that really want to do this, we mostly don't let into the U.S.
The magical thing about air travel is that people anywhere can take a plane. The guys you get that are willing to blow themselves up to attack others look pretty out of place in Iowa and generally get caught before anything happens (witness the two guys in a car scoping out a military base for attack, I think in Arkansas) - it goes back to what I was saying, suicide bombers generally go forth when they are pretty sure they will have some success.
You offer no counterproof as to why they would not attack planes when they already drive cars into things every month. If they can reach it they will attack it.
unless you consider Fort Hood, which clearly is a separate issue
That's not clear at all. In fact he has direct links to the Pantsonator, in that they both worshipped under the same Imam. And in fact it kind of proves my point, he had easy access to do what he did and a will to do so - if even a well-educated phycologists working for the army for years can be turned against his own peers, there are countless others that would easily take on the same role with less motivation.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apples and oranges. They're fighting a war for their own land in Afghanistan/Iraq
I wasn't aware Iraq was owned by Sadia Ariba, Syria, and Iran. Because those are the people dying in suicide bombing attacks there, and were most of the jihadists (especially so once the people of Iraq figured out Al Quida didn't like people drinking which Iraqi's like quite a lot).
we'd have to lose a LOT of liberty to gain a little security
I consider nothing done at an airport to be a loss of "liberty" since flying is not a right. Also as another poster noted elsewhere planes are in fact rather good weapons (even if all you are doing is destroying them over a large city).
My whole issue is, how can we better build a system around acceptable risks and trying to find people who are a problem rather than tools that could be a problem but in the hands of most people will not be.
Your idea would be less intrusive, but not fundamentally any better.
It's not any more intrusive for most people because you already show ID and a boarding pass at the airport today (yes you do not HAVE to show ID but 99.9% of people do because they don't want extra security checks). And it's far, far faster because you aren't waiting for people in front of you to unpack AND disrobe and then reverse the process once screened. You could process probably 20x the number of people in the same amount of time, which given the amount of flights from any given airport means almost no wait - even at Terminal 5 in Heathrowe transferring between planes (one of the more maddeningly slow security screening setups and probably one of the worlds busiest).
The security system as it is now keeps me from flying except in extreme circumstances.
I agree, anything under 10 hours and I drive. Most travel I do does not give me that option. That's why I seek to eliminate all the aspects that slow me down, while not being any more intrusive than what we have today and in fact a good bit less because there are fewer people to ogle you and go through your stuff.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That said, there is one technology that could have easily prevented this particular class of attack: an NQR (nuclear quadrupole resonance) machine. It's basically like an MRI but it is designed to pick up the specific resonant frequencies of nitrate-based compounds. Expect these systems to be deployed in the not-too-distant future, and unlike the millimeter wave and backscatter X-Ray systems, NQR doesn't cause cancer and doesn't show your naughty bits in high resolution detail....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
"Security Theater" is not 'just a term' that *anybody* likes to throw around.
You gave a very specific definition, but you are wrong in this first part. Look at this very discussion, "security theater" is used repeatedly and in fact lots of people throw it around all the time, just as I said.
If you care so much as to the exact definition, then you should *also* care it is used accurately. Airport security is not *wholly* theater, even if some aspects are (like ID checking as Bruce rightfully points out). But as I noted, even if some parts are theater there remains some value from the show in deterrence, and therefore the term "security theater" is not accurate because it's not totally ineffective. "Security Illusion" or something along those lines is much more accurate, at least if you care about the term...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
First page on a google search;
in 2004; 29,569 total firearm fatalities, including 16,750 suicides, 649 accidents and 235 with unknown intent.
I agree with you, but note that Bruce is also suggesting a real change in relationships with middle east so that number eventually could be insignificant.
That aspect though is fantasy, the dream you can kiss and make up with a violent religious cult never works out - it has not in the history of the world. With them you are either subsumed or attacked. He is normally very astute in psychology, so I'm really not sure how he gets so far off kilter that he imagines this will work.
"Experts say the technology would almost certainly find a gun or knife but not necessarily something carried the way the Nigerian carried his explosives."
But unlike the TSA I don't care about preventing the last attack. I care just about making attacks hard in general so that a guy has to store components in his underpants making them harder to re-asssemble, and optimizing air travel greatly without increasing the rate of attempted attacks. With a big old scary scanning box hooked to big scary computers somewhere lots of people will *think* they can't get a bomb on and so won't even try. Or will be nervous enough the behavioral analysts will get them. I mean, the last attack is basically un-preventable unless you want to get pretty damn intimate with every passenger and that just is not practical.
Also, I imagine the scanning device combined with something like a "puffer" they use in airports today, that could pick up chemical scents - that would have a much higher chance of having found something I think. Basically it's all about changing the mindset to "what can we scan for in 10 seconds with a guy on a platform" rather than adding another stage to an already elaborate series of procedures you must follow.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We also know that the most secured airline in the world (El Al) hasn't had any successful attacks.
Have you ever flown El Al? I have, and I can tell you that, unlike the TSA, El Al does *not* engage in security theatre. Israeli airport security doesn't ban nail clippers or pocket knives or liquids. They don't bother with pat downs, either, nor do they x-ray your baggage, and Schneier knows all of this. In fact, he's written essays in which he pointed to El Al's approach as the right way to do airline security and contrasted it with what we do.
Israeli airport security is focused on identifying and removing terrorists, not their weapons. That's because it's fundamentally impossible to deny them weapons, and the Israelis understand that. They do search your belongings. By hand. Thoroughly. But they do it less to see what you have than to watch your reaction while they do it. While one agent is searching your stuff, two more are watching you. And they also ask a lot of questions about who you are, why you're traveling, where you've been, where you're going, etc., and they demand proof of your statements. They quizzed me in detail about every person I'd met with while in Israel, and then they actually called some of them on the phone to verify my statements. They also separated me from the people I was traveling with, asked us all questions individually, and then conferred with one another to compare the answers.
That's what real, serious airport security looks like. And it does work. The security theatre we have doesn't, not against anyone with a clue. It's trivial to smuggle a weapon onto a plane; I've done it accidentally! Really smart terrorists won't bother bringing anything through the front door, either. Have maintenance, cleaning crews, etc. bring the weapons in. US airport security in those areas is laughable. Not so on El Al flights.
You're right that security can be effective. Schneier is right that what we do is not security.
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The real TSA screeners are not the highschoold dropout instructing you to remove your shoes.
In most airports, there is nobody filling that role except the highschool dropout telling you to remove your shoes. If you think there is some hidden screener out there who is REALLY keeping you safe, you are sadly mistaken. There might be a very small number of airports that do this, but even so most people would be able to slip by anyway. Act bored and you win. They won't spot a thing.
It is pretty trivial to get knives past TSA, unless you are being honest about it. A friend of mine accidentally brought a boxcutter (the kind that can extend out to a 4-5" blade) through at least six TSA screenings, and he had simply put it in a pocket and forgotten about it. How's that for security?
You can get explosive rope these days, if you're clever you could probably sneak a half pound of the rope and another four or five pounds of standard plastics on board in a suitcase and nobody would be the wiser. You could do some major damage with that combo. The guy who got caught recently was just dumb as shit, and didn't know what the hell he was doing, and he STILL got explosives past security. They make you stay seated for the last hour and a half of an international flight now, but so what? The guy lit the bomb off in his chair anyway, what's the "remain seated" bullshit supposed to stop?
If you look at what happened on 9/11, the main problem was our attitude about hijackings at the time. Hijackings were supposed to be about ransoming for cash, not blowing up a target, so the standard procedure was do whatever the hijackers say and wait till it is over. Now, standard procedure is subdue the hijacker as soon as possible. Had that been done on 9/11 the news would have been about how 19 hijackers were thwarted in an attempt to hijack four airplanes, and a few passengers were injured in the process. That new policy is what protects us in the sky now, not any of the bullshit security theater which is absolutely worthless at catching all but the most basic and obvious weapons. People see someone with a weapon now, they won't hesitate any more - that guy is going down in a hurry. 9/11 would not happen again today and the TSA has nothing to with that at all.
It's all designed to make us feel safer, since the folks in the know realize they can't actually make us any safer. What we were doing before is as good as what we are doing now as far as airport screenings, the only real changes that can be made are in the background, with inteligence agencings tracking suspected terrorists and such. TSA is just the government saying "Look! aren't you glad we're making you so safe?"
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
And as soon as these systems are deployed, the wanna-be-terrorists will switch to carbon-based explosives. And if someone invents a "catch-all-explosives" device, they will resort to biological weapons.
It's pretty much like with the DRM stuff: the only people suffering from that are the innocent travellers.