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Fixing Security Issue Isn't Always the Right Answer
Trailrunner7 writes "In a column on Threatpost, Bruce Schneier writes that the recent security breach at Newark Airport shows that fixing a given security problem isn't always the right move. 'An unidentified man breached airport security at Newark Airport on Sunday, walking into the secured area through the exit, prompting an evacuation of a terminal and flight delays that continued into the next day. This problem isn't common, but it happens regularly. The result is always the same, and it's not obvious that fixing the problem is the right solution. American airports can do more to secure against this risk, but I'm reasonably sure it's not worth it. We could double the guards to reduce the risk of inattentiveness, and redesign the airports to make this kind of thing less likely, but that's an expensive solution to an already rare problem. As much as I don't like saying it, the smartest thing is probably to live with this occasional but major inconvenience.'"
A guy wanders in through the exit, and they evacuate the terminal?
If it's really necessary to evacuate the terminal each time this happens, wouldn't it be cheaper to hire a guy to stand there to stop people from coming in?
Why don't we take a page from other controlled-access systems and install some basic turnstiles-like gates? (With appropriate modifications so that they're not a major hassle for travelers). That would easily prevent casual, accidental intrusion, and make deliberate intrusion a little more difficult.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Why is airport security a tight wall in one direction, and a totally open path the opposite way? Shouldn't there be a gate that opens if you're exiting the airport, and creates a barrier if you are coming in from the wrong side?
This problem isn't common but it happens regularly.
So what you are saying is that it is common?
So one incident like this actually costs much more than you think. All those delayed flights, wasted time by the TSA and Police, not to mention the thousands of hours wasted by passengers. Like a previous poster suggested, put in exit only turnstiles and such. Way cheaper. Everyone always forgets how expensive labor is, and how valuable a customer's time is.
And I think the best thing to do is just go ahead and mandate the insertion of radio-tracked anal probes and head branks for everyone entering the grounds of any airport in the U.S. Anyone seen on airport grounds not waddling like they've got a giant radio-tracked anal probe inserted and not wearing a giant metal brank on their head with a cast iron tongue depressor can be immediately arrested and beaten. If we don't do this, how will we make the world that our children live in safe from terrorists?
As much as I am impressed with Bruce Schnieir (I have copies of both the blue and red books and use them for reference in my work on a regular basis) I don't think he sees the real purpose of making your citizens take off their shoes whenever they travel and using high frequencies to examine their genitals. It's the ultimate power trip, and if I were in power, I'd be getting off on it too.
It might not be cost effective for remodeling current airports, but we could do a lot better when we build new airports.
Cost computation would involve how many $$ it is worth to all those who are affected by increased delays, etc. vs. one time remodel. It might actually be cost effective to remodel. Lost wages, etc. might be enough to compensate. There aren't that many airports around.
Regularly, like the 12th day of each month? Or January 10th every year?
This won't work for one reason: The employees will fear for their jobs and not report dangerous incidents.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Passengers book flight online, and program their flight int an RFID tags.
Passengers enter the airport naked, and in small groups. No worldly possessions will be allowed.
Muslims are winnowed at this stage.
(The last mile must be walked to the terminal because of the dragons teeth protecting the airport from demo-trucks.)
Passengers are rendered unconscious using anaesthetic gas.
Robotic staff, load the unconscious passengers into special crates that deal with feeding and excretion.
Passengers are hooked up to neutral interface, and last years crappy films are played directly into their minds.
In case of emergency, all crates have auto-ejectors. First-class passenger crates have parachutes.
Our government fucked us again: http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/fury-over-slovakia-smuggling-explosive-on-flight-440837.html
FTFS:
Yes. And as a /.er, I don't commonly have sex, but I have sex regularly.
Sorry folks but the US airport system was designed for a time when there was no threat of terrorism and planes were basically just a fast Greyhound solution. Having a single Exit (as is common at most European airports) which means a single guard can stop people entering means that its extremely rare to have this happen at a European airport. This is the "advantage" of having airports that are primarily designed for international travel and so the exit is where customs also resides.
Crap security, appalling immigration staff and an inefficiency of process that is so bad that someone must have sat down and designed it deliberately.
So I disagree with the much more educated writer in the article. It really isn't hard to fix, its something that most other first world countries have done as a core part of their airport design.
US Security as embodied by the department of Homeland security is a complete joke at every single level, from not listening to intelligence from abroad to woeful and officious security at airports. It really is a George W Bush of a department.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Just ban everyone from airplanes altogether. Problem solved.
(It seems as if we're heading down that road, really...)
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
The fact that a routine error can cause major institution like an airport to grind to a halt is a sign that its operating procedure needs to be revised. It's stupid to just live with it when there are alternatives
For example, there's been a lot of recent talk about updating our airport screening to look more like Israel's, where they've been thinking about terrorism a bit harder and longer than we have. I'm sure there are other alternatives too. However, remember that the point of terrorism is to cause fear and economic loss to industrialized countries, and to bait us into a self-destructive overreaction. By that standard, they guy who walked through the wrong gate pulled off a pretty impressive piece of terrorism, at basically no real risk to himself. You don't want to enshrine a system where this sort of exploit is possible, or else every group with a quibble can hold an airport hostage.
I knew this post was coming. Cue the histrionics.
I know it's costly to build a giant dome over the city, and the odds of a meteor hitting your mother as she walks to her car is small, but put it this way, how much is your mother's life worth? Your wife? Child? Yourself? If your kid gets splattered by a falling rock from space, would you say, "Well, I understand they didn't want to spend ten trillion dollars to fix the problem, so I don't blame them for a known issue that allowed my kid to die." Falling rocks are an issue, we need to get this fixed, whatever the cost.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
"It may be costly - but put it this way - how much is your mothers life worth? Your wife? Child? yourself?"
I and they routinely risk life and limb every day driving to work or seeking medical care, and note that resources consumed by one effort are not available for others.
We are much more likely to die in an auto accident, die of hospital borne infection, or die of hospital borne infection after an auto accident than to be greased by Hadji the friendly Jihadist.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Why is it that this door can be opened from the outside?
We've had airport security for decades. When did it start? Early seventies? The only time we needed airport security to work, it didn't. Why do we have to shut down an entire airport because one hapless person entered the wrong room? It's a terrible over-reaction, making us all look like wusses. It's like seeing people freak out because they see a spider. Big deal. Take the spider outside, end of story. No evancualtions. No freak-outs. No delays.
The thing is, the last time we had a real incident, at Christmas, the guy managed to get on and do everything necessary to kill a few hundered people. Only the incompetence of the bomb maker saved the plane and the guy burned his nuts.
So what did we do? Throw him in jail. Get him lawyered up so he won't talk, and THEN our illustrious Czar of Homeland Security gets up and says, "The system worked."
WTF????? Just WHAT about the system worked? What is she smoking?
It did NOT work. It was epic fail. With all these regulatons, with all this taking your shoes off, go through the detectors, 3 oz of liquid max, the delays, evacuations, and freak outs over nothing, the system still is epic fail.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
One of those moving walk ways that moves only in the direction of the exit and completely fills the width of the exit corridor. When someone is detected trying to walk the opposite direction, it can speed up a little and wake up the guard who is posted - because there is always already a guard posted. This would be less obstructive than a turnstile door/gate which is a pain to pass luggage, wheelchairs, children's strollers, etc. through.
Nice appeal to emotion.
What is stopping said terrorist from assembling a bomb from easy-to-obtain electronic store items and household cleaners then detonating it on, lets say, a crowded subway?
"Fixing security issues isn't always the right answer." Haven't I heard this before... from Microsoft?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Compared to comets striking the earth and causing global extinction events, I'd say showing up every 75 years IS a pretty comment occurence!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Although I agree the investment is probably not worth it at most airports, at places like the big 3 in NYC, O'Hare, Boston, etc, it would be fairly easy to put a "peoplemover" at the exit to the concourse. I.e. get on the moving belt, ride out of the exit door. To "accidentally" go the wrong way would be HIGHLY unlikely. They already have these things all over the airports, just install a few (side by side?) at the exits. Let the guards and cameras sit there and watch. Hell, a camera could use motion detection to flag/alarm if it detected a "person" or object going the wrong way any significant distance....
Riiiiight... because massive employee turnover is exactly what you want in a profession whose assigned task it is to protect us from terrorists, and which terrorist agents are trying to infiltrate into.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I hadn't heard about this, but the article linked in the article says this:
"Officials took the action after a man was observed walking the wrong way down the exit lane between the secured, or "sterile," area and the public area at around 5:20 p.m"
I haven't done a lot of air travel, but to me this isn't necessarily a breach. The man could easily have just left his flight, heading for the baggage claim area only to realize he dropped or left something on the plane and was heading back.
So, the first problem is that they don't know. Presumably there are cameras on these areas, so look at the recordings and find out where he came from. If he came from the plane (or any secure area), and simply turned around to go back where he came from, there's no reason to suspect a breach.
If he did come the wrong way through a one way door, or similar, then yes there was a security breach. Increasing the number of guards isn't a fix, its simply reducing the chances that this will happen again. As others have mentioned, one way, full height turnstiles are a possibility. You may have to deal with luggage, but that can be done with larger turnstiles. If turnstiles can accommodate wheelchairs, they can accommodate luggage carried by most flyers. Those with exceptionaly large items may need to be escorted through a separate corridor.
My point is, Bruce's two options (redesigning airports and increasing security guards) are both impractical, but there may be other options available. And (as others have mentioned) learning from this and applying those lessons to future airport designs SHOULD be done.
Since when does being an expert on digital communications security automatically qualify you as an expert on passenger screening? Unfortunately, unlike data packets, passengers don't behave according to logical rules.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Not easy enough to replace the entire TSA staff at a site... you've got to run background checks on everybody who you want to hire, and that takes time. So, after a breach, you want the airport closed for a few weeks?
Why, the police who search a small fraction of the people who go through one subway entrance in Grand Central one day a month. Nothing's getting by them.
I've got a better solution. Change it back to where the airport screeners work for the airlines (like they did before 9/11). Then the TSA sends people out to test airport security and fines the airlines when they find security breaches.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The solution to wrong-way passenger traffic is known - big one-way powered three-leaf revolving doors. LAX has had those for decades. They're just very large revolving doors, big enough for several people or a cart, which rotate slowly and are powered by weak motors. But if somebody enters the wrong side, they stop moving, and if necessary back up a little to let the bozo out. Sometimes somebody gets trapped and alarms go off, although this takes some effort.
There are other revolving-door arrangements for employee entrances, some resembling full-height subway turnstiles.
An installation like that probably pays for itself if it prevents one incident which requires closing down an entire terminal.
What's the price of freedom and liberty?
If you treat it like a business problem and do a cost/benefit analysis which is what Schneier is suggesting, it may turn out to be true in this case where the cost to fix the security hole is far too expensive to cover the risk. This is common for many large businesses where they may treat the lives of people in their Data Center and hence put additional physical security controls there vs. someplace else as part of their Business Continuity/ Disaster Recovery threat assessment process. It is always a tough thing to do when you ask the question on how do you place a value to human life. The airforce puts a value on the cost to replace a pilot vs. a plane but how do you place something similar to a passenger.
Offer flight as a bus service under one condition: In case of a terrorist attack an ICBM will fly to his religious point of most interest (Earthly!). As the terrorist will be responsible for the downfall of his own religion he could get second thoughts ( as for the atheist terrorists if there are any. Dawkins will get fed to the pigs).
I take it a step further.
The security theater that has been implemented since 2001 has raised the cost (in dollars, time and convenience) of air travel enough to divert enough travelers to the nations highways that I posit that we as a nation have suffered more death and injury than had we reacted to the Sep 11 attacks by literally doing nothing at all.
We kill more people on the roads annually than more than 15 such attacks would have done.
Meanwhile, UBL's grand master plan stopped working even before the last airplane was grounded that day - the passengers found out that the rules (give hijackers what they want and you get out alive) had changed and the last plane did not make its target. And because everybody knows the new rules of engagement, that plan will never work again - regardless of any changes (or lack thereof) in government policy.
There are exactly 3 things necessary for airport security:
1. Make sure that no luggage gets on the plane without its associated passenger (you can't blow up the plane without going along for the ride).
2. Metal detectors to keep guns out. The alternative is allowing anybody to carry, thus insuring the entire plane will wind up swiss cheese if any funny business starts. That's a less than positive outcome, IMHO.
3. Lock and bar the cockpit doors for the flight's duration.
And for extra credit
4. Research applying the military's UAV technology to the air transport system. If enough improvements can be made in assuring positive aircraft control, there's no reason the flight deck as we know it needs to exist on the plane at all.
I got to the airport a bit too early one time, so I started browsing through the in-airport shops and saw an interesting bottle of salad dressing. It was cheap so I figured it was probably not that great, but just looked interesting and I wanted to try it.
Later I was heading through the security gates and got stopped and asked about it. Long story short, they said I couldn't have it, the guard took it and threw it in the trash can and went back to his post. I was kinda bummed, put on my shoes and about to walk away when I noticed that no one even paid attention to that trash can, and my bottle was right on top. I reached in, pulled it out, thought it was a really good thing I wasn't a terrorist and went home and had salad the next day.
It wasn't very good dressing at all.
Don't we already have pretty large turnover in these jobs?
I hear everyone complaining about how this guy got on a watch list but nothing was ever done about it and he was allowed to fly. Anyone else want to join me in compiling a list of these people so we can submit it as a list of people who have come under the influence of extremists? I mean what happened to innocent until proven guilty? Even at this stage he is still the accused bomber and there are people who want him hanged without a trial. They are trying to avert our justice system. Lets get them on the that one list that they can still fly so long as they spend 5hours proving everything they have done second by second over the last year even if their name only sounds similar to someone on the list and make them do it every time they want to fly. Of course there will be all the indignities of striping naked and being searched ALL over and in their body. But hey if they have nothing to hide why are they being so secretive. This will fix the real problem that the only reason flying seems so unsafe is that we have all sorts of ill informed people coming up with ideas such as baning everyone named abdul al somethingmuslimy or who refuses to eat a ham sandwich before boarding the plane. Maybe they will realize the problem everyone has is the intrusive security that treats them as guilty especially if they have a bunch of funny sounds in their name. Also I've searched and can't find anything besides a poll of 12 people how many people out there have flown on a one way ticket that they paid cash for with no luggage or any combination of those. Sounds like a good poll.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
Technology doesn't help when you put idiots in charge of it. Remember how proudly that one officer was when he displayed the plastic GI Joe rifle he confiscated? Putting stupid people in your security detail means that only really stupid people will be caught. Until airport security figures this out, no technology will be any help. Hiring the cheapest help does not give you the best people.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
It's even cheaper to just face reality and understand that anyone who really wants to bypass security can do so.
That's the results of hundreds of tests, repeated ad nauseum, at all major US airports. The evidence is incontrovertible. We need to stop pretending that airport security has any useful function other than controlling the aftermath of an incident.
And stop pretending terrorist activity is more common than normal incidents like equipment malfunction, disease, thievery, etc. that we don't react to so hysterically (and ineffectively).
Terrorists are losers, incompetents, and not a real-life hazard to 99% of all people. Whiskey kills more people than terrorists and we serve whiskey on the damn planes.
Door A only opens when the airlock is empty and door B is closed. Door B only opens when door A is closed and people are in the airlock. Various cheap sensors determine whether the airlock has items in it. Human observer is a fall-back.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
[sarcasm] Yes by all means we must think of the children.[/sarcasm]
Even at the expense of condemning them to a third world quality of life. I suspect furby076 is the type of person that wants to live till he/she is 120 years old even though the last 40 are spent in a coma. For people like that life is about quantity not quality.
Whatever your opinion ont he safety at airports, if we could double the guards at the exits/entrances and it *could* help with people like myself who aren't always paying attention to where their feet are taking them, then by all means lets employ some people and bring down our unemployment numbers a bit :)
Ave Molech Setting
Holy shit! What the hell are you selling? Life insurance or turnstiles that everyone is suggesting? It's exactly your type of attitude that has made airports as shitty as they are today, all with the premise of making things safer for everyone. Everyone needs to face the fact that at some point there will be another attack on American soil but it won't be for a long time and when it does happen, no one is going to predict how and where it's going to be done and all of these security measures won't mean a thing because security is going to be focused on guarding a door and they will use a window. Now for a quick reality check, your far more likely to die in a car accident going to or from the airport than you are from the plane crashing, let alone terrorist attack. So are you telling me Mr Safety that your going do drive slower than the limit or not drive at all because how much is it worth if you crashed doing 60mph (100kph) and killed your family? Still there are more dangers at home. Your even more likely to die falling down the stairs than all the above. You better hire a stair climbing expert to assist your family when you not home to help them yourself. Sure it could be expensive for you but is that what your going to be thinking about if you come home and find you mother dead at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck? If everyone stopped over reacting to nothing incidents, everyone would feel safer and happier but the problem is that if something does happen, no one wants to be caught with their pants down and loose face in the public eye which is mostly government leaders and the such.
It sickens me that at airports we are herded through metal detectors, full body scanners and whatnot like we are a bunch of sheep. In the process we lose hours of travel time, comfort and most importantly, our privacy! And for what? A little imaginary security?
The one or two crazies will always find a way. Why bother with these ridiculous measures?
In my eyes, the terrorists (if there are any) have already won. People think it's the most normal thing in the world to have these invasive practices just in order to go from A to B. People fear everyone and everything that looks even slightly out of the ordinary. And governments just encourage the whole charade.
Oh my god. We just stumbled upon a horrifying truth! The governments and Al-Qaida are allies trying to create a new world order, using fear to rule the people! Stop the presses!
Good thing you got modded up - I wish you'd posted this logged in, because it's a good point.
We've gone so far overboard on security that our own security responses often exceed the costs that an actual attack would impose.
One dude, maybe a thousand dollar fine/couple days in the clink, can shut an airport down for much of a day, costing millions. Classic asymetrical warfare.
Heck, the terrorists have already switched from attacking the secure areas to attacking the approach to the secure area. Ever seen the queue to get into the secure airport area? I have a nasty imagination. Just take a suicide bomber, no need for a plane ticket, and have him approach the security area like he's got a ticket and is going to board. Then detonate when in a particularly crowded spot. Heck, he could even have a fairly massive 'carry-on' filled with explosives.
Then again - if I was a terrorist I wouldn't be looking at transportation right now. That's where we're looking. I'd look elsewhere for my targets.
I don't read AC A human right
It's easier to build a bigger bomb than better armor.
It's impossible to make things idiot-proof because they keep making better idiots.
I can see the point here. Cover the 80% you can and deal with the other 20% as the exceptions that they are. You don't lay down the procedures for that 20% - you put them in place for the 80% you can control. Constant review of what's working and what isn't and then you're really in the process improvement business. I'm not seeing that review - I'm seeing reactions to exceptions that cause nothing but headaches and don't solve anything.
Wow. Went on a bit of a rant there. I think the core idea is solid tho. Plan for what you can, realize you can't plan for everything, and learn from what isn't in the plan.
>the smartest thing is probably to live with this occasional but major inconvenience
Right up until it ends up being HIS plane that blows up because someone got passed security this way.
Seriously, what a boob. Can we keep our stories written by smart people please, seems too much of these stories are written by clueless boobs these days...hope its not a new trend.
Fixing security issues is always the right answer.
The alternative, not fixing security issues, is always the wrong answer.
This is a typical kdawson FUD post.
While I agree that all the security theater bullshit is bullshit, this article itself is bullshit.
Where's the rub? The implied notion that there's a security issue at all is bullshit.
A man walking in to a "secure" area through the exit is not a security issue. So yes, the correct action in this case is to do nothing, but no, there was no security issue to fix or not fix.
The blood of tyrants?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You subdivide them. If a member of red platoon (or watch or whatever you want to call it) spots the infraction his team are off the hook. But blue and green toss a coin for which faces firing and which faces a firing squad.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Pretty well describes all of the security bullshit, doesn't it?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
It may be costly - but put it this way - how much is your mothers life worth? Your wife? Child? yourself?
Obviously they are not worth very much if any of them step outdoors, or drive a car, or are present in a metro city, or do any of the hundreds of daily activities that have a much much MUCH higher chance of killing you.
In 2008, the number of American who died from a terrorist attack was about 260.
All of those except 4 were NOT in the USA. [1]
4 deaths from terrorist attacks in an entire year on US soil.
Also in the whole year of 2008, there were 37,261 deaths from auto accidents. [2]
You are 9315 times more likely to die from an auto accident, be it one you caused, one someone caused into you, or you are walking down the street and two other motorists bring the accident to you on the sidewalk.
That is almost 4 orders of magnitude higher!
For every person killed by a terrorist in this country, nearly 10,000 people are killed by a car in the exact same amount of time.
If you willingly put yourself and mother and wife and child in the situation of 'being out doors' then clearly you value them and yourself 1000 times less than if a terrorist attack was your only concern.
My question to you is, why are you so willing to spend a million dollars to stop a terrorist attack, without spending the equally valid and necessary ten billion dollars to have all cars banned and removed from the roadways?
References:
1 - http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html
2 - http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
Instead of sending 19 men on suicide missions, Al-Qaeda could just send 19 men to different airports and have them all run through the exits at the same time.
The cumulative effect would be that *all* airports would be shut down for the day. We'd just assume that we didn't notice it at any airports that weren't "attacked". At that point, the technical solution (one-way walkways, rotating doors, more guards, or whatever) would have to implemented very quickly and more costly than implementing it at our convenience.
Not that I think it fixing the exits will really change anything. We've got bigger problems when a terrorist on a watch list and whose visa was revoked by the Brits can get on a plane without additional screening. I never even knew we had a list of suspected terrorists that we let on planes without screening before now...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
1. The TSA could hire servants from Laputa to keep the TSA guards alert.
2. After all the passengers of a flight had been security checked, allow the passengers to select one (or more) of the TSA agents to undergo a security check by the passengers and fly with them. The agents would be induced to be both polite and thorough.
Yeah, okay, so someone flew two airplanes into the World Trade center, a third into the Pentagon, and a fourth into the ground in Pennsylvania. May I remind you Americans that all of those people HAD TICKETS!!! They did not 'sneak' on to the planes. They did not have bombs or guns. All they had were box cutters. BOX CUTTERS! As far as we know everyone on board three passenger jets just sat there and watched it happen. Only on the fourth plane did anyone take a stand.
Here's your security solution and it doesn't require guns or x-rays or guards with rubber gloves.
1) Grow some balls. When people come to take over your plane suck it up and go die.
2) Realize that life isn't TV. Quit sitting around and waiting for other people to do something.
3) Armor and seal the cockpit doors before take off. No one in or out until the wheels hit the ground.
4) Train the stewardesses in hand-to-hand combat techniques.
Back in the 80's I was working for an oil company and had to catch a flight to a different city to make a determination on a potentially contaminated batch of jet fuel. This was to a very small fuel terminal that did not necessarily have the right equipment to capture a sample of fuel. What I was dragging along with me was some sampling and analysis gear. Being in a hurry, since this was going to be a flight to an airport, to do work on airport property, catch a flight back the same day, I hand-carried my gear along.
Here is how the conversation went at security screening;
"Miss, what is this thing in the box?"
"Oh, that's a test bomb"
-- you can imagine what happened next, needless to say I was NOT catching that flight and United would not reschedule me on ANY flights for several days. ---
What I had was a "bacon test bomb" http://www.koehlerinstrument.com/products/K27700.html it was packed in a wooden crate that I was hand-carrying on-board the aircraft. It is just a shiny steel cylinder, about the size of a thermos container but has a funky plunger assembly inside and a length of coiled up line to lower it into the tank.
It is used to grab a sample off of the bottom of a storage tank so I could in turn, run flash-point tests on a 50,000 BBL tank of aviation fuel. The airline was rejecting the batch, claiming that it was contaminated with gasoline (bad, bad thing for jet aircraft).
Since then I have learned to give pause when speaking to security screeners
Tisha Hayes
I'm sure one day it will suddenly become obvious that all the airport security is pointless once a terrorist figures out he can suicide-bomb or just plain old gun-massacre a large crowd of people waiting in line to get through airport security. Heck, don't they already bomb people waiting at security checkpoints in Iraq? Although its possible the government will be dumb enough to decide they just need another security checkpoint outside of the existing ones.
How about when some does this we jack bauer him in the back room.
Ok I worked as a policeman at a major UK airport when we had a multi-axis threat from the Middle East and Northern Ireland.
I am astonished that such a response could have been considered.
We frequently had perimeter breaches when passengers, protesters or general members of the public thought it would be a good idea, fun or political to go where they were not meant to. Our S.O.P was:
Find and detain the person using total CCTV coverage.
Ascertain the reason for the breach and from that the treat level.
From the step above the S.O.P that followed was, in 90% of the cases as follows:
Examine the high quality CCTV footage of the persons movements. (You do have high quality CCTV of all corridors and areas don’t you?)
Send in an Explosive Detection Dog (You do have them on 24 Hrs a day don’t you?) to follow the route of the intruder.
Carry on as normal.
Now this is a very simplistic synopsis of a very complex set of procedures but it expresses the mentality of the approach.
The option to close any airport or even a very small part of one was only called as part of a detailed ordered S.O.P and given the HUGE costs and resultant chaos a very last step in the process.
It seems to me that the Newark operation, both security and operations are still woefully lacking in pre-planned structured S.O.Ps
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339393752&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
This is a totally irrational argment and it is the essence of our failing health care, financial, education, transportation, etc.
The thought that someone, somewhere, must pony up obscene amounts of money to give you the illusion of safety (sometimes accompanied by an extraordinarily trivial increase in security).
But don't you dare raise my taxes.....
The very concept of freedom entails risk. The concept of "totally safe" is antithesis to the concept of "totally free".
The phrase "if it just saves only one life, it is worth any cost" is a gross straw man lacking both depth and nuance. The ends DO NOT justify the means.
Despite the recent unpleasantness at Schipol, this sort of thing doesn't occur there, because security screening is done at the gate rather than at the terminal entrance. Anyone can wander around through the terminal, but only screened passengers (for whatever that's worth) get into the gate waiting areas.
Crowded subways
- carry a lot of people, but a whole lot less than 30.000 liters of highly flammable fuel.
- don't travel at 600kph and cannot be aimed at buildings, landmarks and nuclear power plants.
- can stop at any time and throw the terrorist out.
- have hundreds of exits along the way.
- are used by more people per day than an airport sees in a week.
- have fares so cheap that an airport-like security check would cause a tenfold increase in ticket price.
- have less media value and attacks don't produce much spectacular imagery, so terrorists gain less media echo
- cannot be avoided by most of its passengers, so an attack would cause much more backlash than "usual"
To be serious: the terrorists either didn't notice or don't want to attack these targets. But let them do - a few attacks on the subway, where people cannot avoid it and have to travel daily there, with the usual Muslim perpetrators, and we make them wear "I am Muslim" badges and make them use their own goddamn planes. If we have a major Muslim attack every week, we will see that faster than you can say "Islamophobe". Because "phobia" is an irrational fear and with these things happen daily, it's no longer irrational.
Until then, I am confident that our terrorists will go after the tried and true airliner target, because the images are much more emotional and the inherent fear that many people have for air travel is a catalyst and amplifier for them.
That seems more likely to work. One of the few things that government can do effectively and competently is enforce rules by pain of fines and humiliation.
All the commenters who go on about whether it's worth it to improve airline security, how to go about it and so on, all miss the bigger story. The real answer to all this is education. Yes, every society will have a loon every now and then but the current terrorism problem is almost 100% caused by religious barbarians. We should be doing more to educate them in science and philosophy, in other words, to civilise them. Then the problem will fix itself.
People can go through door 1 into small enclosed hallway with door 2 at other end. If someone enters through door 1 without proper approval, door 1 automatically locks, door 2 remains locked, klaxons and bright red flashing lights go off, a trap door in the floor opens, and the perpetrator drops into a tank of hungry piranhas and there is no more problem.... Well, maybe no trap door with piranhas, but security violator securely detained until proper security arrives to take the perp into custody, oh and they guard that didn't stop the perp in the first place is immediately fired or arrested for endangering mothers, god, and country. Really though, in 2008, there were 13,000+ deaths directly related to or caused by drunk driving. Why is this not a national priority???
Wherever you go, there you are.
Oh, the Onion... FAA Considering Passenger Ban
Why can't
Probably isn't the smartest thing to bring attention to a security breach that you are going to do nothing about by posting it in a public forum though. Would of been smarter to not report on it if you were not going to fix it.
It is fair to say that our current war is so expensive that we might be better off to simply lose an airplane or large building once a year or so rather than fight back if money is the only consideration. Worse yet the cumulative effect of these smaller wars may well destroy the US economy. There are only so many Koreas, N. Vietnams, Somalias, Cold wars, Desert Storms etc. that we can fight without economic ruin.
For one, we have quite a bit more airlines, airports and flights than Israel's El Al (which only services three airports in the country including the only major city of Tel Aviv--very small by US standards), and therefore it is quite easy for El Al to require passenger interviews for all departures.
The high volume, multiple point-of-departure model we have is incompatible with Israel's methods; you're comparing apples to oranges and expecting the resultant juice to taste like lemonade.
Yeah, right.
Has never happened in a US city, and would likely cause immense terror if done right.
Terrorism isn't about the dead - it's about terrorizing the living - changing the way they think and live.
Observe london after that tube bombing. what did they do? Fix the tube, londoners kept on using the rest of the tube. Security was increased a bit, but not bothersome. End result? Terror plot not too effective. More people die from drunk driving accidents.
9/11 was *horrific* and sad, especially given this kind of thing doesn't happen in north america. The US & much of the world were shocked, appalled, and saddened by what happened that day.
What the US has done in response to that, however, has been pretty much a huge waste of time and money on public security theater. Hopefully behind the scenes some real intelligence work is also being done by real intelligence people, unhindered by beurocratic nonsense... but if they're doing that part right, we won't know about it.
I agree with many of your points, but please don't equal and compare murders with accidental deaths, that is ashaming the victims.
Sure, both are dead now, but there the similarities end. For murders, we have the police, homicide units, judges and jails. Hunting murderers and preventing murders is not really negotiable.
But it wasn't a terrorist, and the occasional occurrences Schneier is analysing are also not terrorism, they're just cases of travelers taking the shortest route from point a to point b, which also happens to be a prohibited route, past dozing guards or whatever. Currently, this is not a terrorist tactic and we have no reason to suspect it will become one, so it should not be treated as though it is a threat. It is just an inconvenience, and not even high on the list of inconveniences.
"I can't imagine how things could get any worse!" (some guy) "That could just be failure of imaginatioÂn on your p
19 bytes ought to do it.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
I don't think remote control luggage is going to work that well.
'mysteriously starts driving' is going to be enough to ring alarm bells, plus the drivetrain and controls would be hard to impliment, you'd need a second person to actually drive the thing, and you might have a hard time getting good sight lines. It'd be simpler and cheaper to simply have a dude sit down for a bit, then leave his luggage behind. Or engineer a distraction - have the guy be waiting in line, luggage set down, then have another approach a bit and 'Achmed, come quickly'.
I don't read AC A human right
Now they are adding hostages to their bag of extortion and black market tricks.
The sad thing about national security, let alone airline security, is that even if
any of the minions, from Janet Planet Neopolitan all the way down to the TSA
goons, had a single sheet of paper, with the aledged perp's name on it, the ONLY
name, and a message to stop him from boarding a flight to the US, nothing
would have been done, because each and every human in the US security
"animal house" does NOT have the intelligence to understand, reason, "connect
the dots", or even behave rationally, as the Newark Incident has made perfectly
clear.
Basically, the function of the Department of Homeland Security is to be the last
resort for incompents, perverts and idiots to have a job, i.e. a safe haven for
the erstwhile unemployable.