9/11 Made Us Safer, Says Bruce Schneier

richi writes "Security guru and BT CTO Bruce Schneier discusses terrorist attacks. In fact, Bruce seems to be saying that 9/11 actually made us safer from terrorists, which seems like a curious argument. While Bruce's blog post is interesting and no doubt insightful, I'm not sure I really buy it. And what's the deal with the new rules for searching the TSA No Fly List? Why is it, in 2010, we're still mucking about with publishing database extracts and waiting hours for them to be searched? How about checking within seconds of an update? Couldn't someone volunteer to show them how to implement a reliable, scalable, NoSQL setup? Instead, the TSA plan to fix this is a classic 'big government' solution."

Comments

BRUCE NEVER SAID THAT

[Anonymous Coward]

Bruce never said 9/11 made us safer. Read his words, not the words someone put into his mouth.

Re:BRUCE NEVER SAID THAT

[ZekoMal]

"After the enormous horror and tragedy of 9/11, why have the past eight years been so safe in the U.S.?"

"If you're a representative of al-Qaida trying to make a statement in the U.S., it's much harder. You just don't have the people, and you're probably going to slip up and get caught."

If you actually read his words, he said that it's much harder to make a big statement terrorist-wise, because the longer it takes you to do it the more likely you are to get caught. He didn't literally say "The US is safer because of 9/11", but he did make the comments that post-9/11 terrorism is all about scale, and that it's harder to pull off a large scale terrorist act because of the threat of being caught.

Re:BRUCE NEVER SAID THAT

[dzfoo]

Lewis Page, of The Register, said it better, and more eloquently:
        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/08/mutallab_comment/

        Check out the second page of the article, entitled "OMG - why aren't we all already dead?"
        -dZ.

Re:BRUCE NEVER SAID THAT

[_Sprocket_]

He didn't literally say "The US is safer because of 9/11", but he did make the comments that post-9/11 terrorism is all about scale, and that it's harder to pull off a large scale terrorist act because of the threat of being caught.

Yes... that's the premise of Jennings' article. But is that the same thing as being safer?

First - you have to look at context. Schneier wasn't talking about a factor of safety. He was answering the self-imposed question "Why Aren't There More Terrorist Attacks?" From Schneier's article:

As the details of the Times Square car bomb attempt emerge in the wake of Faisal Shahzad's arrest Monday night, one thing has already been made clear: Terrorism is fairly easy. All you need is a gun or a bomb, and a crowded target. Guns are easy to buy. Bombs are easy to make. Crowded targets -- not only in New York, but all over the country -- are easy to come by. If you're willing to die in the aftermath of your attack, you could launch a pretty effective terrorist attack with a few days of planning, maybe less.

But if it's so easy, why aren't there more terrorist attacks like the failed car bomb in New York's Times Square? Or the terrorist shootings in Mumbai? Or the Moscow subway bombings? After the enormous horror and tragedy of 9/11, why have the past eight years been so safe in the U.S.?

Note that he's saying these attacks are easy (arguably no less difficult than before 9/11 - though that's my conjecture, not his). And, in fact, he even lists attacks that happened after 9/11.

The kicker to Jennings' article is that it imposes a conclusion on someone else's work that was never made. If you go back and look at a lot of Schneier's writing, he often notes that terrorism is not and has never been a major threat. And certainly not the threat that the current crop of fear-mongers make it out to be. To take Scheier's article and conclude that there has been a drastic change in the environment is a step away from claiming that everything done in the name of combating terrorism has been effective. Something else that Scheier is constantly critical of in his writings.

Re:LOL

[impaledsunset]

Did you even read the article? I know this is something despised around here, but you could at least pretend you tried. You even assert that we are more safer in your own post, after you say that we aren't. I'm not aware of any successful major terrorist attack after 9/11, if you do, will you please share it with us?

Re:Just under three thousand people would disagree

[CaptainPatent]

Man, if I had mod points I'd love to mod this up

9/11 also seemed to flare up a lot of deep-seeded racial profiling urges in a lot of people. Honestly I think we may be in a self-fulfilling prophecy scenario here.

Extremist groups of terrorists attack the country ->
The US gets very hard nosed to these terrorist groups creating an extremist backlash ->
Extremists groups of the US start treating anyone from a "threat country" as a second-class citizen ->
More citizens of that country at large become hostile towards the US in response ->
Extremist terrorist groups abroad grow in response.

Would you be particularly friendly to a foreign nation coming in and telling you how to run your government? Just curious.

I buy it

[calmofthestorm]

Pre 9/11:
Plane hijacker: Open the cockpit
Pilot: Ok
*passengers cower in fear*

Post 9/11:
Plane hijacker: Open the cockpit
Pilot: I'm sorry, I can't, the door cannot be opened until we are on the ground
*passengers storm the hijackers*

It used to be you played real friendly with hijackers in a hostage situation. Now we know better. We didn't need to change a thing to keep 9/11 from happening again. As much as I'm a critic of many of the anti-terror changes, though, some just make sense (bullet-proof cockpit doors so air marhsells can shoot into them, locking the doors during flight, pilots carrying guns, etc)

On a semi-related note, a friend of mine's father is an airplane pilot. A few years ago, he was going through the security checkpoint. So he hands the TSA agent his gun and goes through the procedure. On the other side, the agent hands back his gun, and says "I'm sorry, sir, I need to confiscate your shampoo"..."you do know I'm a pilot right? And you just handed me a loaded gun?"..."I know sir, please don't make it any more ridiculous than it already is"

Not a big government solution!

[Goobermunch]

The reason it takes so long to check the list is that the airlines are not giving the manifest data back to the TSA. The TSA updates the lists, but it doesn't have access to the manifests, so it cannot check. Instead, the airlines check the lists whenever they chose, but no less than every two (previously eight) hours.

The big government solution would be to compel the airlines to provide the data to the TSA, which can then check the manifests against the lists as the data comes in. But privacy advocates and European governments are opposed to giving the "big government" real time access to people's travel plans. The government has been willing to accept the current system as a compromise.

Ultimately, the question is whether you want to allow the private sector to actually perform the no fly list reconciliation and keep your data relatively secret, or whether you want the government to be able to instantly identify people on the no fly list, but have access to your movements via air travel.

The choices are not great, and I won't express my preferences.

--AC

NoSQL? Waittaminute

[Tablizer]

Couldn't someone volunteer to show them how to implement a reliable, scalable, NoSQL setup?

If you don't have A.C.I.D., then you are in political hot-water if one slips away. It's one thing to lose a random face-book image, but a terrorism flag is another. A big-ass Oracle or IBM-DB2 can do the job if you pay enough for tuning.

Re:Just under three thousand people would disagree

[rtfa-troll]

The thing is, that this is a stupid straw man argument that's been put into Schneier's mouth. 9/11 may or may not have made "us" more likely to be killed in terrorist attacks. However terrorist attacks are almost completely irrelevant to the lives of anyone living anywhere except for Iraq. If you've read Bruce's blog, it's pretty clear that he believes 9/11 and more importantly the over-reaction to it in the USA has made pretty much everyone less safe. Just one statistic: more people have died travelling by car to avoid travelling in a plane through dislike of the TSA than died during the 9/11 attack. More importantly, taking away freedom has reduced our security because often the government can be the biggest threat. Since people no longer know what their rulers are doing it is more difficult to make sure they do the right thing.

Re:LOL

[Daniel_Staal]

Actually, no, that's not what he's saying.

He's got several points, but the one the second article mangles is a two-parter: (A) A big attack like 9/11 is hard to organize and pull together successfully, without getting caught along the way. (Mostly due to old-fashioned police work, or just the fact that one of you suicide-attackers-in-training might come to the realization that they can actually live this life usefully. And that's assuming you managed to find enough of them in the first place.) (B) No smaller attack is likely to make an impression on the people you need to impress.

So, basically, he's saying is that terrorism has become an all-or-nothing proposition: Either you pull of something spectacular, or you fail. And the more spectacular you try to be, the more likely you are to fail before you get to the point where you pull anything off.

Re:Just under three thousand people would disagree

[hedwards]

That's shocking, who wouldn't like to have virtual strip searches, specious claims that they're on some sort of mythical no fly list or be hassled because they look vaguely middle eastern?

We've lost sight of the fact that the money we're flushing down the toilet on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and TSA bullshit could be much better spent on other things. Such as crime prevention programs, education and making various corporations live up to necessary safety standards. More people have died in the last 9 years in non-terrorist plane crashes than in terrorist cause plane crashes. While that doesn't suggest that we can rest on our laurels, what it does suggest is that perhaps the money would be better spent in other ways. Fixing real problems rather than pushing them elsewhere. Especially efforts that blatantly violate the US constitution.

Re:Just under three thousand people would disagree

[thesandtiger]

Absolutely.

If terrorism was such a threat to the US, there would have been hundreds of minor, soft-target attacks on US soil. There are dozens of ways I can think of, off the top of my head, for a single individual to kill dozens/hundreds of americans without actually putting their life at risk. Why aren't terrorists leaving cars packed with explosives outside of Starbucks, daycare centers, shopping malls, sporting events and any other place where people routinely go? Why haven't suicide bombers run screaming into the HUGE crowds that are waiting to get through the security checkpoints at airports?

I'll tell you why: There simply just isn't an interest in doing that kind of thing. Or, I should say, not much of an interest. Right now, if I wanted to - if I really had a bug up my ass and was willing to do something about it - I could go out and kill dozens to hundreds of people - for less than $200 bucks by renting a car and plowing into a crowd of people on a busy sidewalk in my city. The fact that we don't have people doing this kind of thing *at all (except for maybe Fort Hood)* let alone all the time shows me exactly how much of a threat terrorism isn't.