Causing Terror On the Cheap

jhigh writes "Bruce Schneier posts on his blog today about the value of terror with respect to cost-benefit for the terrorists. If you look at terror attacks in terms of what they cost the terrorists to implement, compared with what they cost the economy of the nation that was hit, the reward for terrorists is astronomical. Add in the insane costs of the security measures implemented afterward, particularly in America, and it's easy to see why the terrorists do what they do. Even when they're unsuccessful, they cost us billions in security countermeasures."

Comments

Schneier hates security theater...

[GPLDAN]

I applaud Bruce for railing against it, and Marcus Ranum too in his even more pointed criticism in his books. But what they are railing against is the military industrial complex, and their complaints have as much power as Eisenhower's at the end of his term, when he cautioned the American people not to let it take over.

Too. Late.


Guys like Richard Clarke write books about the upcoming CyberWar, they are abetted by Chinese BGP attacks that they couldn't be more thrilled about, because they have founded security firms that are already lobbying on K Street. Wake up. This is big business and the Blackwaterization of airports, the internet, the highways, it's begun and it won't stop. Not when the MSNBC poll is running 75-25 in favor of classifying Julian Assante a terrorist.


Poor Daniel Ellsberg, living long enough to see all his pentagon paper work undone in broad brushstrokes. Nixon didn't live to see the American security state flourish, he'd have been flush with joy had he lived. He and Charles Colson would have danced a little jig with Henry Kissinger, the merry assassins of democracy were simply ahead of their time.

Re:Schneier hates security theater...

[ColdWetDog]

Indeed. The problem, as always, is that we need an 'enemy'. Since the Soviet Union did us a disservice my collapsing in the 1990's the powers that be needed to find a convenient one. China? Maybe - but we are locked in an economic menage-a-tois with China, Europe and Japan (OK, that's four). We can snipe at the Chinese, just as one would do with their lover, but dissolving the relationship is going to be really hard.

Terrorists, especially Muslim terrorists, are just absolutely perfect in this regard.

Their religion is just different enough to be offensive, their culture is different enough to be offensive and they do some truly offensive things (think behavior towards women). They're small enough to never really be a threat but large enough to act like one. They have their own bat-shit insane actors (think Kadafi and Ahmadinejad). They dress funny. They talk funny. They don't like alcohol and dogs.

Just the perfect balance between being different and truly dangerous and many of them don't particularly like us.

We have always been at war with Islam (which is actually a pretty accurate statement in a number of ways). Now if they would just develop a credible space program ...

Re:Well, Duh!

[Garridan]

We've been pretty good about the whole "don't negotiate with terrorists" ideal. However, we should do one better, and "don't acknowledge terrorists". We flinch and whimper and crawl into a fetal position at the loss of a handful of lives, or, in the case of the 2009 christmas attempt, a few hairs on some idiot's scrotum.

ROI analysis of terrorism is eye-opening

[Dr. Spork]

There are places on the internet where smart people think very hard about issues like this. It turns out that the most effective terrorism is inspired by Open Source Software models, where sharing and reuse of common components improves efficiency. (It's not so strange to think of the Kalashnikov or a bomb detonator design as a piece of code.) The goal of terrorists is to de-legitimize national governments by causing them to weaken or collapse. Then, non-state entities can find a niche in the vacuum left behind. They've been incredibly effective in Mexico, Nigeria and many other places. Giant powers like the USA and the USSR are much harder beast to take down, but clearly, there is precedent.

Attitudes have changed over the years

[fantomas]

I grew up in the UK. In the 70s and 80s there were bombs going off regularly in the UK because of the situation in Northern Ireland but the response seemed to be less significant than the response to the present 'terror'. People seemed to get on with life more back then and seemed to be more pragmatic in their responses.

Anybody know why it seems like we've responded with a much greater response this time round? Because these guys are suicide bombers? People worry more? Or did we respond at about the same level last time round?

I was in London when the truck bomb blew up large parts of Canary Wharf, the people I knew who worked in the area seemed to be more concerned about checking if they should go to work the next day, if the office was still there, more than anything else.

Re:Attitudes have changed over the years

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it has to do with the fact that many fewer people in Western countries have closely experienced really terrible times like war, famine, plagues and the like. In the 60's and 70's many people had still directly experienced WWII and if not were surrounded by others that had. I think some of that perspective has been lost.

Re:Simple solution

[DrgnDancer]

Then theres the hobo's everywhere that you never know if they will try to mug you.

Meanwhile, people bitch about our right to own guns which essentially protects against this sort of thing.

The first quote explains, to an extent, why the second quote happens. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge gun control guy. I often question the usefulness of carrying a gun for the majority of people (I really don't think most people have any reasonable chance to employ a concealed weapon in most attack scenarios without getting themselves killed), but I don't question your right to do so... most of the time. Then I see stuff like this and I wonder if maybe taking away everyone's guns and giving them a blankey isn't a good idea.

Surely you must see that you are reacting to the same fear as the anti-terrorism security theater people are? The fear that some unknown "other" is going to do bad things to you for no other reason than they are different and often less fortunate? You're also reacting in exactly the same way, grabbing onto something that makes you feel like you'll be better able to protect yourself whether it'll be effective or not. A gun is not a self defense panacea. It will not protect you from "hobos" by itself. It's a tool. If you spend the necessary hours (and hours and hours) to learn to use it properly, it has some usefulness in some self defense situations. I'm not talking about a gun safety course and a few hours on the range making sure you can hit the broad side of a barn... I'm talking man-days spent working draw and fire drills, accuracy on moving targets, and accuracy while moving yourself. Plus knowing when to use these things so the guy with the already drawn weapon or his backup in the shadows don't blow you away before you accomplish anything.

Of course even if you spend the time to do it right, you're still just learning all this stuff and carrying the weapon in reaction your fear, the same as the guy who submits to the strip search is reacting to his fear of terrorist. So now we have a scared guy with a gun walking down the street waiting for the first "hobo" to act suspiciously enough to let him use it. Great. It's nearly enough to make me become a 'huge gun control guy". It really is.