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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."
Let's face it, I don't know if the Terrorists have "won", but we have surely lost. Terrorists have changed our lives, robbed us of many of our guaranteed rights and freedoms (in the US this has occurred with the aid of our government), and we are paying for it every day (and not just with dollars).
So who benefits financially?
I seem to recall a number of economists and poli sci students in the early 90s smugly telling me all about a component of the Soviet Union's cold war "loss" and economic collapse: the US making them think they had to spend more and more in the arms race with us (zomg, USA can destroy the world 10 times over, we can only do it 5 times, build more nukes comrade!). A pretty shaky social contract, to begin with, finally got kicked in the nuts one too many times. C/D?
That which does not kill us makes us... st
1. Get hired as a sales rep at a major security systems vendor
2. Find a flimsy but potential hole in the current security process of a given country (hopefully a reactive country that only fights fires when they're on their doorstep)
3. Start developing a solution for said problem
4. Hire a shady business person loosely associated with a criminal or terrorist group to orchestrate an 'act of terror' using said exploit and offer $10mil for 'security consulting' or the like
5. Start knocking on doors about selling your newly developed product
6. Wait
7. Reap the billions the gov will throw at you to make their latest problem go away
Bye!
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.
The simple answer is to stop wasting money on shit like this. Something that kills less people per year than farm animals is not something to be wasting money on. When the towers fell we should have rebuilt them 10 stories taller, and locked the cockpit door. That should have been the end of that. Instead we waste money on ineffective security and act like a bunch of Nancys.
The goal or Al Queda, is and always was to transform the Islamic world along their fundamentalist ideals. Their best idea of how to do that is convince Muslims they are under attack from a powerful outside enemy, and that Al Queda is leading the resistance. The US has played it's part in this game, from their point of view, perfectly.
Stupid, stupid, stupid US policy to take this bait.
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.
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.
I always said they should be building schools and hospitals over in Afghanistan. 20 years from now they couldn't muster enough explosives to blow their nose.
"Crazy grandpa's talking about the US being the devil again. I'm off to school with my sister!"
"Okay honey, I'll take him into the hospital and get his meds refilled."
Bring in gun registration. "No, it's totally fine to have a rocket launcher. You just have to register it first. Well, yes, if something gets blown up with a rocket we're going to come ask you where you were. Assault rifle? No problem, get an eye exam, take the gun safety course, and fill out form Q-48A and you're golden. You can pick up a rifle case at Wal-Mart."
These guys have no long-term strategy.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
An attack that is attempted but fails costs more than money.
Please note that there have been no failed terrorist attacks in the past 10 years.
Every attack achieved at least one of the objectives. Agreed, most have only achieved one of the objectives, but all have achieved the objective of having various nations make life worse for their own citizens.
No way anyone is going stand that. Everyone from the President down to the last blogger is after some blood, some scape goat, some one who can be blamed for it all, and may be sued on top of that for damages. So every damn bureaucrat is going to make sure there is enough paper trail to protect his tail seven times over.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Taking guns away is totally worth it. We aren't allowed guns here in the UK and as a result we are completely safe. Apart from the occasional terror attack. And the couple of shootings a week. And the criminals with guns. And not being able to defend yourself or your family.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.