Slashdot Mirror
Istanbul Attack: A Grim Reminder Of Why Airports Are Easy Targets (firstpost.com)
An anonymous reader shares a FirstPost article:Even as I write this the echo of gunfire continues at Ataturk International Airport. For reasons that defy logic, Istanbul's main airport has always been seen as a vulnerable target which only underscores the fact that all airports in the world are open to attack and fail-safe is not a viable option. At Ataturk, security is usually high, but the weak underbelly lies in vehicular traffic entering the airport being given cursory checks, pretty much like most airports which is why President Erdogan was able to say this sort of attack could have occurred anywhere. That is true. Airports are easy targets. That even though Turkey was aware of the chinks nothing much was done to up the security levels. If you take Delhi International as a prime example, the access to the terminal is scarcely blockaded and one can reach the entry points with ease, crossing a couple of indolent checkpoints and a roller fence. (Editor's note: the article has been written by an Indian author, and so he uses an Indian airport as an example.) Indian airports are as porous as a sponge. Most of our airports are red-starred which places them in the inadequate category. Add to that the fact that several thousand VIPs are given privileges that make a pudding out of security and it indicates how easy peasy it would be to amble up to the terminal entrance. The weakness primarily lies in the absence of X-Rays and deterrent technology on approach. You practically can check in and get to immigration before being cleared for hazardous material.
"The weakness primarily lies in the absence of X-Rays and deterrent technology on approach. "
No. Adding xrays just moves where people will be lined up.
Look, if you make all airports safe from terrorist attack, the terrorists attack malls, or office buildings, or schools. So making airports safe from terrorist attack is something only a MORON does. It isn't worth it.
Airports are not particularly important, the way that airplanes are.
The danger with planes is not that they are connected with air travel, but that there is little difference between a airplane and a guided missile. A guided missile that the terrorists did not pay for and could not afford, but can be used to attack another buildings.
Any idiot that tries to protect airports from generic terrorists attacks is a fool, wasting our money because they have no idea of the difference between a high priority target and a low priority one.
Airplanes are high priority targets and need to be protected. Airports are low priority targets that should not be heavily protected, except to prevent people from gaining access to the planes.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
No matter how far from the airport you put the security, if there is a crowd in line outside that security point, it's vulnerable to attack. The only way to make this impossible is to have a sufficient number of checkpoint personnel that there is never a line. Which is expensive. Too bad.
Just look at SFO or ORD on a busy holiday weekend. The useless TSA clowns make people stand in serpentine lines with hundreds of people all bunched up waiting to take off their shoes and belts and spread their legs for the obedience ritual. A perp could easily get to the center of that mass of people and do just as much damage as they could by crashing an airplane.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
To bring down a murderous nut-cult, you have to do what the Brits did to the Thuggee. You have to infiltrate them, identify their leaders, and kill them. If the Brits had been worried about offending the peaceful worshippers of Kali, India would STILL be plagued by ritual murders today.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Nor is it on Wired, TechDirt, Gizmodo, TheVerge, etc.
( Hint: Because general news like Jihiadi-Bob blowing themselves up or shooting up a bus full of nuns really isn't what those sites typically report on )
It would be had the attackers used some interesting technological method to carry out their attack. Readers of sites like /. are interested in the what
and the how, not the why. You want the why, CNN, Fox or any number of other sites will be full of theories I'm sure.
President Erdogan was able to say this sort of attack could have occurred anywhere.
Well, technically it could have occurred anywhere. But it really helps people to target you if you are working towards a totalitarian state, with an emphasis on religion no less. Also, if you consider an oppressed minority as "terrorists" for long enough, don't be surprised when they start acting like terrorists (although the Kurdish militants usually have government-related targets - so this looks more like the "classic" IS terrorists).
The weakness primarily lies in the absence of X-Rays and deterrent technology on approach.
Yeah, Einstein, and when they target the queues behind those X-Rays machines, we will add new machines at a 5km distance... and when they target THOSE queues, we will....
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
what about Constantinople?
I can't understand the focus of increasing security in airports, or at train or bus stations. Hospitals, shopping malls, places of worship are all even more porous as far as targets go and most people frequent them far more often than getting on a plane. As a consultant that's not the case for me, but I'd still like to see security streamlined (largely removed) at airports.
So why all the focus on travel? Because increasing government security at these points allows control and tracking of its citizens. It has little to do with actual safety...
... Society is becoming increasingly uninhabitable because some people can't seem to get it through their heads that a society is not just a question of whom you allow in but whom you do not allow in. All these assholes are getting flagged by the intelligence agencies and no one does anything because they don't want to appear racist. The guy in Orlando was reported to the FBI directly by people twice for being a dangerous psychopath. And response? Nada. Keep it up. You're just winding the political rubber band tighter and tighter. Its going to be hilarious when people have finally had enough and it snaps.
I know I know... an endless procession of troll ACs are going to tell me what a bad person I am for pointing out the fucking obvious. Keep it up, chumps. You're just doubling down on stupid at this point.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Constantinople got the Works!
Until the government and media will stop being politically correct and admit that Islamic doctrine is the root cause of terrorism, no progress will be made. Mohammed is Islam's example of the perfect man to mimic in every aspect of life and at all times. Mohammed was a conqueror and taught the doctrine of jihad. Islamic jihad won't end until the whole world converts to Islam or is dead. I don't know what the solution is. Perhaps a reformation like what Christianity went through.
Number one weakness in the US is the Screening point. These three bombers visit any major airport at peak travel times, wait until they are well into the queue and then detonate and you have hundreds dead without firing a shot. They decide to shoot even deadlier results because those with guns are blocked away from them by the mass of people lined up waiting to be screened. Then there is the liquid limit which requires large trash cans right next to the lines, trash cans full of bottles of random liquids, that just might decide to blow up. Once through security it's a bit better because most people in there have been screened to some degree.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Nor is it on Wired, TechDirt, Gizmodo, TheVerge, etc.
( Hint: Because general news like Jihiadi-Bob blowing themselves up or shooting up a bus full of nuns really isn't what those sites typically report on
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters.
This site has "always" covered non-technology related things that fall into category two. Sorry you don't like that, but you know, if it's such a problem, you could simply not bother to spend the time to click on the links, post comments, etc in the stories you don't like. Posts like yours decrease the signal to noise ratio.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Recall that about 6 months after the Oklahoma City bombing, train tracks were sabotaged in this country, which derailed and crashed a train. The perpetrators left a note at the scene, but AFAICT were never caught.
And note that we're currently putting the fire out in a train crash somewhere in the Texas Panhandle, but the cause hasn't yet been determined. (Meaning: we should keep an eye on this, it might be a terrorist attack.)
Lots of US infrastructure is wide open and vulnerable to terrorist attack, yet we spend enormous effort on security theatre at the airports. Our governments implement a massive spying apparatus with the excuse that it combats terrorism, but they don't bother to infiltrate groups that are likely to do it.
And the people they manage to catch with surveillance are sad losers who couldn't manage to pull off the attack without FBI urging and guidance.
We do security theatre very well in this country.
Just 'sayin.
When you fly out of Israel's Ben Gurion Airport (at least when I did 10 years ago), you first have to stop at a Godfather-style tollbooth about a mile from the terminal. There, about four soldiers with automatic surround your car while a fifth sticks a mirror on a big pole underneath, looking for bombs. I think they looked inside the trunk too. Once you get to the main terminal, before you can enter the doors, you're stopped by another armed soldier who asks you what you're doing there, where you are headed, etc. All the while, they're looking at you to see if you appear suspicious in any way. Once inside, you go through more traditional security, except you have to open your bags and show them everything you have. They're specifically interested in asking you about anything you bought in Israel, who you got it from, where, etc. All the while, the security folks are comparing notes. If there's something wacky or suspicious about you or your story, then that triggers additional "interrogations."
Since the Lod massacre in 1972, Israel has not suffered another terrorist attack against their airports or planes because they decided to take real precautions to prevent them. The rest of the world (for now) chooses not to follow their model.
whose business is that, anyway?
Why should there be. This isn't a general news site. Such often gets onto /. but not normally. However a discussion of the vulnerabilities of airports as a result of the attack is a natural topic for /.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
What happened? Did he give Daesh too many weapons and is now upset they are biting the hand that fed them during their formative years? Since the enemy of my enemy is my lover, shouldn't Erdogan be embracing the Kurds. If he had a strong, friendly Kurdestan on his border instead of those naughty Daesh, he'd have less to worry about. Erdogan doesn't want that because then he'd not have a reason to kill off democracy in Turkey. If we took off his skin, we'd find Putin underneath. And underneath Putin's skin we'd find Erdogan....an infinite descending chain of Russian matryoshka dolls that would end in Dante's 7th level for the Turks and the Russians.
But the reality is that incidents like this are almost an everyday occurrence. We're averaging about one terrorist incident per day this year (see a month-by-month breakdown), including shootings, suicide bombings, and vehicular attacks. Several a month have comparable death tolls to this latest Istanbul attack. It just isn't a big enough event to warrant it being on slashdot; non-tech "stuff that matters" can't be stuff that happens every day. If the death toll was in the hundreds, then maybe.
Oh no... it's the future.
airports are equipped to sort out hijackers and shoe bombers. they prevent you from taking out 300 people plus collateral casulties on the ground with box cutters or .22 handguns.
the security plan is to keep the rabble out of the service and departure areas, and from running across the runway with signs. this forces them out to the perimeter and outside.
that's all that billions and billions of dollars, plus allowing people to actually get in, get on planes, and go elsewhere, can do. a van full of nutbars could do the same thing in Tel Aviv, even though security on El Al is tighter than that to see the Prime Minister.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
and terrorists only seek to use one in a public place as they can get their schytte together to glorify in their cause. they have taken malls, finish lines of marathons, and opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Atlanta to do... nothing concrete.
if they would just settle down, elect a government, get into the UN, derive treaties, and become suits pushing their agenda, they would get someplace. this bang-bang blow-em-up does not affect any countable number of people directly, just the hundred or so in the gunsights.
my chances of dying from a falling star are greater.
screw 'em.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Depends on your religion.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Everything matters to someone, somewhere.
The question is does the subject matter to enough folks to report on it. Especially if it isn't in line with what the site typically reports on.
The tech behind preventing such things ? Sure. The fact that another bomber / gunman did their thing. . . not so much.
Interesting to note that the left wing talking heads are ignoring this one. It not helping at all with their gun grabbing agenda.
We understand perfectly that the right way to handle ISIS and Iran is to maintain the Sunni/Shia stalemate until they have beaten the fight out of each other. The fact they hate each other doesn't make either side 'good guys'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Because radical Muslims killing other Muslims breaks that stereotype of "All Muslims are bad, mmmkay?" I mean, clearly, the fact that these terrorists are targeting people of the same religion... we can't spread that around, it might make people think that "holy shit, it's actually not about religion."
You may be correct that not all Muslims are "bad," but your reasoning fails. When Hitler attacked Stalin, that hardly made Stalin a good guy -- contemporaneous USA propoganda notwithstanding.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Terrorism has nothing to do with maximizing collateral damage and everything to do with fear and terror. Killing a metric shit-ton of people is one way to do that, but anything done with the intent of inciting fear and terror in the general public is an act of terrorism. For example, walking around a crowded venue and firing a gun into the crowd; or telling people that all gun owners want to do this.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Actually it did. A cop shot one of them before he could do anything. Try again troll.
Why they changed it, I can't say.
Well, I've read news articles fairly regularly about how high-ups are getting taken down, however the problem in general seems to be that they're easily replaces. Hell, we've even traded one terrorist organisation (Al Quieda) for another (ISIS), so I'm not really sure that there's anything centralised enough to take out.
Hell, even if there were mostly gathered together in some small country and you dropped a bomb on the whole thing, that wouldn't solve many of the recent issues as they've been perpetrated by radicalised locals, and not foreign visitors/immigrants.
Look, some of us have CTO experience. Bunching people up in long lines before they pass through security screening is just asking for an attack.
Excessively slow screening is also a major problem.
You're doing it wrong. The real risk factor is the insane added security theatre, which actually makes you all more at risk.
Do it in stages. Screen people getting off the transit systems, don't allow vehicles near where people concentrate, and stop with the stupid long lines that wrap around themselves. Putting 500 people in a small space before the actual security check is just an Epic Fail no matter what your excuse for it was.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Turkey is a sovereign nation. They can name their cities whatever they want. Quit trying to tell Turkey what their own cities are called.
It's nobody's business but the Turks'.
Or, even if it is about religion, it's about divisions in the religion which doesn't fit into the "all Muslims are the same and are all blood-thirsty terrorists come to kill you so ban 'em all" narrative. Worse (for the right-wing talking heads), it sympathizes Muslims which turns them into *gasp* ACTUAL PEOPLE instead of some shadowy enemy to fear and hate.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The question is does the subject matter to enough folks to report on it. Especially if it isn't in line with what the site typically reports on.
AFAIK, the most commented post in the history of this site only "mattered" to two people: Taco and his (soon to be) wife. Your argument has been hashed and rehashed for almost two decades at this point, and the answer continues to be the same: "don't like it? don't read it." Don't like political stories? Then turn them off. Don't like posts from certain users? Set them as foes and give them an automatic -6. Don't like that the character of the site is, in general, USA centric? Tough shit, it's a US based site with US based administrators (I refuse to use the word "editor) and its character reflects that.
Simple idea: if it's such a burden to read about people getting blown up overseas, don't click the story. Don't write a post about it. If it's wasting your time, then why the hell are you wasting your time?
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I guess people have to stop believing war "makes us safer" and that war "saves lives". Guess what? We're finding out the reverse is true. Big damn surprise.
It's been a HALF DECADE, flying frighteningly fast since like half the countries in the region have pursued some stupid scheme to try to get the president of Turkey's neighbouring country killed. Stop trying to make Syria "safe" from itself. You've "save lived" from the brutal tyrant's claws enough.
Dumbfucks.
What if this happened in say the US, perpetrated by Canadians and their Alaskans and Greenlandic sympathizers?, while the US, France and Britain try to get the Canadian prime minister killed and keep sending weekly container ships of weapons to Canada.
Well, after five years try to stop doing stupid shit like that.
Your Canadians and Alaskans happen to spill over and do whatever they've been used to do for so long but in an inconvenient place, that's all. And Russia is sort of barely holding a portion the mess, working with the Canadian military, at the invitation of the Canadian governement. They were across Sarah Palin's house, afterall.
Constantinople got the WHOOOOSH!!
Destroying stuff is always easy. People are easily panicked and the media stokes that panic at every turn. If terrorism was a real problem that killed more than a handful of people then we should focus on it. As it stands far more people are killed by mundane yet far more likely events like car accidents and medical mistakes. Yet we obsess over statistically unlikely events like terrorism or mass shootings. Think of it this way - the police kill far more people per year than the terrorists. I wish the funding for problems was in direct proportion to the number of deaths and injuries the problem causes each year. Then we could drop the "War on Terror" and focus on real problems.
It'll always be good ole Byzantium to me!
Pretty much this.
Try to keep them from harming us, but other than that just let them do in their country whatever they want.
Going into other countries to "help" them never helps anything.
You have to let people fight out their problems on their own.
It's all about entitlement. People seem to think that everything should conform to their tastes instead of them expending any effort to look somewhere else.
Yep, I was just about to make a similar comment..that it is, sadly...getting to be almost to the point of background noise that it is happening so often.
I am surprised, however, that after this attack, there wasn't an immediate reaction by Obama and Hillary to ban guns in the US again....and maybe even bombs too.
{BAEG}
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Why they changed it, I can't say....
People just liked it better that WAAAAAYYYY....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam. Why'd the change it? I can't say. Maybe people just liked it better that way?
Never start vast projects with half-vast ideas.
As soon as the technological means are there, universal surveillance will happen. One thing that human beings want is security, and we know from psychological studies that large population groups will put up with inconvenience - even punish themselves to some degree, financially, socially, etc. - to assure personal safety. Given that universal surveillance is going to happen, we need to start looking for ways to make it transparent, to prevent abuse. Nobody is talking about that; nobody is considering the possibility that universal surveillance might be more a good thing (with problems) than a bad thing (which everyone always assumes it will be, without qualification).
He attended Penasquitos Lutheran Church with his family, according to the church's pastor.[21][22]
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"it indicates how easy peasy it would be to amble up to the terminal entrance. The weakness primarily lies in the absence of X-Rays and deterrent technology on approach. You practically can check in and get to immigration before being cleared for hazardous material.
"These gunmen just strolled up to an entry point and began firing randomly into the crowd.
No matter where the security scanning checkpoints are, there will always be queues of people waiting to go through them. This will always present a soft target.
A law enforcement officer with a gun is considerably different from a random good guy with a gun. The officer is trained to respond to problems, and can afford to make a mistake.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean... neither more nor less"
I read this somewhere.
Fix This http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
Casteism
Just move along to a topic which interests you.
You might as well have just suggested he stick his nuts in a lion's face.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
The fact that you're so butthurt about losing to me over and over again that you feel you need to stalk me on this site in a vain attempt to get one over on me... is really all that needs to be said here.
You made some really stupid arguments... as typical of AC fuckwits... and I slapped your stupid ass down. I don't remember it being especially difficult. You're not very clever. And rather than take that as a learning experience... here you are making dumb insult posts.
As to bad faith, he attempted to conflate redefined terms. That is text book sophistry. I offered to go through a process that would allow us to have a discussion without his sophistry operating and he refused. We can the discussion. He just has to define his terms and then we'll use those. If he attempts to conflate new definitions with old ones then I'll stop him and point out the contradiction.
You can't win here, sport. I have being right on my side.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I'm talking to the sad AC that thinks he's doing anything besides make my epeen harder by stalking me.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
+5 on my comment. AC Troll = 0.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Don't make appeals to the crowd when you're outvoted.
It makes you sound stupid. You're compounding a fallacious argument on top of being wrong even if that fallacy were relevant.
Literally... Stupid.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I didn't start. I finished you. You never had a point. As to confirming things... any twit can declare victory and then run away.
So, do that... No one expects an AC to join a discussion, say something retarded, then run away like a coward.
That never happens guys.
Way to break the mold.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Doubling down on stupid doesn't save your position.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.