Schneier speaks: The limited value of airplane security measures

Schneier is the wise man of security — both cyber and wetworld. In a few terse paragraphs he outlines the issues and dismisses much of the conventional reasoning about the liquid bomb attack. Emphases mine.

Crypto-Gram: August 15, 2006

... Last Week's Terrorism Arrests

Hours-long waits in the security line. Ridiculous prohibitions on what you can carry on board. Last week's foiling of a major terrorist plot and the subsequent airport security changes graphically illustrates the difference between effective security and security theater.

None of the airplane security measures implemented because of 9/11 -- no-fly lists, secondary screening, prohibitions against pocket knives and corkscrews -- had anything to do with last week's arrests. And they wouldn't have prevented the planned attacks, had the terrorists not been arrested. A national ID card wouldn't have made a difference, either.

Instead, the arrests are a victory for old-fashioned intelligence and investigation. Details are still secret, but police in at least two countries were watching the terrorists for a long time. They followed leads, figured out who was talking to whom, and slowly pieced together both the network and the plot.

The new airplane security measures focus on that plot, because authorities believe they have not captured everyone involved. It's reasonable to assume that a few lone plotters, knowing their compatriots are in jail and fearing their own arrest, would try to finish the job on their own. The authorities are not being public with the details -- much of the "explosive liquid" story doesn't hang together -- but the excessive security measures seem prudent.

But only temporarily. Banning box cutters since 9/11, or taking off our shoes since Richard Reid, has not made us any safer. And a long-term prohibition against liquid carry-on items won't make us safer, either. It's not just that there are ways around the rules, it's that focusing on tactics is a losing proposition.

It's easy to defend against what terrorists planned last time, but it's shortsighted. If we spend billions fielding liquid-analysis machines in airports and the terrorists use solid explosives, we've wasted our money. If they target shopping malls, we've wasted our money. Focusing on tactics simply forces the terrorists to make a minor modification in their plans. There are too many targets -- stadiums, schools, theaters, churches, the long line of densely packed people in front of airport security -- and too many ways to kill people.

Security measures that attempt to guess correctly don't work, because invariably we will guess wrong. It's not security, it's security theater: measures designed to make us feel safer but not actually safer.

Airport security is the last line of defense, and not a very good one at that. Sure, it'll catch the sloppy and the stupid -- and that's a good enough reason not to do away with it entirely -- but it won't catch a well-planned plot. We can't keep weapons out of prisons; we can't possibly keep them off airplanes ...

As you can guess by the excessive bolding, I am under Schneier’s sway. I particularly liked the comment about “we can’t keep weapons out of prisons”. Individual prisoners may not be terribly creative, but they share the human power of the evolving gestalt.

Schneier makes a point here that I think is new for him. He mentions “the sloppy and the stupid”. I think most of us have worried about the threat from smart terrorists (that’s a human flaw — we imagine everyone is like us …). I think what we missed is that, until now, the talent pool of al Qaeda has been shallow. A passion for the Dark Ages, an inclination to suicide, and the emnity of a lot of wealthy nations has probably discouraged smarter killers. We do need to maintain a core set of “security theater” for the sloppy and the stupid — of which there are many.

I fear that Bush’s incompetence is recruiting a smarter set of terrorists — at least Hezbollah class. My 9/01 scenarios were really wrong, so chances are I’m still wrong …

Fortune cookie quote

This showed up in my fortune cookie:

Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.

Allegedly by Truman Capote? I suspect an earlier source, but I couldn't turn up a good reference. I think they're both right.

Infectious obesity: fattening the calf

The one thing missing from modern descriptions of obesity is "free will". That's good. Free will is an important deception, but it has little explanatory power.

Lately we've moved beyond the obvious environmental influences (600 calorie vending machine snacks that are claimed to hold "4 servings", neighborhoods without sidewalks, mega-schools) and genetics to focus on more obscure environmental influences, such as sleep practices and infection ...

Fat Factors - New York Times

... Gordon [jf: no relation] says he is still far from understanding the relationship between gut microflora and weight gain. “I wish you were writing this article a year from now, even two years from now,” he told me. “We’re just beginning to explore this wilderness, finding out who’s there, how does that population change, which are the key players.” He says it will be a while before anyone figures out what the gut microbes do, how they interact with one another and how, or even whether, they play a role in obesity. And it will be even longer before anyone learns how to change the microflora in a deliberate way.

A few months ago I posted that several human adenvorisuses are believed to induce adiposity in some animals. Now bacteria, our worldly overlords, are in the spotlight. It's a tangled web indeed.

What's in it for the bacteria? Well, they do eat us when we die. The fatter the host, the finer the feeding ...

This is bad. Using inmates in drug trials.

This is reallly bad.

Panel Suggests Using Inmates in Drug Trials - New York Times

An influential federal panel of medical advisers has recommended that the government loosen regulations that severely limit the testing of pharmaceuticals on prison inmates, a practice that was all but stopped three decades ago after revelations of abuse...

Who the hell was on this panel? The article is unclear. I think it was an IOM panel, and allegedly their primary criteria was benefit to the prisoners. This will go down as one of the IOM's biggest blunders; they're usually better than this. Professor Kligman, in particular, suffers from a utilitarian fallacy -- please take him off the Penn medical ethics committee.

Recruiting for phase I trials (safety trials) is a really hot potato. One of these trials just killed (they're walking deadmen) five UK citizens, all of whom shared rather poor judgment. Doing these trials ethically is going to greatly increase the cost of drug development -- we'll have to do more primate studies (getting the ethics right there as well - it can be done), more simulations, and we'll have to forget about "volunteers" and start paying professional testers boatloads of money to take significant risks for significant payoffs.

This will come to tears.

Another reader suspects the Economist might be in decline

Tim Bray suspects something's amiss with the Economist. He's a bit late to the party -- the decline began in the mid-90s and it's been in the mud for years. I'm giving it a rest for a year or so.

He'll figure it out eventually ....

MySpace: So what's there?

Myspace seemed to have enough zeitgeist to it that I decided to sign up. Lest anyone get the wrong idea, my profile has my DOB in 1910, my build as "extra pounds", and my wife and daughter in my 'to meet' list.

I can now reveal the shocking, astounding and unexpected news that MySpace is all about recreational encounters. The more information you provide, the more "friends" appear in your network. I thought there'd be some interesting web 2.0 technology, but it's very much web 1.0.

Other than the lack of Ajaxity, the other surprise was that you can't readily display your real name. First and last names are private.

My kids are too young for this stuff, but I can see I need to catch up on my Gibson security podcasts. In a few years I'll be wanting some fairly sophisticated traffic analysis software ... (Cell phones, what cell phones?)

john

Cataclysmic change: Faughnan.com dog picture changes

A change of this magnitude should not go unremarked.

In addition to the Gordon's Notes and Gordon's Tech blogs, I have ten + year old personal web site: http://faughnan.com. It changes little these days, I maintain a few of the more popular pages every few monhts. One item that's been slow to update is the main page picture, which for 10 years was my dog Molly. Molly went wherever we all go about two years ago, but only now has her heir appeared. Kateva is now the iconic representative of my ancient site. Happily she's relatively young.

Why do (some) humans hate democracy?

Conversely, why do some love tyrants rather than futile blogging about authoritarian trends?

Ocrinus reviews the literature.. Alas, there's not that much science to the review, but it is illustrative. Evolutionary anthropology is probably a better explanatory source.

Ten cosmologies and Theory 10

I agree with FMH. Theory 10 is oddly persuasive; there's something to be said for explaining the bizarre features of our universe as computational artifacts.

Theory 10 is, of course, fundamentally indistinguishable from the 'omnipotent deity' explanation, that should warm the hearts of the Creationists.

Incidentally, one must give due credit to the last 15 years of science fiction writing, which has explored many aspects of 'life in a simulation'. One of my favorites featured a simulation-within-a-simulation-within-etc. The very alien inhhabitants of the ultimate simulation went to immense lengths to explain their fundamentally illogical universe, much to the amusement of those who'd created the simulation. Incredibly they finally produced an internally consistent explanation of their odd cosmology; their solution propagated outside the simulation and destroyed the host universe ...

Minneapolis is a civilized town

Today my son demonstrated an unprecedented interest in the unequalled Minneapolis riverside dog park, just south of Minnehaha park. Hours passed, and we blew through our parking meter time.

When we returned I saw the pink ticket, and remembered, too late, that our spot was metered. To my astonishment, however, the ticket was an offer I could not refuse. I could pay $35 for the ticket, or $28 for a one year park pass:

Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board - Parking

...Effective May 27, 2006 , the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) is issuing administrative tickets for parking violations. First-time offenders have the option to purchase a $27 Annual Patron Parking Permit and save $8 rather than pay the $35 parking citation.

Annual Parking Permit Option

First time parking offenders may choose to purchase a $27 Annual Parking Permit or pay the $35 administrative ticket. Purchase of the Annual Parking Permit requires that payment of $27 must accompany the ticket, be made in the ticket envelope and received within seven days. Payment must be made by mail or in person:

Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board
2117 West River Road , Minneapolis , 55411

Wow. This is so civilized. Parking fees are an entirely reasonable user fee system, and this is a most elegant extensions of this. I live in St. Paul, but I have to admit Minneapolis has its own style.

I'll see if they'll let me get two passes, normally that's the base rate plus another $10.

Never apologize

The Japanese, at least in theory, had a culture of responsibility, where senior leaders apologized for errors in judgment. Sometimes the apologies were gruesome.

I don't think Charles Krauthammer should commit Seppuku, but an apology would be nice. Kudoes to Crooked Timber:

Crooked Timber: Credibility problems

... But even better to my mind, was Krauthammer’s confident judgement on Iraq WMDs back in April 2003.

...Hans Blix had five months to find weapons. He found nothing. We’ve had five weeks. Come back to me in five months. If we haven’t found any, we will have a credibility problem.

Krauthammer is now advocating military action against Iran.

Bics and bump keys: innovation diffusion

Innovation diffusion studies were popular in the 1980s. How do new techniques, new methods, move through a population? I don't hear much about it any more, perhaps because diffusion has accelerated substantially.

Crooks have quickly learned how to steal "theftproof" cars (manufacturers left "back doors" for mechanics and for internal use). A few years ago the internet had demonstrations of opening bike locks with a Bic pen -- a vast number of locks had to be replaced.

Now it's the household lock. The newest innovation in breaking and entry is the use of the (Future Feeder) � Bump key. A set of 9 or so specially cut keys, combined with a light hammer blow and a quick twist, will open the vast majority of household locks. The methods leaves no sign of entry, so you may simply discover your diamond tiara is gone -- but nothing else is touched. Might be hard to get a claim paid ...

New locks will come along. The interesting bit to me is the speed of diffusion. Car theft, lock picking, blowing up planes -- new techniques are deployed quickly.

Leiberman lost on the merits

He wasn’t defeated by a conspiracy of loons. He deserved to lose.

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: Was David Broder Always *This* Stupid?

... Not true. A switch of two percent of the voting electorate would have given Joe Lieberman a victory. If Joe Lieberman had announced that he was going to live or die by the result of the Democratic primary, spent his $2 million in the bank on the primary, and gotten all the extra Democratic politicians who would have been happy to campaign with him under those conditions into the state--he would have won. If Lieberman had made up his mind whether Lamont was really a Republican from Greenwich or a tool of the far left that believes Osama bin Laden is not a threat, he would have won. If Lieberman had been willing to talk this spring about how Bush could handle the situation in the Middle East better--he would have won. If Lieberman had been willing to call for mass resignations from the Bush administration for failed implementation--he would have won.

Lieberman had to work very hard to lose this one. In claiming that "it was clear" that Lamont would prevail, David Broder is simply being a very rare species of idiot. ...

One of the reasons I don’t subscribe to the NYT Select is so I don’t have to worry about accidental exposure to Broder, who’s far more irritating than Ann Coulter. Ann is a self-referential parody and loon, but Broder is a brainy moron. Ok, so the Times Select also costs $50, which is a lot to pay for Value = (Krugman) – (Broder+Friedman).

Talent, terrorism and the shoulders of giants

Yesterday I wrote (Gordon's Notes: 8/09: How talented is this group?) that I thought the talent level of al Qaeda’s team has been pretty low the past five years.

I'm looking forward to learning more about the current crop of suspects (some of whom will likely turn out to be innocent); particularly how many have engineering or science degrees from serious institutions, etc. That will tell us if George Bush's al Qaeda recruitment strategy is bearing fruit. If it turns out that this is a talented bunch then we have to give even more credit to Pakistani, UK and US counter-terrorism efforts. Given the size of the conspiracy, however, I suspect they’re dolts. No-one with any brains would launch an effort that big from the United Kingdom.

Today I give credit to two recent public radio shows for emphasizing another part of the talent puzzle. One show was part of a superb series on supermax prisons and solitary confinement, the other was an interview this morning with a remarkable counter-terrorism expert. I wish the latter kept a blog ...

First the supermax. The inmates at supermax prisons are not generally known for their creativity, insight, or intelligence. So I was surprised by the range of ingenious and lethal techniques they deployed to support violence, commerce, and recreation. A handful of innovators, combined with modern and traditional communication channels, intense motivation and ample time to scheme, and memetic selection, have delivered advanced techniques to the average prisoner. These men and women stand on "the shoulder of (nasty) giants".

Then the counter-terrorism specialist. He pointed out that a large range of modern terrorist methodologies seem to have been developed by a few unfortunately talented IRA engineers and specialists. Their techniques and technologies, developed during the 1950s to 1980s (perhaps with some KGB help as well?) have been widely disseminated though print and spoken methods (I’m sure the net helps too). Apparently some of this team continues to work gainfully in South America (guess where?), though it’s not clear how inventive they are nowadays. Terrorists too have shoulders to stand on.

So the British terrorists (they were British citizens and terrorists, so they’re British terrorists) may have been executing a derivative attack, and they may have been dolts, but a lot of knowledge has been packaged to a point that even dolts can execute it. Process improvement, knowledge management, and the falling costs of lethal weapons — it’s all a part of the falling cost of havoc.

Quicken: I do loathe thee

Quicken 2004 is up to its old bugs again -- auto classifying every transaction incorrectly, creating myriads of nonsensical transaction splits. I clean it up and then it does it again. It also threw a memory exception; I had to 'copy' (rebuild) the database again.

I really only use Quicken now to download my credit card transactions and check transactions. I've gone back to spreadsheets for overall finance work and tax reporting, and given up on balancing the checkbook.

I've used Quicken since DOS version 2. It was a great piece of software then, though some DOS versions had nasty database corruption bugs. After about DOS version 4 it started downhill, and it's been sleazing about for years. One day I'll abandon it completely.

Progress in software is not guaranteed. The personal web building toolkits have never returned, that market is gone (iWeb doesn't qualify). Finance software is pretty meager on the PC, and non-existent on the Mac. Word processors aren't as good as they were 10 years ago. Photo management software is, of course, far better. Overall though, it's a mixed picture.