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Undressing the security threat

  • 10-01-2010 07:24PM
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,055 ✭✭✭


    I was at a German airport the other day carrying a bit of camera gear. It took ages while they examined my Nikon and Sony stuff. Bog standard cameras and lenses - images of the internals of which should be stored on file on the x-ray screening machines so that the system could raise an alarm if one of these devices looked non-standard on its inside.

    Bruce Schneier calls it "Security Theater".
    http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/beyond_security.html

    Prof. Paul Campos has an item in this weekend's Wall Street Journal on it:

    Quote:
    I'm not much of a basketball player. Middle-age, with a shaky set shot and a bad knee, I can't hold my own in a YMCA pickup game, let alone against more organized competition. But I could definitely beat LeBron James in a game of one-on-one. The game just needs to feature two special rules: It lasts until I score, and when I score, I win.

    We might have to play for a few days, and Mr. James's point total could well be creeping toward five figures before the contest ended, but eventually the gritty gutty competitor with a lunch-bucket work ethic (me) would subject the world's greatest basketball player to a humiliating defeat.

    The world's greatest nation seems bent on subjecting itself to a similarly humiliating defeat, by playing a game that could be called Terrorball. The first two rules of Terrorball are:

    (1) The game lasts as long as there are terrorists who want to harm Americans; and
    (2) If terrorists should manage to kill or injure or seriously frighten any of us, they win.

    PT-AN445_W3Feat_DV_20100108190412.jpg
    Photo illustration by John Kuczala


    These rules help explain the otherwise inexplicable wave of hysteria that has swept over our government in the wake of the failed attempt by a rather pathetic aspiring terrorist to blow up a plane on Christmas Day. For two weeks now, this mildly troubling but essentially minor incident has dominated headlines and airwaves, and sent politicians from the president on down scurrying to outdo each other with statements that such incidents are "unacceptable," and that all sorts of new and better procedures will be implemented to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

    Meanwhile, millions of travelers are being subjected to increasingly pointless and invasive searches and the resultant delays, such as the one that practically shut down Newark Liberty International Airport last week, after a man accidentally walked through the wrong gate, or Tuesday's incident at a California airport, which closed for hours after a "potentially explosive substance" was found in a traveler's luggage. (It turned out to be honey.)

    As to the question of what the government should do rather than keep playing Terrorball, the answer is simple: stop treating Americans like idiots and cowards.
    It might be unrealistic to expect the average citizen to have a nuanced grasp of statistically based risk analysis, but there is nothing nuanced about two basic facts:

    (1) America is a country of 310 million people, in which thousands of horrible things happen every single day; and
    (2) The chances that one of those horrible things will be that you're subjected to a terrorist attack can, for all practical purposes, be calculated as zero.

    Consider that on this very day about 6,700 Americans will die. When confronted with this statistic almost everyone reverts to the mindset of the title character's acquaintances in Tolstoy's great novella "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," and indulges in the complacent thought that "it is he who is dead and not I."

    Consider then that around 1,900 of the Americans who die today will be less than 65, and that indeed about 140 will be children. Approximately 50 Americans will be murdered today, including several women killed by their husbands or boyfriends, and several children who will die from abuse and neglect. Around 85 of us will commit suicide, and another 120 will die in traffic accidents.

    The full article is at:
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704130904574644651587677752.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_MIDDLETopNews

    Air travel has become painful and tiring over the past decade. It used to be fun. Shoes off. Computer out of the bag. Restrictions on liquids (I have no problem with banning > 1 litre bottles) - and remember kicking up stink with the ground staff, flight attendants and captain on an AF flight for allowing a guy bring a 10 litre container of liquid on a flight about five years ago. (The captain ended up bringing the potential weaponry to the cockpit for safekeeping until the end of the flight).

    Aer Lingus's stupid announcements about "prosecution" for smoking in the toilet are an unnecessary annoyance. (I've never smoked in my life). "This is a non-smoking flight" is surely enough....

    Even the "how to fasten your seatbelt" crap is past its sell-by date. Everybody knows how to fasten a seatbelt - they are in every car and have been for decades. One suspects that these announcements were conceived before car seatbelts became the norm.

    The aviation industry (airlines, airports, security etc) is shooting itself in the foot. One suspects that there is more to come (eg EU mandated non-medically required X-raying of passengers) - [sniffing for explosives by dogs or machines would be far more effective and less of a cancer risk if it was felt that these are a material threat].

    Aside from using your head. If a guy's father contacts the US embassy twice to warn them that his son is a bit of a nut case and might hijack an aircraft, and the son turns up at AMS with no baggage for an intercontinental flight, using a ticket bought with $2,831 in banknotes from a KLM office in Ghana and he is allowed to board an aircraft without detailed scrutiny, the system is way off target. Totally focused on the theater of security - rather than matters of substances. Needlessly hassling the ordinary traveller.


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,994 ✭✭✭kravmaga


    I think its fair to say that there is NO SUCH THING AS 100% Security.

    Lagos airport in Nigeria would not have the best security as this is where the flight originated then to Amsterdam to Detroit.

    And Obama has already admitted the failure amongst the National Security agencies to share info and ID the terror suspect arrested on the Delta Airlines flight.

    The would be terrorist on the Delta airlines flight was not on the USA watchlist but was on a UK one.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,941 ✭✭✭pclancy


    Thanks to the US's mistakes in policy and war over the last 30 years we all have to suffer for the fear of a few disgruntled people blowing things up. If they looked inwards and sorted out their own country before marching all over the world pissing people off they wouldnt have this problem They should learn a thing or too from other countries about not having such knee-jerk reactions to problems, imagine the UK had subjected Irish people to intense scrutiny every time they travelled thanks to the IRA in the 80s and 90s? The risk is always there but you have to just get on with it.

    If people REALLY want to blow up planes they'll always find a way. Just how that bloke got through security is a measure of how badly current rules are being enforced, introducing yet more rules and more sophisticated scanners isnt the solution, people will still find a way to bring things on board. I would spend more time looking at why there are terrorists in the first place and trying to fix that problem rather then subjecting grannies to cavity searches or performing controlled explosions of honey.

    I can see a day when we can't leave the house without being scanned and monitored in every way to make sure we're not being naughty. Its sad that air travel has already lost so much of its fun and excitement, eventually we'll have to be shipped everywhere on steel bomb-proof non-smoking pallets strapped to the back of tanks if things keep going.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,588 ✭✭✭Bluetonic


    pclancy wrote: »
    imagine the UK had subjected Irish people to intense scrutiny every time they travelled thanks to the IRA in the 80s and 90s?
    I presume you never traveled though Manchester airport in the 80s and 90s or you are in fact joking.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    pclancy wrote: »
    I can see a day when we can't leave the house without being scanned and monitored in every way to make sure we're not being naughty.

    Dont speak too soon.

    The backscatter van will be coming to a city near you. :eek:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,941 ✭✭✭pclancy


    I only remember travelling through Heathrow in the 80s and didnt it anything near as bad as the amount of crap you have to go through now. You could bring as much liquid as you wanted, lighters etc no problems.

    Was Manchester security biased towards the Irish then?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,055 ✭✭✭probe


    Air industry attacks security crackdown

    By Pilita Clark, Aerospace Correspondent (Financial Times)
    Published: January 10 2010 19:10 | Last updated: January 10 2010 19:10

    e394a938-fe58-11de-9340-00144feab49a.jpg

    Activists stage a protest in their underwear at Tegal airport in Berlin on Sunday against the introduction of body scanners. Asian airlines and European airport operators have attacked new security measures imposed after the botched Detroit bombing attempt as an ill-judged “operational nightmare” costing €50,000 a week.


    Full article:
    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/32b2c39c-fe18-11de-9340-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    New promotional video from the TSA.

    We're the TSA and You Can Count on Us!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,221 ✭✭✭BrianD


    Good cartoon in the Irish Times on Saturday showing passengers boarding a plane naked.

    there was also a reference to the wave of terror bombers sewing bombs into themselves citing the fact that two recent bombings were carried out by doctors and some doctors could do this despite the oaths that they had taken.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,181 ✭✭✭Davidth88


    I have long maintained that this security is really just window dressing to make people feel safer.

    Have they ever actually caught anyone ever with a gun , or explosives at a airport security check ? I suspect not.

    Flying is far from a pleasure , esp in the states where they seem to equate security with shouting , having people walking up and down the lines screaming

    " YOU MUST REMOVE SHOES , YOU MUST DECLARE LIQUIDS ! !! Blah blah blah "

    I recently went through Tel Aviv , the security there is strict , almost intrusive , asking where you have been , going through your mobile phone calls etc before you check in , but when you are actually going to the gates , do you remove the laptop ... no , shoes no , and its done quietly and by and large efficient.


  • Posts: 3,251 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Davidth88 wrote: »
    Have they ever actually caught anyone ever with a gun , or explosives at a airport security check ? I suspect not.

    You suspect wrong. You don't know how stupid some people can be. Or high.

    It's there, it sucks, but it is there. 99.999% of security screening is done to completely innocent people, and security personnel know that. They're not in the business of p*ssing people off intentionally, but they are in the business of making sure there is no one on the flight who'll pose a risk. "I highly highly doubt it" or "there isn't a snowball's chance in hell" or any guess is not enough. You need to "know" as best you can.

    Just have patience, give yourself more time than you think you need, answer the questions truthfully, and follow the instructions. They will not delay you more than they have to. They do it so they can turn around to the airline and say "we are confident that no threat exists".

    Fly safe.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,181 ✭✭✭Davidth88



    Just have patience, give yourself more time than you think you need, answer the questions truthfully, and follow the instructions. They will not delay you more than they have to. They do it so they can turn around to the airline and say "we are confident that no threat exists".

    Fly safe.

    As a frequent flyer , I m well aware how to act through security , and indeed I have a lot of patience at the people that queue for 20 mins and then act totally surprised that they are at the xray machine when they get to the head of the queue.

    I should have rephrased that , have they ever caught anyone who had the INTENTION of doing anything , not someone who was careless/drunk/stupid.

    Even people like me get caught out occasionally , I lost a nice screwdriver yesterday at DUB. I had it in my laptop bag from the Christmas break and forgot about it.
    Amazingly about 3 years ago I flew all the way to Newark ( through DUB ) with a similar screwdriver in my bag ( by accident ) I found it in my bag in the US when I was making sure i had everything I needed for my job.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,443 ✭✭✭Red Sleeping Beauty


    You suspect wrong. You don't know how stupid some people can be. Or high.

    It's there, it sucks, but it is there. 99.999% of security screening is done to completely innocent people, and security personnel know that. They're not in the business of p*ssing people off intentionally, but they are in the business of making sure there is no one on the flight who'll pose a risk. "I highly highly doubt it" or "there isn't a snowball's chance in hell" or any guess is not enough. You need to "know" as best you can.

    Just have patience, give yourself more time than you think you need, answer the questions truthfully, and follow the instructions. They will not delay you more than they have to. They do it so they can turn around to the airline and say "we are confident that no threat exists".

    Fly safe.

    I do laugh when I hear people shilling Ryanair to me and saying how they're "99.999% always on time" or some such rubbish. It doesn't matter how on time they are considering the length of time you have to spend getting undressed while leaving the airport and then getting interrogated coming back through Dublin airport from the UK.

    Last week I saw two male NIBGarda questioned children about where they had been and examine their passports and question the parents.



    It's a bit of a coincidence that the story of that fella hiding a "bomb" in his jocks comes shortly after x-ray machines are rolled out in Manchester and apparently there was plenty of intelligence abound that yr man was a nutter. I call shennanigans.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 812 ✭✭✭Dacian


    Bluetonic wrote: »
    I presume you never traveled though Manchester airport in the 80s and 90s or you are in fact joking.
    Manchester was where the security staff were trained up so that is the reason for the tougher than normal security there.

    And the seatbelts explanation is beacause aircraft seatbelts are different to car belts, and many flights may have a first time flyer. There was a crash of a A320 many years ago (think it was a teat or demo flight)where 2 of the fatalities (one was an old lady) were still in their seats, it is believed they did not know how to open them.
    Last week I saw two male NIBGarda questioned children about where they had been and examine their passports and question the parents.
    They may have be checking on the identity of the parents. My step children have a different surname than me. If travelling just with me everal times they have been asked 'nonchalant' questions by airport staff. This is to confirm that I am their guardian and not kidnapping them. Seems mad I know. But better safe than sorry. In my experience it has never been intrusive.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,055 ✭✭✭probe


    Dacian wrote: »
    And the seatbelts explanation is beacause aircraft seatbelts are different to car belts, and many flights may have a first time flyer. There was a crash of a A320 many years ago (think it was a teat or demo flight)where 2 of the fatalities (one was an old lady) were still in their seats, it is believed they did not know how to open them.
    Clearly the flight safety announcement about seat belts did nothing to educate the "fatalities" on how to open the seat belts - so it is a waste of time anyway.
    They may have be checking on the identity of the parents. My step children have a different surname than me. If travelling just with me everal times they have been asked 'nonchalant' questions by airport staff. This is to confirm that I am their guardian and not kidnapping them. Seems mad I know. But better safe than sorry. In my experience it has never been intrusive.
    It is none of the business of the airport staff. You could take your kidnap victims in your car too. Does that imply that there should be a police person standing near every car to check the ID of an adult bringing one or more children?

    It also implies that the mafia running the origin airport assume that the police authorities at your destination airport would be complicit in your "kidnap attempt". Insular. Stupid. Time-wasting. Nonsense.

    At some airports they have security channels signed for "frequent fliers". Anyone can use these channels - they assume that the people who elect to use the frequent flier channels won't be stupid enough to have their pockets stuffed with coins or keys etc - and won't want to be asked silly questions relating to same. It greatly speeds up the flow of people through these checks and eliminates the aggravation of having to answer silly questions for people who fly several times a week.

    Perhaps they should have a third channel for people who like to be asked questions about their step children and their kidnapping plans?

    The perfect airport set-up - separate channels for (a) frequent fliers (b) occasional travellers and (c) lovers of security theatre and time wasting generally!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,941 ✭✭✭pclancy


    Well no- thats madness, safety announcements are a definate requirement for any flight, even if you fly regulary sometimes you'll end up on a different aircraft with exits in different places and the example of the seatbelt issue also does prove that some people do need educating. Even when I fly in a 12 seater Cessna to New Zealand's South Island the pilot gives a safety brief and i'm glad of it. I'm sure its also required by insurance and law.

    To get back on-topic regarding airport security, be it a conspiracy by the governments or "airport mafia" to have more control over us or not, its just the way it is and its not going to get any better any time soon.

    I do beleive that even with all this increased security someones gonna get lucky someday soon and manage to blow something up. There seems to be a LOT of extemist people being trained and becoming skilled at bombmaking etc. Again I think if certain countries looked at the reasons why all these extremists were being bred, the problem might be reduced.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    I don't think the TSA, the US Government or those that wish to dominate global security will be happy until we are all chipped. :eek:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,575 ✭✭✭✭FlutterinBantam


    I don't think these fly blown countries who harbor terrorism and have nothing to lose will be happy till they drag everyone down to their own lazy level of miserableness.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    I don't think these fly blown countries who harbor terrorism and have nothing to lose will be happy till they drag everyone down to their own lazy level of miserableness.

    If you had it your way would you have "popped a cap" in that innocent guy that was set up by the Slovak authorities. :rolleyes:

    There is a fine balance between "fighting terror" and invoking fascism.

    300y73q.jpg

    On a seperate note a US privacy group says the Transportation Security Administration is misleading the public with claims that full body scanners at airports cannot store or send their graphic images.

    The TSA specified in 2008 documents that the machines must have image storage and sending abilities, the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said.

    http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/01/11/body.scanners/


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,575 ✭✭✭✭FlutterinBantam


    If you had it your way would you have "popped a cap" in that innocent guy that was set up by the Slovak authorities. :rolleyes:

    There is a fine balance between "fighting terror" and invoking fascism.

    300y73q.jpg

    On a seperate note a US privacy group says the Transportation Security Administration is misleading the public with claims that full body scanners at airports cannot store or send their graphic images.

    The TSA specified in 2008 documents that the machines must have image storage and sending abilities, the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said.

    http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/01/11/body.scanners/

    Maybe if the US went in a levelled a few of these 'hotbeds of unrest' instead of pussyfooting around we might not need so much security.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,055 ✭✭✭probe


    pclancy wrote: »
    Well no- thats madness, safety announcements are a definate requirement for any flight, even if you fly regulary sometimes you'll end up on a different aircraft with exits in different places and the example of the seatbelt issue also does prove that some people do need educating. Even when I fly in a 12 seater Cessna to New Zealand's South Island the pilot gives a safety brief and i'm glad of it. I'm sure its also required by insurance and law.

    I'm not saying that flight safety announcements are not required. I am saying that the boring "fasten the metal end of the buckle...." how to fasten your seat belt is out of date, boring, stupid, and probably puts people off listening to the flight safety announcement.

    One of the best flight safety announcements I have come across is on transavia.com - they use a video which shows detail of how to open the emergency exits and what to do then, and minor details on the use of childrens' life-jackets that virtually every other airline ignores. These are useful bits of information. How to fasten a seatbelt is not.

    The flight attendant on flybaboo.com (my favourite low cost airline) asks the people at the emergency exit if they are willing and able to open the exit.

    (As an aside, Baboo doesn't use food trolleys, they hand out bottles of water before takeoff, they serve sandwiches - typically one gets five finger sandwiches, smoothies and deserts from a tray, and they use large paper carrier bags while walking through the cabin (several times) to collect waste).

    Soft beige leather seats in 2 x 2 seating on Embraer jets (no middle seat). The fare costs about EUR 10 more than Easyjet to cover the food. Big deal. No fiddling with change. All the nasty Ryanairistic/Easyjetistic things taken out of flying. And Baboo's flight attendants can speak 3 or 4 languages fluently - which is vital for air safety in an emergency.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,055 ✭✭✭probe


    Tyler Brûlé has written two articles on X-raying the PAX over the past week in the Financial Times.

    (Perhaps the politicians and evil EU bureaucrats who plan to impose x-ray searches on travellers should expose themselves to x-ray cancer risk and virtual strip searching every day as they go to their offices / parliaments? Who knows, there might be a "terrorist" among them?)

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b0bfa0a6-0161-11df-8c54-00144feabdc0.html

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9d8eec56-fbe1-11de-9c29-00144feab49a.html


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,576 ✭✭✭lord lucan


    probe wrote: »
    Tyler Brûlé has written two articles on X-raying the PAX over the past week in the Financial Times.

    (Perhaps the politicians and evil EU bureaucrats who plan to impose x-ray searches on travellers should expose themselves to x-ray cancer risk and virtual strip searching every day as they go to their offices / parliaments? Who knows, there might be a "terrorist" among them?)

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b0bfa0a6-0161-11df-8c54-00144feabdc0.html

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9d8eec56-fbe1-11de-9c29-00144feab49a.html

    Thanks for the links. He makes some valid points to be fair. One that i can see on the horizon is the tourist traveller abandoning the US for less restrictive destinations. The only way the US will react is if they as a country lose business. Not sure if the bloggers idea of conferences etc. moving to Canada etc. will transpire but it's certainly something to think about.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,055 ✭✭✭probe


    lord lucan wrote: »
    Thanks for the links. He makes some valid points to be fair. One that i can see on the horizon is the tourist traveller abandoning the US for less restrictive destinations. The only way the US will react is if they as a country lose business. Not sure if the bloggers idea of conferences etc. moving to Canada etc. will transpire but it's certainly something to think about.

    Tyler is Canadian, hence perhaps a slight bias in that direction - though I don't think he would like to be called a "blogger"!

    He is the entrepreneur behind Wallpaper (since disposed of same) and Monocle magazines and writes regularly in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the New York Times and the IHT (as well as the FT pink rag). He designed the look and feel of the airline www.swiss.com and has homes in Switzerland, Sweden and Britain.



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