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Schneier On the War On the Unexpected
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Nov 01, 2007 07:36 AM
from the security-theater-on-an-escalator dept.
from the security-theater-on-an-escalator dept.
jamie found this essay by Bruce Schneier, The War on the Unexpected. (It originally appeared in Wired but this version has all the links.) "We've opened up a new front on the war on terror. It's an attack on the unique, the unorthodox, the unexpected; it's a war on different. If you act different, you might find yourself investigated, questioned, and even arrested — even if you did nothing wrong, and had no intention of doing anything wrong. The problem is a combination of citizen informants and a CYA attitude among police that results in a knee-jerk escalation of reported threats... After someone reports a 'terrorist threat,' the whole system is biased towards escalation and CYA instead of a more realistic threat assessment... If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security."
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sounds about right (Score:5, Insightful)
unheard of in all of human history.
Re:sounds about right (Score:4, Funny)
BURNS: Why is that man in pink?!
SMITHERS: Oh, that's Homer Simpson, sir. He's one of your boobs from Sector 7-G.
BURNS: Simpson, eh? Well, judging by his outlandish attire, he's some sort of free-thinking anarchist!
SMITHERS: I'll call security, sir.
BURNS: Excellent. Yes, these color monitors have already paid for themselves...
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Hiding in plain sight (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This tells me that the TSA agents are incredibly poorly trained. (No I'm not just now coming to this conclusion.) Whenever a TSA agent sees something suspicious, they absolutely have to investigate, but they need to know how to investigate. The first thing is they should have a list of things that could possibly damage an airplane. Bomb, wepon (gun, taser, etc.), maybe a tran
Re:I tip my hat to your sarcasm... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Dejavu (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right, they're not being dragged out into the street and shot. They're being secretly deported, flown in shackles to third-world dictatorships, and tortured by third parties with our implicit consent.
They're mostly Muslims. If it hasn't become clear to you yet: Muslims are the boogeyman whom neoconservatives hype in order to increase their own power, just as Jews were the boogeyman Nazis hyped to increase their own power. No, America is not anywhere near as bad as Nazi Germany at its height, but the direction and modus operandi are extremely similar.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In this case, real criminals are really coming to and through the states (and other countries) to really do harm.
In the way it's not "right" to kill civilians in the course of a war, it's not "right" to detain people as suspected criminals. However, it's certainly a lot better than open war don't you think?
The goal shouldn't be to stop all security measures because mishaps
Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Insightful)
Until that happens, I believe we're much closer to "absolute security" than reasonable security.
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Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell it to Carol Gotbaum. The message being "complain too loud and you'll be 'accidentally' killed".
This attitude can pretty much just
Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, the problem of getting the bomb to the useful place has just changed the place: it used to be the plane. Now it can be the airport check in queues. Next would be the airport entrances. There will always be a mass of people checking in somewhere, at least until the damn flying cars are finally here.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Insightful)
If we were really facing the kind of dedicated, wide-spread super-terrorist organization that most politicians preach about, there would be hundreds of thousands of dead across the country.
What's weird is that so few people have yet to see through the fear-mongering. It's almost as if having the threat of a super-al-queada boogeyman that our politicians are 'protecting' us from is a sort of security blanket.
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Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Insightful)
I say having my laundry looked over is a small price to pay to fly 3000 miles in 6 hours to visit some friends.
And my problem with that attitude is this: I wouldn't mind that you're so willing to give up your freedom from unjustified search, your privacy, your status as a person innocent until proven guilty, if it wasn't for the fact that you want to give up MINE at the same time!
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Re:Dejavu (Score:4, Insightful)
In your point of view, there apparently exists a small booklet that enlists everything you have a right to, the rest of your movements and possibilities are luxury items given to you by big government, which can be taken away at a whim. You might want to re-examine that position.
And yes, I think the government has good reasons to scan and search. It should however be re-examined often and thoroughly, and the procedures should be changed quickly when they are not productive, and are needlessly interfering with my freedom of movement.
Things that should go are: shoe search (whoever came up with that idea? One miserable failed attempt to light one's shoe means millions of hours, thousands of manyears, wasted on removing shoes?); no-fly list (700K people on the list, no procedure to get off; shady means to get on; wtf?); taking the laptop out (why? can't they see through the bag?). And these are just the innocent things.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you having trouble differentiating between future tense and present? The guy you invoked Godwin against (Yes, you were the first one with the SS reference, not him) is saying that we are actively being indoctrinated to mistrust everyone because they could be a terrorist, pedophile, or, worst of all, a homosexual with designs of marriage in his traitorous noggin. He didn't say we were all a bunch of indoctrinated chicken littles yet, and to accuse him of bein
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No. Frankly, you should not. Not unless, you're calling out to the person who left the bag by accident, out of genuine concern that they get their bag back.
Here's the thing: Let me make some new commo
Re:Dejavu (Score:4, Insightful)
If I saw someone leave a bag, I'd be concerned that they get it back, and if they weren't interested in returning to get it, I'd be asking why. And not being stupid the first thought would be because there is something in it he doesn't want to be associated with.
You don't have to be "on the look for terrorists," you just have to not have blinders on to the world.
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Re:Dejavu (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Interesting)
"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record: prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own, for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that such things cannot be confined... to The Twilight Zone."
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The War on Terror (Score:5, Insightful)
Terror vs Terrorism vs Terrorists (Score:5, Insightful)
A war on terror or fear is quite different than a war on terrorism.
And a war on terrorism is quite different than a war against terrorists.
And of course a war on terrorists is quite different that a war against a specific group.
A war against an generic term, a tactic or unspecified groups of people cannot be won.
(It cannot be lost either).
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
(It cannot be lost either).
As long as your "enemy" is unquantifiable, ever shifting, and not discretely identifiable, you're just using a military pretense to dump mass amounts of public funds into private industry. Most likely because you and your cabinet buddies have huge stock options in the corporations that get the government checks.
High School Politics (Score:5, Interesting)
Humans are exceptional at detecting differences, its part of our nature, intellectually - we integrate similar concepts and differentiate between different ones. Our brains pick out differences. Thats why profiling at airports actually works.
Its nice to see someone publish something about this, but its hardly insightful.
McCarthy-ism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. GWB's classic "you're either with us or against us" pitch was just an act of terrorism itself: it was telling the rest of the world that they must support the US policy even if they didn't like it, on pain of feeling the repercussions of the US acting against them next.
The trouble with taking this binary stance is that it doesn't allow anyone who wants to remain neutral to do so. On balance, you'll find most of them turning against you if you force them to take sides, and that's what we're seeing
The terrorists have won... (Score:5, Interesting)
The fear is real. I hate to admit it, but it affect me.
Everyone knows that there will be further terrorist attacks on the U. S. On the one hand, we're not serious about beefing up homeland security, which is a disappointment to me--I was expecting at least a competent, good-faith effort. But we're doing all the "security theatre" stuff and none of the expensive, difficult, serious stuff. On the other hand, the Iraq war has inflamed passions in the Muslim world and created enemies where we didn't have them before. So the threat is getting worse and our defenses are not getting much better and all the "security theatre" just keeps reminding us of the issue.
On my last plane trip, the gate was near security, and my wife and I were watching as some woman got some kind of very, very extended attention from the TSA people. She was dressed in some kind of dark robe that covered her body, her head, and most of her face; it looked to me like a burkha, but I don't really know anything about such things. She also had a somewhat disfigured face, with a golf-ball-sized lump of some kind on one side of her forehead.
From our vantage point it was all pantomime. I don't know why they were searching her. But they would ask her questions, then wave those handheld metal-detector frisking things, have her sit down for a while, go away and come back with other officials who would ask her more questions and so forth. After about a half an hour she was still sitting there in the security area waiting. They announced that our flight was boarding and we got on and don't know anything more.
What I hated myself for was that I personally was creeped out by this person and her appearance. And what I particularly hated myself for was that the things creeped me out were a) her style of dress, and b) her disfigured face.
Part of me was indignant at what looked from a distance to be discriminatory treatment. And part of it was great relief that she was not on my flight.
Re:The terrorists have won... (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how this "fact" is just thrown out there and accepted as true, without giving a time frame. It's technically true, but utterly meaningless. Sure, somewhere between now and infinity years from now, there will be a "further terrorist attack". Great, I better prepare!
By casually using this talking point, you're promoting the irrational fear that you argue that you are trying to avoid.
The important questions, which get glossed over by things like the above declarative talking point, are "What is the likelihood of an attack within the next N, N+1, N+2... years?" and "What is the expected severity/method of such an attack, should it occur?" and "What is the likelihood that any given person will be affected?"
Even if terrorists pulled off a 9/11 once every year or destroyed one shopping mall a week, your chances of actually dying in a terrorist attack are utterly miniscule [reason.com]. A rational person, when confronted with such numbers, should not be afraid.
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You're pathetic (Score:3, Insightful)
The terorist threat is TINY and shouldn't have been allowed to affect life at all.
Whether that woman was wearing a burkha or not is immaterial. Your disproportionate levels of fear are the problem here.
Re:The terrorists have won... (Score:5, Insightful)
If everyone is scared shitless, they've won.
If we're willing to give up rights, they've won.
If our new and improved homeland security is nothing more than security theater, they've won.
If our retaliation is to wage war against a nation that wasn't affiliated with the attackers, thus causing us to waste lives, money, time, and goodwill in an effort that is only destabilizing the region, they've won.
Face it, we were attacked, and 6 years later we still don't have any meaningful protection.
"get with the freaking program", indeed.
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Fun to be a public servant. (Score:5, Insightful)
Choice 2: Do nothing and be blamed when people die.
No wonder we only get shit bags running for public office.
Mu (Score:5, Insightful)
Choice 3: React appropriately and install security measures that work, without unduly stressing people?
The problem isn't that there are two extremes the people in power must choose from, the problem is that the two choices you gave are actually being done at the same time.
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Re:Mu (Score:4, Insightful)
But when the rampage materialized, they were viciously criticized for not having massively overreacted, on the off chance that there could be a rampage.
Basically, the problem is people. No one in this country is willing to say, "They tried, it wasn't enough, it happens." Instead someone has to be blamed, and they have to take all the blame, even that that ought to just go to the damn perpetrator, because they should have been superhuman and seen it coming.
So is it any wonder that the people in charge constantly overreact? Schneier hit the nail on the head this time. If you're going to be crucified for taking a commonsense, measured response that happens to be wrong, and lionized for an off-the-charts overreaction, whether its right or wrong, which one will you do? Rewarded behaviour is repeated, and punished behaviour is not.
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blame the media for CYA (Score:4, Insightful)
so if something does happen the media jumps on it with all kinds of "investigative" reporting about how some insignificant clue had been dismissed or how some proposed law wasn't passed that could have prevented this. and they attack government agencies in the process along with congress getting involved with subpeonas and investigations. so the police to CYA just start to investigate idiotic things and bugging people
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not too long after the London bus bombings a local TV crew took it on themselves to see if they could infiltrate a local bus depot. So they get in and film themselves walking around buses and sitting in a couple of them. The go and disclose this on TV but never get brought up on charges themselves since it's such an embarrassment to the local transit authority.
So what's it going to be, folks? Police, guards and cameras on every corner to satisfy the media? How mu
Beyond Fear (Score:5, Informative)
The book takes a very general approach to security, analyzing it with the most basic categorizations, while using very clear real-life examples to illustrate. The final chapters deal specifically with security against terrorism, particularly since 9/11. His conclusion is that, from a security standpoint, most of the measures put in place - additional airport scrutiny, massive centralized databases looking for suspicious patterns, the move towards national ID cards, etc. - are largely ineffective as security measures. The massive trade-off of decreased privacy and liberty coupled with enormous cost for these measures make them especially unreasonable. In short, the widespread perceived risk and culture of fear it has fostered has made our response to the new terroristic threat wildly out-of-proportion with the actual risk.
It's mostly preaching to the choir here at Slashdot, but I think this book should be as widely read as possible.
What does this have to do with terrorism? (Score:4, Insightful)
But my real wondering is: Since when has Slashdot become the outpost for the war on terror articles? Everything posted here anymore seems to be political. What was that Taco was saying the other day about loosing control of his website? Dude, it's already happened.
Realistic Threat Assessment? (Score:3, Insightful)
The real problem is these idiots are in charge. When we start to respect knowledge and wisdom, and elevate those posessing both in abundance, only then will this crap end.
Re:Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:i was going to call this stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
"+1 Terrorist" and "-1 Sheep".
Whether you want to swap the signs depends on your political preference.
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+1.5 Brilliant Use Of Zeitgeist In Rating System (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Only one more year left... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City.
And even that's not the beginning.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, he wrote a whole book on the subject. [slashdot.org] What have you done?
Re:I'm sorry, but Shneier fails it (Score:5, Insightful)
If that counter terror expert offered cogent arguments, sure, why not? If the arguments are wrong, refute them, don't engage in the logical fallacies of ad hominem attacks and appeals to authority. Security isn't some magical concern that only a few high priests can speak on. Security is a day-to-day issue that everyone needs to consider. Security is a matter of government a politics, an area that every interested citizen can debate and try to influence our government.
Indeed, it is. And Schneier agrees (although he calls it acting "hinky," [schneier.com] a word a custom's agent used to describe someone's behavior that led to their arrest). But you're suggesting a false dichotomy between ignoring everything and calling in the most minor of suspicions. Schneier's proposal is pretty clear: you need knowledge to be able to accurately identify hinky. [schneier.com]
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