Schneier On the War On the Unexpected 405
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."
sounds about right (Score:5, Insightful)
unheard of in all of human history.
Dejavu (Score:3, Insightful)
The War on Terror (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:High School Politics (Score:1, Insightful)
It's exactly what the terrorists want. It's so obvious we are playing right into their hands it just doesn't make sense that our government could be that blind.
McCarthy-ism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dejavu (Score:2, Insightful)
God help us.
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.
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.
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:Dejavu (Score:1, Insightful)
The states are not perfect, but neither is any other sufficiently large country/organization. And frankly this whole "I'm oppressed" line is getting really overplayed. OMG THEY LIKE SEARCHED MY BAGS AT THE AIRPORT? yeah that's because there are criminals (note the lack of the T word) out there that would love to mass murder air passengers. 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 it's really not a price anyways, it's not like my XL size fruit of the looms is a secret or something. 20 people saw me buy them at Walmart last night.
Sure there are outliers, people put on watch lists they shouldn't. It'll get smoothed out eventually, but it's not like they're being dragged out into the street and shot "to set example for the other jews" or whatever godwinninian example you are trying to set.
Tom
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.
Re:McCarthy-ism (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only one more year left... (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).
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.
Mod parent as "realist" (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but Shneier fails it (Score:2, Insightful)
Would slashdot post a counter-terror expert talking about computer security if he had no experience whatsoever in that field?
Then why would slashdot post a computer security expert talking about counter-terrorism or law enforcement when he has no experience whatsoever in that field?
"It Just Don't Look Right" is a time-tested law enforcement mantra. It isn't something George W. Bush cooked up after 9/11 -- it's around because so many crimes, and so many terrorist plots have been busted up by investigating the unusual and unexpected.
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.
Re:Only one more year left... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
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:Only one more year left... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City.
And even that's not the beginning.
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:Dejavu (Score:2, Insightful)
You're right that we have to be vigilant to not sacrifice actual freedom for security. Asking people to look out for suspicious behaviour sounds omnimous but you should anyways. Like if you saw someone drop a suitcase by a bridge or bus depot and walk away, wouldn't you think to at least get the persons attention to get the bag they forgot, and if they didn't respond, maybe there was a reason?
It's possible to fall from the precipice we stand on into the realm of "everyone is the enemy." and because of that I agree, a sounding board of reason is a good idea. That being said, we're far from falling. I just don't get the "report to the SS" vibe from the people I meet.
Maybe I'm just not hypersensitive to being asked to follow common sense...
Re:Dejavu (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dejavu (Score:1, Insightful)
Straw man. Did you even read the article? Follow the links and see the kinds of things that are now capable of getting you into trouble, like Thai chili sauce.
Sure there are outliers, people put on watch lists they shouldn't. It'll get smoothed out eventually,
Are you trolling?
Re:Dejavu (Score:2, Insightful)
Some are released, some aren't. Some are tortured, some are just imprisoned and cut off from their families and friends as they grow old in confinement. Quite a few have been jailed for 6 years, since the start of the "War on Terror," without being charged with any crime.
To say "they are being released" is not meaningful. Are you saying that there is a decreasing trend of imprisoning people without trials and deporting people to be tortured? I certainly hope that's the case.
"It's not perfect, and frankly, probably not right (I don't know both sides of the story, who says they're unjustified? The media?)."
Actually, the popular media have generally been in support of these measures, and in support of the War on Terror. That's probably why popular support (for "enhanced interrogation" and suspension of habeas corpus) was maintained for so long. Only recently have some among their ranks become willing to question what's been happening.
"It's important to keep tabs and an eye on the situation. It is however, not important to listen to Bruce Schneier as he's just another idiot soap box screamer trying to push book sales. You can be pro-freedom and not listen to Bruce at the same time
Fair enough, but don't let your dislike of one man blind your vision to serious matters (on the side of which that man may well be right this time).
Re:Dejavu (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dejavu (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 happen. It should be to lower the number of mishaps as to preserve the quality of life of as many innocent civilians as possible. No security is just as bad as absolute security.
Tom
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.
Re:Dejavu (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 being overconcerned, well, that's something only a foreigner as ignorant as he is arrogant could do.
Re:sounds about right (Score:1, Insightful)
The WAR on terror is just like the WAR on Drugs, it's a purpotrated war created by your current intelegence community by killing a few thousand to piss all of you sheep off then let you sign away your rights after which you use the previous lie as an excuse to invade another country where you gave the dictator power.
I'll cite a few here for reference:
1.The Shaw of Iran (replaced by the Iatollah)
2.Manuel Noreaga
3.Saddam Hussain
You populace requires an ENEMY to remain cohesive, the effect of utilizing one "MYTH" to polarize and convince a population that it's ok to commit crimes against humanity.
There is NO boogey man, in fact most Muslim fundamentalists really stop careing once they "LIVE" in your contry but now you are into the world of Racial Profiling.
A good southern french freind of mine recently was stopped and had his luggage checked and almost missed his flight because he is from the south of france he looks arabic although he has never lived in france. Watch the movie I dare you to; then stop believing the HYPE, it's propaganda and alway will be, whenever you hear about a new WAR it's just an excuse for your government to take YOUR money and put it in THEIR pockets (who was the CEO of Halburton? Who got the very LUCRATIVE construction and security contracts in IRAQ? Who's stock rose how many percentage points because of it?)
The romans have a saying they used to use after a murder occurred:
Is fecit, cui prodest.
(Done by the one who profits from it.)
Since your country was modeled after them perhaps one might gain insight from this simple truth, Your current incredibly corrupt administration is robbing you blind and you still think that it's external forces doing it, How sad. And you accuse them of doing it (the 9/11 commission was a joke and a lie) everything you KNOW is a LIE fed to you by your own propaganda machine. The beauty of it is so few of you are even aware of this.
Re:Terror vs Terrorism vs Terrorists (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.
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.
Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Insightful)
Until that happens, I believe we're much closer to "absolute security" than reasonable security.
Re:Dejavu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I tip my hat to your sarcasm... (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 transmitter aimed at disrupting cockpit communications or instruments. Then they should look at the suspicious device and determine if it has any of the critical parts for actually causing harm. Is there an explosive? No? Then it's not a bomb. Is there a large power supply? No? Then it isn't a transmitter capable of disrupting communications, or an electronic wepon.
Our first responders absolutely need the ability to tell the difference between a bomb and a moonite on a lightbrite. (Possibly by looking for an actual explosive.) That they can't speaks volumes about the effectiveness of the war on terror. Exposed wires should be a giant tip off that anything dangerous should also be in plain sight. No one is going to build a rats nest of wires and then carefully conceal the actual explosive behind a clever trap door. If "they" are going to disguise it, they are going to disguise all of it.
Re:I tip my hat to your sarcasm... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no war on terror (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:McCarthy-ism (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 now with the US reputation being pretty terrible in most of the rest of the world. Before very long, the US economy is probably going to be in big trouble, and with the rapid growth of some other major economies, it may never return to being the dominant force it has been for the past few years. Payback will come when everyone else looks out for themselves and leaves the US out to dry.
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!
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]
Re:Dejavu (Score:1, Insightful)
As I said, it's not anywhere near as bad.
"This is not the same direction - and totally not the same modus operandi."
I disagree. The vilification of a religious group... raising it to the level of a threat all humanity must fear... using this fear to convince the public a vast, secretive police power is necessary for its safety, and to pass power-grab laws (USA PATRIOT Act, Military Commissions Act, Protect America Act, etc.)... using these laws (or merely the enforcers' own certainty of impunity) to persecute the vilified group: these are all in the same direction and using the same modus operandi, though obviously on a much lesser scale than in Nazi Germany.
I agree this persecution only amounts to one aspect of the War on Terror, and that other aspects are just as bad yet don't match the analogy. I only compare this one aspect of the neoconservative movement with the former Nazi movement.
"And I don't mean prisons. Remember that the abuses were condemned, and covered by the press."
A few of the abuses have been condemned by the press, but to little effect. The majority of the abuses continue or increase in scale. Would you say that holding people in prison for 6 years without trial is not an abuse worthy of being decried? Deporting people (most of whom have done no worse than overstay a visa, and many of whom have not even done that) to be held in squalid and physically abusive circumstances by friendly dictatorships? Spying, without warrants, on American citizens? Imposing a mandatory system of centralized government tracking/blacklisting upon all long-distance travellers? These are all clear abuses, and despite a little half-hearted backtalk from recently awakened media founts, there was nearly universal popular media support of these abuses for at least four years after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Don't get me wrong. I agree that to call the neoconservative movement equivalent to the Nazi movement would be a vast exaggeration. They are nowhere near equivalent, yet they follow the same general path to power, and are both dangerous to everyone besides themselves (albeit to vastly different degrees). In an analogous role to Judaism in Nazi Germany, Islam serves as the neoconservatives' boogeyman.
Re:I'm sorry, but Shneier fails it (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically, you have an undamped feedback loop. That is, nothing is damping out the noise except those counter-terrorism or law enforcement individuals who decide that "X" is not a threat and drop it. Yet the system is set up such that the risk involved damping is magnitudes more than the risk or escalation. At least for the individual LEO.
What's cool (from a certain perspective) is that we have already had this experiment play out, and the results are very much like Bruce's assessment of what would happen from a systems standpoint. Boston ring a bell?
As another poster pointed out, the campaigns to get people to report anything suspicious only serve to heighten suspicion, thus while more unusual stuff gets pointed out a larger percentage is chaff. It's not like people don't report suspicious activity already, but encouragement lowers the bar on what gets considered reportable.
So, the combination of increasing reports, ease of escalation and false positives mean many more non-terrorists are going to be, uh, "inconvenienced".
You train your IDS to generate false positives? (Score:1, Insightful)
Because right now, we're tuning the country to generate a whole lot of them by rewarding irresponsible behavior. Yes, you do look for patterns and unusual things, but you'd better also filter out false positives or you'll never see the malicious attacks. Thus, his entire point is to focus on things that are actually malicious instead of these stupid false positives.
We're acting out of emotion instead of logic, and we're making ourselves less safe as a result. Does anyone truly want to be less safe? Then we must defeat our true enemy: terror. Not terrorists, but the actual fear they create. If we do not master our fear, it will consume us, and the terrorists will win.
Once upon a time, brave leaders told us that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself.
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.
Re:Dejavu (Score:3, Insightful)
You're one seriously sick, sick fuck if you think it's OK to send Americans to jail for years without trial and that it's OK to send foreigners passing through the US to the most shady governments on Earth to be tortured.
I'd rather die a free man in a free nation in a terrorist attack than live as a fucking coward, fearing those who are guilty of nothing more than sharing a religion, appearance, or name with the boogeyman.
The boogeyman committed *ONE* successful attack against us, but *OUR* own reaction to that attack has caused us much, much more damage. It's time for Americans to stop being such bunch of shadow-fearing pansies, and to live free, proud, and fearless, like the people of any great nation should.
Fucking coward.