Schneier Has Something Good To Say About Airport Security 226
Bruce Schneier points out on his blog a proposal to use electronic randomizers at airport security checkpoints. Schneier writes there:
"I've seen something like this at customs in, I think, India. Every passenger walks up to a kiosk and presses a button. If the green light turns on, he walks through. If the red light turns on, his bags get searched. Presumably the customs officials can set the search percentage.
Automatic randomized screening is a good idea. It's free from bias or profiling. It can't be gamed. These both make it more secure. Note that this is just an RFI from the TSA. An actual program might be years away, and it might not be implemented well. But it's certainly a start."
In this case, the proposal is for randomizers that direct passengers to particular conveyor-belt lines for screening.
Same in Mexico. (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing new here.
Had the same experience in mexico a dozen years ago.
Red light or green light.
But back then, there was a guy standing on a switch could just flex his knee to make additional selections if you looks particularly shady.
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Re:Same in Mexico. (Score:4, Informative)
Most of the world is pretty civilized about customs... it's really only the US, and a couple of airports in Canada and large airports in Europe that are gestapo-land.
I've seen tighter security at Dayton, Ohio than I did last time I flew into Charles de Gaulle: on arrival in Paris, we formed a lineup for customs, and a guard came out and shouted to the line "anybody with a Canadian passport, line up here", and those of us with Canadian passports didn't have to pass a security check at all, they just asked if we wanted the CDG stamp on the passport and waved us through. And that was post-9/11. On the way back, it was pretty much the same... put your bag through the x-ray machine, go through a metal detector, and they let you on the plane. I'm guessing that they'd already done the security/background checks, since you need to give your passport number when you buy the plane ticket these days, but it could just be that Air France is more civilized about things like that.
Still... by far the most relaxed security I've ever seen in an airport was in Willemstad, Curacao. The plane landed at 4am, which probably had something to do with it, but it was basically a case of "welcome to the island, enjoy your stay!" for everybody.
Willemstad (Score:4, Insightful)
Passengers on flights coming from Willemstad into Amsterdam get checked 100%, because of the lax checks at Willemstad and the proportionally high amount of drug trafficking on this route.
Doing random checks on people not selected because they trigger certain alerts that make them suspicious makes it hard for customs/safety to get bribed and increases the chance the bad guys get caught. Once the bad guys figure out how not to stand out or bribe the guards, it's hard to catch them otherwise. This is why the random selector is better than having people do the random part of the selection. You want to check the poor African guy travelling alone to a rich country with a stop of one day in central America, because that's suspicious. But that doesn't mean that the mom and pop with a kid coming back from a 2 week holiday in Mexico can't be smuggling in a few Ks of cocaine as well. Having them press the button will make them think twice about the risk and it will probably even have a preventative effect in itself.
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Passengers on flights coming from Willemstad into Amsterdam get checked 100%, because of the lax checks at Willemstad and the proportionally high amount of drug trafficking on this route.
Could do. I've never flown from Willemstad to Amsterdam, just Willemstad to Toronto. Actually, I've never flown to Amsterdam period... the handful of times I've been there (I have family in Delft), it's been arrival by train after flying into CDG. I could fly direct from here to Heathrow or Amsterdam directly, but it's like 3x the cost of driving to Montreal and flying into CDG. Even after you factor in a couple of weeks of airport parking, it's still cheaper to fly to France and take the train. :(
It doesn'
Re:Same in Brazil. (Score:3, Interesting)
Nothing new here.
Had the same experience in mexico a dozen years ago.
Red light or green light.
But back then, there was a guy standing on a switch could just flex his knee to make additional selections if you looks particularly shady.
We had (still have?) this in Brazil. But i think it was only in the customs area, not really for security screening.
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Yeah, our trip to Cancun a few years ago, we got a red light on the way in through customs. They're surprisingly efficient at the search, probably because they don't want to piss off the tourists.
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Re:Same in Mexico. (Score:4, Interesting)
The speed may also have to do with the fact that it's supposed to be random - They have no reason to believe you're some smuggler just because the random selector picked you out. You're most likely just some tourist.
Had the selection been on who looks the most suspicious in the eyes of some middle-manager customs officer, the staff better find some drugs or they will have proven their boss wrong, so it'll take a lot longer to search your bags.
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But back then, there was a guy standing on a switch could just flex his knee to make additional selections if you looks particularly shady.
Yep. You just know they'll game the system if it's ever implemented here.
It could be done fairly with dice, picking balls out of a hat or something physical like that, but it won't be. The thought of not being in control freaks them out.
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Re:Same in Mexico. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll get hate for saying this but if ALL of your bombings and attacks are ONLY coming from ONE group, a group that rhymes with "Buslim"? Then it is NOT profiling to throw an extra glance at those that are part of that group!
You won't get hate for it, but you'll probably get a group of people pointing out that they aren't all coming from that particular ethnic group, and that there's a very long history of terrorism happening pretty much everywhere.
If the Muslims were really as fucked up as some people would have you believe, the world would be a glass-floored parking lot by now. There are a billion of 'em in the world today, and some of them have had nuclear weapons for 40 years. Like the rest of us, most of 'em just want to be allowed to live their lives in peace and without persecution. If you held up examples like Ted Kaczynski or David Koresh or the IRA as examples of every Christian, you'd be shouted down pretty quickly, so it boggles the mind that people are ok with making the same comparisons for Muslims. That has nothing to do with political correctness, that's about opening your eyes and seeing that the overwhelming majority of Muslims just want to be left alone.
People don't tend to report on the Muslims living in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Jordan, or Pakistan because it's not interesting news: they're all countries with a majority Muslim population, and they're all moderate/progressive countries. Hell, 2 of those countries currently have a woman sitting as head of state... When was the last time the US had a female President? And yet you're calling *them* backwards...
Re:Same in Mexico. (Score:4, Informative)
But again, I would challenge you to show me examples of people that would be classified as terrorists bombing public places like an airport or other terminal in the name of christ. I would also challenge you to find scripture to support such a thing. There is no such text but there is plenty of examples in the Koran by their prophet himself about committing violence the name of their faith.
If you follow the example of Christ as a fundamentalist, you will not commit violence but if you follow the example of Mohammed as a fundamentalist then you will kill in the name of your religion even if it means committing suicide. Suicide is considered a terrible sin in Christianity so that would preclude a suicide christian bomber.
Going back to David Koresh, he and his followers basically self-imulated themselves in their own compound. I would hardly compare that to a bomber attacking a public place.
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But again, I would challenge you to show me examples of people that would be classified as terrorists bombing public places like an airport or other terminal in the name of christ.
Um, at that time bombs weren't really an option but as far as violence in the name of Christ goes, I'd say look no further than Inquisition and Torquemada, to name just two examples of zounds.
Re:Same in Mexico. (Score:4, Interesting)
You overlook the single most important difference between Muslim fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists. The Christians don't feel compelled to conduct bombings etc in order to make political or religious points - they're still largely in charge of the political machinery. There's no point conducting mass action terrorism when you can rely on your political institutions to more or less protect your rights.
The day American Christian fundamentalists start feeling like a true oppressed minority, is the day they stop shooting abortion doctors one by one and instead turn to mass bombings.
Of course, it doesn't help us with the Muslims when they actually participate in the political system fairly and then we all cheer when they get dethroned in a coup that we would condemn in a second if the government were anyone but fundamentalist Muslims. Now that we've proven to them that the democratic system actually doesn't work, I expect them to turn to more direct methods.
Fundies are fundies, and their tactics differ largely only in how much power they have.
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One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." Mr Bush went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it."
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The IRA was directly about Catholicism vs Protestantism - in particular a group of people who were no longer part of Britain wanting to impose *their* will on a part of Ireland that had a different majority religion and wanted to stay part of Britain.
It's not really about religion at all - the catholics and the protestants are different ethnic groups - the protestants were imported into Ireland from Scotland by the British, deliberately to cause trouble there
But you're completely wrong about the geography. No part of Ireland has never been a part of Britain (not within recent geological time, anyway). "Britain" is the name of the island that contains England, Wales, and Scotland ("Great Britain" is just a pompous contraction of "Greater Britain", which
Re:Same in Mexico. (Score:4, Informative)
I'll take the bait. Ever been to Nigeria?
There are Christian Extremists just like there are Muslim Extremists -- and there are Hindi Extremists as well, for that matter. The rest of the logic is left as an exercise for the reader.
Re:Same in Mexico. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please have a look at the Wikipedia article "Terrorism in the United States: Attacks by type" [wikipedia.org] , and you'll see that (just in the US,) nearly every sort of group/ideology you can imagine has (or has had) violent, extremist elements. I believe the only reason Islamic violence is played up in western media is because Muslim extremism is the government's boogeyman du jour, and using those events in its fear-mongering propaganda helps garner support for the MIC and the government's drive towards (ever-greater) authoritarianism.
Please also see the links in a comment I wrote earlier [slashdot.org] for evidence that shows why profiling is not only less effective, but also substantially less secure than random screening.
I added you to my Slashdot friend list due to your compassionate and insightful posts on poverty, political corruption, war, wealth disparity, and you technical knowledge. Please read the links I provided; I am not prepared to write you off as a mere bigot based on one post.
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> ALL of your bombings and attacks are ONLY coming from ONE group
Uggg. This is true only when "your" = "USA" and "ALL" = "my only limited recent history".
Threats change. The al Qaeda threat came out of nowhere because we were too busy looking at the fUSSR. Your suggestion is advocating that we make this same mistake again.
Randomized machine testing solved the US's hijacking wave of the early 1970s (anyone even remember that happened?) and it's solved the same problem for many threats in many situations
Br
Surely (Score:2, Funny)
Yes but if it's random surely they would need a separate belt for the foreign looking people thats more random.. Right?
Low tech solution (Score:3)
Issue the TSA some dice?
Re:Low tech solution (Score:5, Funny)
Issue the TSA some dice?
Only if I can negate the search with a saving throw...
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"Ok, let's see. Your base THACO is 10, with -1 for having small suitcase, and another -1 for TSA as racial enemy, however +1 because of the tiny plume of smoke coming from your shoes, so roll a 9 or better."
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This is a diplomacy check, not combat. Realistically, being the TSA's racial enemy should raise the difficulty, not lower it - just like in real life.
Pennies on The Billion Dollars (Score:5, Funny)
Any VC's out there?
Re:Pennies on The Billion Dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind the training costs of using these circular round objects to generate binary decisions.
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a device for random selection, consisting of a circular round object minted by our very own Federal Government that generates binary decisions with 50% probability
They already have those, they are called "federal agents".
Re:Pennies on The Billion Dollars (Score:5, Funny)
And don't forget the advanced adaptive screening rate through combinatorial probabilistics with both parallell and serial execution methods. You can also implement multiple selection criteria at once, subselecting some passengers to even more intensive screening methods. Though for expediency I'd recommend the d20.system instead.
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I propose we read a TSA einsatzgruppen's entrails then ignore the results and repeat until we're happy with the answer.
Is there evidence that profiling is not effective? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there evidence that profiling passengers based on appearance and behavior is not more effective than randomized screening?
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Is there evidence that profiling passengers based on appearance and behavior is not more effective than randomized screening?
I would assume profiling passengers based on behavior would work. Alas, that requires workers with some real behavioral training and too few contractors would benefit from that (so we buy $250K useless scanning machines instead).
Not sure what the is the point of randomized screening? Keeping us 10% safe? Keeping terrorists 10% concerned?
Re:Is there evidence that profiling is not effecti (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't want to misrepresent Schneier's position, but I've read articles of his in the past which basically say a profile is bad because it gives a way to avoid screening: avoid matching the profile.
Randomized screening may allow a single terrorist through, but something like 9/11 which required 19 guys means almost certainly one of them will be caught. If one is caught, you know to look for others.
Of course, the real solution is locking the cockpit doors and passengers who will kill anyone who tries to hijack an airplane.
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More importantly, I guarantee that were such a system to be used in the US, it would include an override that watching agent could trigger a red light if he saw something suspicious... if only to ensure the continued employment of said agents. And such an override would result in profiling, negating one of the major advantages of the system.
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it would include an override that watching agent could trigger a red light if he saw something suspicious... if only to ensure the continued employment of said agents. And such an override would result in profiling, negating one of the major advantages of the system
Wait, *how* is not allowing an agent who saw something suspicious to stop someone an *advantage*!?
"Sir, I just saw this guy typing a text message 'almost through - they'll never find it before I get on' - should I stop him?"
"No, that would be profiling. Just make sure he pushes the button."
Re:Is there evidence that profiling is not effecti (Score:5, Insightful)
Profiling gives criminals a way to game the system; if you don't look like the profile then you don't get tagged as a potential criminal (it also allows some unfortunate biases to come into play by the profiler). The solution, Schneier suggests, is a system that by its simple randomness, does not allow profiling or gaming.
Whether you agree with his logic or not, I strongly doubt that any such system would be allowed into common usage in US airports without an override. This negates the very advantages Schneier advocates. Whether this addition strengthens the overall system is up to debate (Schneier would argue that it does not), but the addition of a human override weakens those aspects that Schneier looks upon favorably.
Myself, I think all such methods are extreme overkill and that its far more likely that criminals interested in damaging the US with such attacks will strike at our practically undefended infrastructure, be it the huge AV fuel tanks at the airport, or any of the bridges or tunnels in a major city, or some toxic chemical depot in an urban area. Most of these are protected by little more than rusty chain-link fencing and an underpaid security guard and could cause far more harm than a simple plane crash. It's these weaknesses that terrify me far more than the presumed risk of some schmuck with a razor blade hijacking a plane. I'd rather they stop wasting money frisking passengers for penknives and spend it shoring up those vulnerabilities instead.
Or alternately, we could stop pissing off three-quarters of the world so they all don't want to blow us up. It's just whacky enough an idea to work!
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Except that not looking like the profile is more difficult if you are profiled by race, passport origin, and social manner.
Sure the occasional terrorist has been white, blond, and otherwise as different from the typical profile than it comes, but the vast majority of terrorist have been of one ethnicity.
By profiling you improve your hit rate over true random sampling at the expense of letting some targets slip through.
Re: Is there evidence that profiling is not effect (Score:3)
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Randomized screening may allow a single terrorist through, but something like 9/11 which required 19 guys means almost certainly one of them will be caught. If one is caught, you know to look for others.
It wouldn't have made a bit of difference, since nothing they did was illegal at the time. They were basically using a few (at the time allowed) X-Actos in their luggage and several months of training on how to fly the planes.
You assume the terrorists are all stupid enough to try to bring something *currently* illegal through screening, which will almost never be the case.
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Randomized screening may allow a single terrorist through, but something like 9/11 which required 19 guys means almost certainly one of them will be caught. If one is caught, you know to look for others.
Orthogonal point:
Except for the fact that the worst thing they had on them were boxcutters. Nowadays they'd just confiscate them and let you board anyway, they wouldn't even notice that 19 guys across 3 planes had tried to board with boxcutters.
So 50% get through with boxcutters (75% if they only screen 1 out of 4) versus 100% getting through if they can arrange to avoid fitting the profile. Either way the danger is essentially the same.
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The secret one? The cunning one? The one from outer space with a "9" on it?
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since there aren't that many actual terrorists to test the system with, there really isn't much evidence... but there is some standard wisdom.
appearance: yes, because the adversary can easily figure it out and plan around it, or at least this is the usual argument. also, any judgment call or decision branch in the line slows it down for everyone because people are stupid and stubborn.
behavior: this might be effective, but it would slow the line down significantly and/or cost a lot. the point of security the
The real security theater (Score:2)
Pretending that anyone from an 80-year old grandmother to a four year old presents an equal probability of trouble...
Takes a lot of acting chops to claim that's a good idea with a straight face.
Re:The real security theater (Score:5, Insightful)
The oldest suicide bomber [inminds.com] I can find was a 64 year old woman. And an youngest [mirror.co.uk] person arrested for trying to be one is 11.
Not quite your 4 to 80 range, but close enough that you look pretty silly and uninformed.
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And it makes you look illiterate. What the GP actually said was:
80-year old grandmother to a four year old presents an equal probability of trouble
Pointing out that there is an extreme end to the age scale of terrorists doesn't demonstrate that people at those extremes have an equal probability of being a terrorist. The 64 year old woman, and the 11 year old kid - are they a representative sample, or a statistical outlier? Because if they're outliers, you've just proved the GPs point for him.
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Pretending that anyone from an 80-year old grandmother to a four year old presents an equal probability of trouble...
A grandmother would be an excellent candidate for recruiting to carry a proxy bomb. [wikipedia.org] TSA drone SuperKendall would likely wave her right through.
Takes a lot of acting chops to claim that's a good idea with a straight face.
I'm confident that that grandmother will come up with whatever "acting chops" are necessary to get that package through in order to spare the life of her kidnapped grandchild.
Note: Despite this post, I am not a supporter of TSA's draconian "security" practices, which I consider to be in violation of our rights under the Fourth Amendment. I stopped flying seven years
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"Probability"? Your claim is based on a model of reality where all airline passengers roll percentage dice to determine if they are terrorists. 80-year-old white grandmother - probability A. 20-year-old minority male - probability B.
- Any non-random selection algorithm is a known algorithm. This is obvious, because if the TSA is going to profile, they're going to profile the same way you would, and for the same reason.
- That means a terrorist group knows an older white person is going to pass where a younge
Common sense is not bigotry (Score:5, Informative)
just functioning brain cells and a lack of bigotry.
It's not bigotry to pay more attention by behavior profiling and using a little common sense rather than blind rule following.
Behavior analysis is free of racial implications.
Meanwhile "The Randomizer" pulls aside a four year old while letting through some sweaty guy with the shakes and an oddly bulging coat.
Re:Common sense is not bigotry (Score:5, Informative)
I think Schneier wrote about this in 'Beyond Fear'. A book which I think should be required reading for all politicians and policy makers.
The security staff in Israeli airports are trained to look for people 'acting hinky' - they have years of experience in this and an excellent record.
The Taliban in particular are not above using innocent women or children as remotely detonated 'suicide' vest victims - sometimes willing, but often not.
There is nothing preventing a mixed approach. Randomise searches by all means (I agree with Schneier, it can't not improve security), but you need the human behavioral analysis to bolster this for better security - that analysis is best done by trained professionals, something which the TSA are currently, not.
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Meanwhile "The Randomizer" pulls aside a four year old while letting through some sweaty guy with the shakes and an oddly bulging coat.
How do you know that somebody didn't stick something in the four year old's bag? If you proclaim that we'll never search kids and old ladies, then they'll get used as an attack vector of some kind.
I think that having a truly random component to search selection criteria makes sense. That doesn't mean that you can't also have other ways of determining who gets searched. However, at least some part of it should be completely random so that ANYBODY could end up getting searched. That creates risk for those
Re:Is there evidence that profiling is not effecti (Score:5, Interesting)
Profiling inevitably produces more false (usually an order of magnitude more) positives than real positives, and generally produces as many false negatives as false positivves. In other words, you're a lot more likely to spend your time searching someone for no reason than catch an actual bad guy, and as likely to let a real bad guy through as not.
And that assumes the profiling is done in an objective, unbiased manner. When human decisions are made as to who gets profiled, there will be bias, whether the humans doing it realize it or not. This, at least, eliminates that.
I'll bet, though, without reading TFA, that there is no thought whatsoever of this replacing any current profile based screening, only being used in addition to everything done now.
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In other words: if they randomly select 10% of the passengers and 1 out of 1,000 is a terrorist or drug mule, it means that 90% of all "bad guys" will get through without a problem (90% false negative rate), and it means that virtually everyone (999 out of every 1000 people) who gets searched will be innocent (99.9% false positive rate).
If people can pick
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Re:Is there evidence that profiling is not effecti (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly, I don't care how effective either is; just get rid of the TSA and stop harassing people, even if at random or by profiling.
Re:Is there evidence that profiling is not effecti (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong. Now that we secure cockpit doors and passengers are willing to fight back (neither of which violate anyone's freedoms), such hijackings are simply not going to happen.
That said, even if we didn't have either of those things, I believe freedom is more important than security, so toss your "happy medium" right in the garbage.
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If someone is trying to use force to hijack a plane, I don't think it is unreasonable for people to try to stop them, especially after 9/11. I don't see your point.
Re:Is there evidence that profiling is not effecti (Score:5, Informative)
Is there evidence that profiling passengers based on appearance and behavior is not more effective than randomized screening?
Yes. MIT published a paper entitled "Carnival Booth" that demonstrated that random screening is more secure than profiling, essentially due to the latter's vulnerability to probing:
Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System [mit.edu]
A Lay Explanation of the MIT Research Paper [Carnival Booth] [boycottdelta.org]
Schneier on Security: Profiling [schneier.com]
Proxy bombs [wikipedia.org] are also difficult to screen for with profiles.
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But in the real world one or more decoys would probably be used. Just plan it so that several nervous, sketchy looking muslims with long beards enter security before the lily white, clean-cut guy wearing a suit and tie and carrying a laptop and acting just like the vast majority of business travelers.
the lottery (Score:2)
They give you a piece of paper with a block dot on it.
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Vancouver (YVR) has something similar (Score:5, Informative)
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You stand on a mat and it directs you to one of three different security lines, presumably to randomize the screeners incase you have one on your payroll.
Is there any evidence evidence that someone is trying to get through? (not to mention to recruit a screener)
Have they ever caught anyone?
Binomial Theory (Score:5, Funny)
Any terrorist with a simple grasp of binomial theory could work out the number of terrorists to send through the gate necessary to achieve a 90% confidence that one of them gets through with the bomb, given only the relative probability of red vs. green.
So we must prevent binomial theory getting in the hands of terrorists.
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E.G, with a 90% chance of getting a red, the terrorist mastermind would need to send 7 terrorists through to get a 52% chance of one of them getting through unsearched.
Re:Binomial Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Any terrorist with a simple grasp of binomial theory could work out the number of terrorists to send through the gate necessary to achieve a 90% confidence that one of them gets through with the bomb, given only the relative probability of red vs. green.
Any terrorist can realize that a security line (which gets huge during busy season) is as good of a place as any to detonate a bomb. No security _before_ the checkpoint.
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Any terrorist can realize that a security line (which gets huge during busy season) is as good of a place as any to detonate a bomb. No security _before_ the checkpoint.
Protecting you while you're waiting to enter the secure area is not their job --- their job is to prevent weapons from coming onboard, or people getting into the security area with contraband.
This has been done (Score:3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Terrorist_attacks_on_airports
There is a whole list and the most recent one was in Russia I believe.
But there is a problem, Dirty Harry justice. We don't mind how many people the criminal in a Dirty Harry story kills, just as long as they are blown away at the end. What hurts about 9/11 is that they got away with it. Had they been gunned down in a fight with the NYPD, they would have been considered losers.
You could taste some of that with the Russian school/theather
Re:Binomial Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
No symbolic value? The meaning is quite clear. There is nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Nothing that can be done. If they implement pre-security security then they will just bomb the new crowds created by that. If the purpose really is to instill fear blowing up security lines is even better than blowing up planes because it shows the utter uselessness of the security theatre from which so many sheeple seem to derive comfort. And the more that the TSA slow down security with multiple devices and strip searches and more clothing removal even their own intense fear of death the bigger the crowd that can be bombed. I'm not sure what symbolic value an aircraft has anyway. Blowing up security lines, especially many of them at exactly the same time would be pure genius. Can you imagine if every major airport in the US had security lines being blown up at the same time? That would certainly instill fear.
Re:Binomial Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Assuming they would put the airport on lockdown and start searching everyone if they found one person with a bomb, sending more people through would just increase the chances of getting caught and foiled.
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I'll admit, I don't recall any lockdown that came with full searches, but I do remember the world's busiest airport being locked down because of an electric toothbrush [slashdot.org]. I figure that if they find an actual bomb, they'll be more inclined to do some searches.
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If all you want to do is blow up a bunch of people, then just send a bomber into the security line and have them set it off when they're in the middle. Or target busses or something.
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If the plane takes off anyway after finding a hijacker/bomber trying to get on, the first time, it won't after that until every single passenger has been stripped searched.
Duh.
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What makes you think the TSA would act rationally?
Can't Be Gamed? Hahahahahahahaha!!! (Score:2)
It only "can't be gamed" if you have independent sources checking them out to make sure they're MADE not to be gamed, and that they stay that way AFTER manufacture.
This is the same fundamental problem they had with electronic voting booths. They couldn't be "gamed", either. But they were.
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"Good call here, tho this makes our hero Schneier look like a moron."
Well, I certainly do not thing Bruce is a moron!
But I have noticed this about many security researchers, as well as manufacturers of security equipment: they tend to focus on their own security specialty, while shutting out the environment surrounding it.
Thus you end up with nice, secure algorithms, that are implemented in ways that are full of holes. Or makers of "secure" electronic locks that are attached to cheap, vulnerable locking mechanisms. Etc.
In a case like this: the chip or circuit or sof
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"You're confusing security salesmen with security researchers."
No, I most definitely am not, as Bruce just demonstrated rather dramatically.
Presses a button (Score:2)
Not just India (Score:2)
I don't really see them implementing it well, but that's another story. Small steps
Why? (Score:2)
From the summary it sounded like this would randomly choose which passengers get picked for extra screening. That makes sense and I can see why this would be helpful in ensuring that random screenings really are random.
However, the in the TSA's proposal, it sounds more like they want a device that chooses which line you go to for the normal screening. So rather than passengers (or a TSA agent) automatically balancing themselves across the lines, if several neophyte fliers end up in one line and cause a b
Except (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Except (Score:4, Informative)
That is something that affects you.
As many have already said... (Score:2)
In Mexico it's long been like that. But I think this makes Mr. Schneier a bit gullible — It is quite common to find experiences of people who are clearly "fast-tracked" into revision. Yes, I have had red lights several times, and it has some correlation with my age and looks at the time.
Red channel/Green Channel (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I did that same thing 40 years ago.. (Score:3)
I'm not convinced (Score:3)
My guess is that this creates a psychological game of chance that a would-be attacker might not risk; and perhaps searches are more thorough when personnel isn't having to rifle through *everyone's* stuff.
There are two things we know have strengthened security:
1) reenforced cockpit doors
2) passengers who know the deal and won't put up with any shit
We could make further *real* changes to improve security, like having highly trained and skilled air marshalls on every flight, hiring actual officers with actual skills to patrol airports instead of hiring glorified assembly line monkeys, searching bags strategically based on behavior and questioning ... but those things are just too expensive in the "wrong" way (ie.: they don't line the coffers of porno-scan manufacturers and the bureaucrats who do then favors; it would kill the job creation program for unskilled, slack-jawed mouth breathers)
As important as bias and gaming the system... (Score:2)
Can't be gamed? (Score:2)
How do we know whats behind the button? It's easy enough to claim that its simply a RNG, but it could equally be radio controlled by a guy watching one of the camera feeds. This is akin to closed source encryption software - we gotta trust that the guys who built it are truthful. Sorry Bruce, this is actually security theatre.
Random? How about profile based on behaviour? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I am sick of this "we cannot profile" crap. The israelis profile based on "behaviour" as their main focus. I don't care how "trained" a terrorist is, they will always have a "tell" and they will always be nervous. Stop irradiating people and stop with this random violation of human rights in the name of political correctness. I am sorry but I am not interested in playing russian roulette with my life. That is exactly what this is because it is based on the premise that they can randomly find the terrorist.
Enough is enough. We have to start profiling based on behaviour and background checks and allow law abiding citizens and visitors to travel relatively unmolested. If we continue not profiling then the terrorists have won. Find and prosecute the terrorists and attempted terrorists and leave people who want to visit peacefully and spend money in your countries alone.
Doing evidence based profiling would probably be a good idea, but it is difficult, and to do it well would require a level of background checking and data mining that I think many would be uncomfortable with. Heck, even determining with high confidence just the identity of the 300 people to board the plane is a non-trivial task. Having a purely random component to determining who gets increased scrutiny is a very good way of dealing with the limitations of our screening resources.
From a game-theory perspect
"customs officials can set the search percentage" (Score:2)
Presumably the customs officials can set the search percentage.
When can they set the percentage?
*man speaking Arabic walks up to the device* *operator quickly sets percentage to 100%*
It can't be gamed. (Score:2)
OK, I repeat so you can reflect on it: "It can't be gamed"
Oh, did I tell you It can't be gamed?
Not new for the TSA (Score:2)
I don't know if they still do it with all the nude scanners but the old metal detectors would randomly decide if you get subjected to secondary search by flashing a different light when you go through
Re: (Score:2)
And that private contractor will most likely be named Dr. Gaius Baltar.
Re: (Score:2)
Random checks generally work as a deterrent. Like randomly checking athletes for steroids.
As far as I can tell, that doesn't actually work. For example, Lance Armstrong (and everyone else in the Tour de France, and a bunch of people in MLB, and Football, etc).
Re:How idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
With a monolithic culture, a purely random process makes sense... Could you please direct me to that imaginary monolithic culture? I want to move there and F*ck it all up...
Imagine wasting 70 percent of your time searching grandmothers, children, and the handicapped instead of searching the more likely demographic. It's pure idiocy to think profiling is a bad thing. If you are profiling to harass then yes it is bad but if you are profiling because the profiled group is doing all of the bad things then profiling is not bad. Only an idiot can't see such an obvious truth...
If you have a building with four entrances, and you have twelve guards to cover them, do you put three at each entrance, covering each as best you can, or do you put nine on one entrance you think is most likely to see an attacker, and only one on each of the other three?
If you're an idiot, you do the latter. If you're not an idiot, you realize the former yields maximum security, because as soon as you put all your guards on one entrance, it becomes far easier for an attacker to get in, they just use one of the other three.
If you can understand that, you should be able to comprehend why searching any particular demographic more (and thus, by diverting resources, means you search others less) makes you less secure, not more. As soon as your move resources into an uneven distribution mode, you open up exploitable holes, and you're a moron if you think your enemy won't exploit that.
Your "obvious truth" is the kind of thing uneducated people who don't really understand the problem say. Answers always seem obvious when you don't understand the problem -- but you could actually try educating yourself before spouting off idiotic nonsense...
Re: (Score:2)
It might not be security theatre but it is still security circus. Anyone think a dedicated terrorist of the muslim kind would care? If the light turns red just blow up then and there.
Killing a dozen people at the terminal, instead of three hundred people on board an airplane. You just described the system working quite well at its job (keeping the airplane safe). Was that supposed to be an argument against it? It's supposed to be the airplane safe. It's not supposed to stop all terrorism. The people proposing this are well aware of the fact that no matter how much security you have at the airport, people can still blow themselves up somewhere (and frequently do -- busy markets are