Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • October 22, 2008 7:37 AM

Back when Maggie Thatcher was Priminister of the UK there where a spate of "mainland" bombings by the Provisional IRA.

Some time into the campain there was a marked change in the way these incidents where portrayed in the media.

Incidents where human life was endangered was downplayed and incidents where people where only inconvenianced where given more prominant media reporting.

Shortly after this the Provos started attacking inferstructure like railway signal terminal boxes around London.

They got press but people where not hurt.

A rumor emerged via a reporter that Maggie had dictated this course of action.

A little while later the Provos had a splinter group form and the Mary Axe and Docklands bombs followed.

And the press clamoured and the City of London eventually got a "ring of steel" to protect it to prevent large bombs being driven in.

Which worked untill 7/7 when the public transport network was attacked.

Sometimes I wonder if we would be better of without reporters...

Clive Robinson • October 22, 2008 8:02 AM

@ D0R,

"Except that we're not going to see terrorist hijacking a train cab and crashing it into a skyscraper anytime soon."

On that score I can only remember having ever read about one train drivers cab having been broken into whilst in use in the UK, and that was during the "Great Train Robbery".

I'm sure there must be other examples in the world but non spring to mind.

Clive Robinson • October 22, 2008 8:19 AM

@ jkohen,

"Or we will be traveling in shut compartments."

If a documentry I saw on a rail accident in the US is true then you already are.

Apparently it is mandated to use bullet proof glass and locking doors.

This prevented the firemen getting into a burning carrage to either rescue people or put out the fire that had spread from the burning fuel oil.

Clive Robinson • October 22, 2008 11:30 AM

@

"So perhaps security is not your actual agenda?"

In the case of Hoon he comes from a (nearly) bankrupt political party of very questionable morals.

His previous political master "The Right Hounerable" (?) Tony Blair MP, ex PM of the UK took the party (Labour) to new lows on the depths of sleaze chart with amongst other things being interviewed by the police on coruption (cash for peerages), various ministers resigning over their conections with corrupt polititions from other countries.

His current political master Gordon Brown MP / PM is a bully with few social graces and mainly responsable for putting the UK in it's current precarious financial state.

One of his colleagues Jack Straw MP when he was a junior minister under a previous government thought nothing on getting documents out of he National Insurance and Tax Office records for political reasons to get "milage" on the partner of a political rival.

So the party has a history of raiding government databases for dirt on political rivals, and coruption, as well as a desperate need for political donations to fight the next election.

So why not combine these "minor issues" and build a central database on all people in or who have been in the UK and make it so rediculously complicated that it requires hugh contracts to be issued to favourd suppliers (who have all failed to deliver on such contracts in the past) and get gratfull handbacks into the party coffers. The complicated nature of the DB and the lack of competence of the suppliers will give perfact cover for raiding the DB for dirt on political rivals their families, and any political actacists and their families etc.

Oh and if he does not get re-elected these same gratfull companies are bound to find some well paid directorship position as compensation.

So you might well ask Hoon,

"So perhaps security is not your actual agenda?"