Schneier on Security

Gabriel • September 30, 2011 5:09 PM

Gabriel • October 1, 2011 4:56 PM

@aikimark: Do you have a source for this? After that press conference, the only thing I heard discussed was that NYPD has a 50 Cal BMG Barrett sniper rifle (probably M107, semi-automatic). If that was the capability the chief was talking about, he was pretty much talking out his a**. While a 50 Cal machine gun can shot down an aircraft, it would be near impossible to hit the engine on an aircraft flying several hundred mph with a semi-automatic. Furthermore, anything big enough to destroy a building is going to have 2 - 4 engines, good luck hitting all of them. Finally, if you shoot down anything large like an airliner, you will have to blow it out of the sky, either an explosion or enough damage to cause it to break apart. This will take one potent missile, and you will not want to do it over a populated area, especially as unlike B-17 pilots in WWII who were trying to crash land safely if they couldn't bail out, some jihadi wannabe is just going to divert the plane to the closest sky scraper. New York's got tons of them.

So, I think this is just a bunch of hot air. If you want the job done right, you call the Air Force/Air National Guard. A couple of F-16s can easily intercept anything, and if the aircraft refuses to respond, can shoot them down before they get near a heavily populated area. Some gung-ho cop is not going to be able to do this, missile or gun.

Gabriel • October 1, 2011 8:48 PM

@Aikimark:
The 20k missiles is how many Libya had, rather than how many are lost. That number is not yet known, but I did see an estimate of 5K when searching on google. If news reports are accurate, this is the Soviet era Strela-2 (NATO SA-7), which is a good helicopter killer, but not a jet killer according to the article on Wikipedia. To even be effective against a passenger jet, which doesn't descend on targets, you will have to be positioned near airports. Numerous aircraft have been hit and managed to land, so it's more like a .22 cal vs. 30.06 (both can be lethal, but one has less stopping power). There are already a plethora of these type MANPADS available that terrorists could have already procured, so my guess is that:
1. Most of the loss is due to poor inventory control, they'll show up in the "right hands" but in the wrong building or vehicles.
2. Any that were actually stolen are for sale on the black market, not for any nefarious purpose. Terrorists could acquire these, but they will probably also go into the hands of guerillas and other insurgent groups in the middle east and Africa.

Of course, I am not Jane's, so I have no idea how many are floating around the world or mid-east to begin with. It seems many of these missiles are easily defeated by cheap countermeasures, so it makes sense to install them on aircraft, particularly ones going overseas into regions with higher risk. I just don't see terrorist owned MANPADs showing up outside of LAX or La Guardia. Now, Mexico might become dangerous (with our without Libyan missiles), because the narcos like to prove how big their cojones are by perpetrating some of the most brutal and disgusting crimes. I could foresee one of the cartels shooting down a passenger airliner (and they have the resources to get close to the airports) just to make a sick point.

Gabriel • October 2, 2011 10:44 AM

Skreidle: Great summary of our acheivements, although I would say post WWII was one of the most successful efforts in more recent history. It's always been spoils of war for the conqueror, and subjugation, slavery, or annihilation for the conquered.

Of course, if I recall, in Harry Potter, they took the approach of locking all of the villains up in Azkaban, a rather hellish place. Not terribly different from what we are doing now, except Gitmo isn't hell, but rather limbo.