Schneier on Security

Nick Lancaster • September 22, 2007 1:05 PM

The issue is not with clueless, ill-informed, or common-sense lacking citizens.

The problem is with law enforcement that is increasingly responding to matters with a bogus ‘post-9/11’ mindset that is equally lacking in common sense.

Everything can’t be a bomb. Certainly, I question the assumption that a terrorist will wear their circuit boards on the OUTSIDE, carry plastic explosives IN THEIR HAND, and openly approach an airport employee.

(I was at a Star Wars convention back in May, and security had an issue with a Nerf blaster I was bringing in for an event, ‘because it fires projectiles.’ Funny thing is, nobody seemed to notice the person who had the exact same Nerf blaster painted black and worn as part of a costume …)

Nick Lancaster • September 22, 2007 4:49 PM

I know that I – and probably others who post here – are not arguing against reasonable prudence on the part of airport personnel.

But if ringing a young woman who may have a suspicious device on her person with armed guards (who seem to also have admitted that they were ready to pull the trigger) is ‘reasonable prudence,’ I’d hate to think what the response will be to a honest-to-goodness terrorist incident.

We continue to be told that suspicion, fear, and armed response are the right thing, the sensible thing in a ‘post-9/11’ world. That phrase, ‘post-9/11’ world is nonsensical. We weren’t living in a ‘post-12/7’ world, or a ‘post-11/23’ world, or a ‘post-7/20’ world before that – the only thing that changed is our awareness of our fallibility, NOT the sudden presence of a colossal threat by an insidious, creeping evil.

And let’s look down the road. What they’re really saying is that 9/11 is the day America learned to be afraid and jump at shadows. Why are we looking for reasons to remain afraid, instead of reasons to be free?

I agree wholeheartedly with Bruce: refuse to be terrorized.

Nick Lancaster • September 23, 2007 12:34 AM

Actually, geniuses are permitted to be treated like everyone else.

And that means they occasionally do dumb things, from wearing shirts inside-out, mismatched socks, not hearing people ask the simplest of questions, and so on.

Simpson’s answer of ‘It’s art,’ is being singled out as being somehow funky or hinky or strange. Actually, it’s the direct response of an engineer-type: it’s art.

How would she have been treated if she said, “It’s an electronic circuit board hooked up to a bunch of lights and stuff.”? Are people suggesting a more thorough explanation would NOT have drawn the same response from security?

Given that it’s by far the average state of the populace to be preoccupied, caught up in our own thing, and not thinking of our actions or possessions as being the tools of a terrorist, we need to find a method of handling security that discerns the normal from the abnormal, with a better default position than a 50% chance of going to the morgue.

TSA screeners routinely confiscate knives and other objects – yet we don’t charge those passengers with attempted terrorism; we rightly judge that they overlooked the item, and ask they surrender the item before passing through the checkpoint. Neither is any judgment made about their intelligence or abundance/lack of common sense.

So why is a circuit board with blinky lights so radically different, so threatening that we respond en masse with drawn guns and cops admitting they would have shot Simpson if she so much as twitched the wrong way?

Simpson isn’t the one who can answer that question. It’s up to law enforcement to do that, and up to the rest of us to call b.s. when the answer is drenched in syrupy fear.

Nick Lancaster • September 24, 2007 4:49 AM

@Cardude:

You’re reaching. The what-if game is exactly what the security people are playing, and playing badly. And even if Simpson was a distressed person, is surrounding her with armed security personnel ready to shoot the smart thing to do?

The issue here appears to be what qualifies as ‘hinky’ – in this case, it was Simpson’s somewhat distracted answer of ‘It’s art.’ (And again, that’s the completely graceless answer of a preoccupied engineer, not a potential suicide bomber.)

There appears to have been no effort made to ascertain the nature of the device after the desk clerk’s initial assessment.

Now, I know the TSA has briefing sheets of concealed weapons (including two different styles of ‘credit-card knives’ that I happen to own) … so why isn’t similar information being made available to other public-interface personnel? (Or, perhaps we need to place a TSA screener at an information kiosk.)

As CBM points out, there’s a breakdown between the clerk spotting Simpson and the security response. I can’t imagine what they’d do in the face of a real threat.

Proper procedure is going to carry the day most of the time. Ticking-bomb heroics should be left for episodes of ’24.’

Nick Lancaster • September 24, 2007 7:59 AM

@Trub:

If the question is ‘how many pink dinosaurs have been spotted at airports in the last six years?’ and the answer is also ‘None,’ do we conclude that we must nonetheless guard against pink dinosaurs?

Let’s be realistic about the level of the threat. There is no reason to believe that, in the wake of 9/11, there are suddenly hordes of suicide bombers just waiting for the right moment to descend upon the nation’s airports.