Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • October 5, 2012 1:38 PM

Hmm it’s not just a rambaling brainstorming it’s got wrong with it.

For instance, it mentions the aircraft hijacks of the 1960’s&70’s but forgets to mention that many of these were in effect “state sponsored” and were part of the “proxie war” stratagems of the cold war era.

As others have noted above it does not need to be a group, nor as has happened with the attempts at gas cylinder bombing in the UK’s Glasgow airport (June 2007) or Times Square NY (May 2010) and several other places do the group/individual need to be organised funded or trained (which is probably why both incidents did not work the way the perpetrators intended).

As for operational security the various N.I. terrorists groups had little trouble getting recruits and limiting any damage infiltrators from Gov/LEO trying to work their way in which was why the Gov tactics changed to trying “to turn” suspected individuals.

Further fake/alternative ID’s are not a necessity for terrorists many groups have and do prosper without them and when it comes to suicied bombers often they use their own quite legaly issued travel documents.

Whilst modern methods of communication are getting harder, traditional non electronic means are still just as effective as they have always been.

As for funding there are various Muslim and Asian banking systems that have and do continue to work effectivly using what are in effect bussiness letters of introduction/credit to a cut out who then passes the funds on in other methods. One trick that has worked for a while is gold coins. Many people from Asian and other backgrounds collect and trade using gold coins these can be moved / smuggled relativly easily and worn ass jewlery. As has been seen in the past with UK VAT fraud gold coins melted down and cast into rough ingots are bought quite readily by asian jewlers etc for cash or semi/precious stones. Adding small quantities of other metals such as copper etc is also known by many criminals world wide as a way to disguise the origin of the base metal.

I could go on and pick many many more holes in the artical and give counter examples to show that “it aint necessarily so”. But that would be both to easy and missing the point. The point is that enquiring and inventive minds have been at the terrorism game since before the word was invented or for that matter could be written down.

Spying has often been refered to as “the second oldest profession in the world” and much trade craft has been practiced and honed to a very fine degree over the centuries. In a way terrorism is just an offensive subset of Spying, it was back in WWII that Churchill effectivly legitimised this “branch of spying” by trying to set Europe ablaze via the likes of the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

The simple fact is that this trade craft was developed from the skills of criminals (crime almost certainly being the oldest profession in the world) and as we have seen most forms of crime have stayed the same even with the advent of modern technology, they have just changed slightly the tools available thus providing more opportunity to those with inventive minds.

If people wish to try and become successfull terrorists I would commend them to first study a little history then examin how technology has changed the game a little as it has with crime. By the end of the process if they have the brains to become successfull they will almost of certainly realised there are better ways of achiving most of the goals they desire. History has shown us that Communism did not fail from external pressure (although it certainly helped) but from within with the leadership realising that it was not working. This failing from within historicaly is also the fate for most dictatorships and empires.

But a final thought, as bad as 9/11, 7/7 etc were, which has caused more harm to the every day lives of US and other western nations, global terrorism or the global recession attributed to the behaviour of the banking industry and/or global capitalism?