Schneier on Security

This essay also appeared in the Taipei Times.

Airport security found a bottle of saline in my luggage at Heathrow Airport last month. It was a 4oz bottle, slightly above the 100 ml limit. Airport security in the United States lets me through with it all the time, but UK security was stricter. The official confiscated it, because allowing it on the airplane with me would have been too dangerous. And to demonstrate how dangerous he really thought that bottle was, he blithely tossed it in a nearby bin of similar liquid bottles and sent me on my way…