Essays in the Category "National Security Policy"
Page 9 of 14
Time to Show Bottle and Tackle the Real Issues
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…
Why Society Should Pay the True Costs of Security
It’s not true that no one worries about terrorists attacking chemical plants. It’s just that our politics seem to leave us unable to deal with the threat. Toxins such as ammonia, chlorine, propane and flammable mixtures are being produced or stored as a result of legitimate industrial processes. Chlorine gas is particularly toxic; in addition to bombing a plant, someone could hijack a chlorine truck or blow up a railcar. Phosgene is even more dangerous. And many chemical plants are located in places where an act of sabotage – or an accident – could threaten thousands of people…
The TSA's Useless Photo ID Rules
No-fly lists and photo IDs are supposed to help protect the flying public from terrorists. Except that they don't work.
The TSA is tightening its photo ID rules at airport security. Previously, people with expired IDs or who claimed to have lost their IDs were subjected to secondary screening. Then the Transportation Security Administration realized that meant someone on the government’s no-fly list—the list that is supposed to keep our planes safe from terrorists—could just fly with no ID.
Now, people without ID must also answer personal questions from their credit history to ascertain their identity. The TSA will keep records of who those ID-less people are, too, in case they’re trying to probe the system…
Memo to Next President: How to Get Cybersecurity Right
Obama has a cybersecurity plan.
It’s basically what you would expect: Appoint a national cybersecurity adviser, invest in math and science education, establish standards for critical infrastructure, spend money on enforcement, establish national standards for securing personal data and data-breach disclosure, and work with industry and academia to develop a bunch of needed technologies.
I could comment on the plan, but with security, the devil is always in the details—and, of course, at this point there are few details. But since he brought up the topic—McCain supposedly is “…
CCTV Doesn't Keep Us Safe, Yet the Cameras Are Everywhere
Pervasive security cameras don’t substantially reduce crime. There are exceptions, of course, and that’s what gets the press. Most famously, CCTV cameras helped catch James Bulger’s murderers in 1993. And earlier this year, they helped convict Steve Wright of murdering five women in the Ipswich area. But these are the well-publicised exceptions. Overall, CCTV cameras aren’t very effective.
This fact has been demonstrated again and again: by a comprehensive study for the Home Office in 2005, by several studies in the US, and again with new data …
Are Photographers Really a Threat?
What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are?
Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We’ve been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.
Except that it’s nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography. Even those …
Crossing Borders with Laptops and PDAs
Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you’re entering the country. They can take your computer and download its entire contents, or keep it for several days. Customs and Border Patrol has not published any rules regarding this practice, and I and others have written a letter to Congress urging it to investigate and regulate this practice.
But the US is not alone. British customs agents search laptops for pornography. And there are reports on the internet of this sort of thing happening at other borders, too. You might not like it, but it’s a fact. So how do you protect yourself?…
America's Dilemma: Close Security Holes, or Exploit Them Ourselves
On April 27, 2007, Estonia was attacked in cyberspace. Following a diplomatic incident with Russia about the relocation of a Soviet World War II memorial, the networks of many Estonian organizations, including the Estonian parliament, banks, ministries, newspapers and broadcasters, were attacked and—in many cases—shut down. Estonia was quick to blame Russia, which was equally quick to deny any involvement.
It was hyped as the first cyberwar: Russia attacking Estonia in cyberspace. But nearly a year later, evidence that the Russian government was involved in the denial-of-service attacks still hasn’t emerged. Though Russian hackers were indisputably the major instigators of the attack, the only individuals …
Census of Cyberspace Censoring
Book Review of Access Denied
China restricts Internet access by keyword.
In 1993, Internet pioneer John Gilmore said “the net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it”, and we believed him. In 1996, cyberlibertarian John Perry Barlow issued his ‘Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace’ at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, and online. He told governments: “You have no moral right to rule us, nor do you possess any methods of enforcement that we have true reason to fear.”
At the time, many shared Barlow’s sentiments. The Internet empowered people. It gave them access to information and couldn’t be stopped, blocked or filtered. Give someone access to the Internet, and they have access to everything. Governments that relied on censorship to control their citizens were doomed…
The Myth of the "Transparent Society"
When I write and speak about privacy, I am regularly confronted with the mutual disclosure argument. Explained in books like David Brin’s The Transparent Society, the argument goes something like this: In a world of ubiquitous surveillance, you’ll know all about me, but I will also know all about you. The government will be watching us, but we’ll also be watching the government. This is different than before, but it’s not automatically worse. And because I know your secrets, you can’t use my secrets as a weapon against me.
This might not be everybody’s idea of utopia—and it certainly doesn’t address the …
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.