The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother • Hacker News Board

Re: The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

#11

Post by intellectronica » Thu, Dec 31, 2009, 9:11 PM UTC

The problem with the Israelification goal is that while Israel's airport security method is second to none, it is not scalable, and therefore not applicable to the US (or many other countries), at least not without major restructuring. The problem of scale is manifested twice:

1. Manpower - Israel has a huge pool of very talented young men and women who already received very good training in the army and the security services. It also budgets paying them well. Make no mistake, airport security in Israel is no McJob, it is a prestigious, well-paid position, manned by the top classes of society. America is relying on cheap, unskilled labour for these jobs, and transitioning to an Israeli employment profile will bankrupt the system.

2. Volume - Israel has only one major international airport (and even that one is quite small). As far as airport security is concerned, it is a very local problem which can benefit from focused attention. The US has to protect hundreds of very busy airports, and they all have their unique weaknesses.

Re: The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

#12

Post by intellectronica » Thu, Dec 31, 2009, 9:13 PM UTC

dazzawazza wrote: post #2

The bigger tragedy is that Israel has been living in a state of war for 50 years. A little more effort toward peace and less toward locking down society and we'd all be better off.

I couldn't agree more, but this comment isn't relevant to this discussions at all. You should have avoided adding it.

Re: The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

#13

Post by mrav » Thu, Dec 31, 2009, 9:14 PM UTC

hi i think about 2000 ameriacns die every day from heart disease righ why bother with the airlines? just eat right... and btw i'm from israel

Re: The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

#14

Post by Zarathu » Thu, Dec 31, 2009, 9:19 PM UTC

Oh, yes, because the Israelis totally have their shit together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihXtbB-4GWw

Re: The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

#15

Post by andrewcooke » Thu, Dec 31, 2009, 9:19 PM UTC

intellectronica wrote: post #11

The problem with the Israelification goal is that while Israel's airport security method is second to none, it is not scalable, and therefore not applicable to the US (or many other countries), at least not without major restructuring. The problem of scale is manifested twice: 1. Manpower - Israel has a huge pool of very talented young men and women who already received very good training in the army and the security…

one way to fix 1 would be to shift us spending from israel to internal security.

2 isn't clearly an issue; you need to consider something more like the ratio of airport / population.

Re: The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

#16

Post by intellectronica » Thu, Dec 31, 2009, 9:24 PM UTC

andrewcooke wrote: post #15

intellectronica wrote: post #11

The problem with the Israelification goal is that while Israel's airport security method is second to none, it is not scalable, and therefore not applicable to the US (or many other countries), at least not without major restructuring. The problem of scale is manifested twice: 1. Manpower - Israel has a huge pool of very talented young men and women who already received very good training in the army and the security…

one way to fix 1 would be to shift us spending from israel to internal security. 2 isn't clearly an issue; you need to consider something more like the ratio of airport / population.

It is an issue, because the marginal cost of analysing an Airport for vulnerabilities and devising ways to defend against them doesn't decrease when you cover more airports. You have to Israelificate each and every airport by developing techniques and training a workforce which is not easily transferable.

Re: The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

#17

Post by ryanwaggoner » Thu, Dec 31, 2009, 9:26 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #9

dazzawazza wrote: post #2

The bigger tragedy is that Israel has been living in a state of war for 50 years. A little more effort toward peace and less toward locking down society and we'd all be better off.

[deleted]

It's sad that you think the two are mutually exclusive.

Re: The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

#18

Post by Apreche » Thu, Dec 31, 2009, 9:30 PM UTC

intellectronica wrote: post #11

The problem with the Israelification goal is that while Israel's airport security method is second to none, it is not scalable, and therefore not applicable to the US (or many other countries), at least not without major restructuring. The problem of scale is manifested twice: 1. Manpower - Israel has a huge pool of very talented young men and women who already received very good training in the army and the security…

You've hit the nail on the head with #1. The cause of all of our problems is that we have a large population, a large amount of land, and a relatively small proportion of our people are highly skilled and trained experts. Fixing that fundamental issue will solve most of our problems.

Israel is a very small amount of land, a relatively small population compared to us, and most of the people are relatively highly trained due to mandatory conscription.

Re: The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

#19

Post by Eliezer » Thu, Dec 31, 2009, 9:30 PM UTC

intellectronica wrote: post #16

andrewcooke wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one way to fix 1 would be to shift us spending from israel to internal security. 2 isn't clearly an issue; you need to consider something more like the ratio of airport / population.

It is an issue, because the marginal cost of analysing an Airport for vulnerabilities and devising ways to defend against them doesn't decrease when you cover more airports. You have to Israelificate each and every airport by developing techniques and training a workforce which is not easily transferable.

Whaa? R&D on techinques and machinery should have economy of scale, not diseconomy of scale. And the Israelis would be happy to tell us how to do it.

Re: The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

#20

Post by tshtf » Thu, Dec 31, 2009, 9:30 PM UTC

intellectronica wrote: post #11

The problem with the Israelification goal is that while Israel's airport security method is second to none, it is not scalable, and therefore not applicable to the US (or many other countries), at least not without major restructuring. The problem of scale is manifested twice: 1. Manpower - Israel has a huge pool of very talented young men and women who already received very good training in the army and the security…

You're entirely correct on scale. If we take a look at passenger movements for the top 30 airports in the world, available at http://www.airports.org/cda/aci_common/display/main/aci_cont...

Ben Gurion airport isn't even listed. The US, Asian, and European airports handling this traffic could not possibly scale to handle this Israeli solution.

That said, it may (or may not) be beneficial to find components of the Israeli solution that would work best to handle the issues with manpower and volume.