Laptop Ban a Reaction to X-Ray Equipment Stolen by ISIS • Hacker News Board

Re: Laptop Ban a Reaction to X-Ray Equipment Stolen by ISIS

#71

Post by valuearb » Mon, May 22, 2017, 9:34 PM UTC

stevenwoo wrote: post #58

tsaoutourpants wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck Elon Musk, can you design a tool that would make airport security better? I bet in 15 minutes, most HN readers could come up with something that would be cheaper, more effective, and faster to use than the current tool set. There's indeed money to be made here (and good to be done), even if the easiest way would be to patent your idea and sell it to the military industrial complex you speak of. Fun fact: the par…

There is a model that we already know works in practice but it's not cheaper or faster and it would generate a lot of income for security/airport renovation companies at the cost of much higher ticket costs to pay for it - the Israeli model. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/adopting_the_...

There is an easier model called "less stringent security". Flying is incredibly safe. There is little evidence that the TSA's onerous security processes safe enough lives to be worth their massive costs.

Re: Laptop Ban a Reaction to X-Ray Equipment Stolen by ISIS

#72

Post by askvictor » Mon, May 22, 2017, 9:35 PM UTC

suihkulokki wrote: post #39

This article seems to miss the fact ISIS took over Mosul international airport in 2014. Surely they got luggage screening machines in hand by then already.

My guess would be that the gear at Mosul would not be as advanced as elsewhere.

Re: Laptop Ban a Reaction to X-Ray Equipment Stolen by ISIS

#73

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 22, 2017, 9:37 PM UTC

tsaoutourpants wrote: post #26

subterfudge44 wrote: post #24

One of the sad things about airport security is that there is no scope for private innovation. It is a military industrial complex of using substandard solutions for potentially non existent problems while wasting insane amount of money. May be there is a need for the security theatre but then we can at least get good at it. Can Elon Musk design a better airport security ?

Fuck Elon Musk, can you design a tool that would make airport security better? I bet in 15 minutes, most HN readers could come up with something that would be cheaper, more effective, and faster to use than the current tool set. There's indeed money to be made here (and good to be done), even if the easiest way would be to patent your idea and sell it to the military industrial complex you speak of. Fun fact: the par…

[deleted]

Re: Laptop Ban a Reaction to X-Ray Equipment Stolen by ISIS

#74

Post by mtgx » Mon, May 22, 2017, 9:43 PM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #57

Animats wrote: post #32

The secrecy issue has gotten out of hand. The classic military view of secrecy is time-limited. "Where the ship was last week is unclassified. Where the ship was yesterday is confidential. Where the ship is now is secret. Where the ship will be tomorrow is top secret." The opposition will eventually find out what you're planning on doing. The goal is for them to find out the hard way, when incoming fire starts hittin…

> The anti-terrrorism community has adopted the intelligence community mindset. This is a problem. Wonder how much that has to do with overlap between the two. Today's terrorist may well have been yesterday's informat, and may well be an informant again tomorrow. After all, the CIA was deeply involved in Afghanistan back when the USSR was fighting there. And many of the people that the CIA supported then later turned…

And then the CIA allied again with alQaeda when fighting Assad.

And round and round it goes. Too bad the public is made a to be a sucker every time.

Re: Laptop Ban a Reaction to X-Ray Equipment Stolen by ISIS

#75

Post by 15155 » Mon, May 22, 2017, 9:46 PM UTC

tsaoutourpants wrote: post #11

leroy_masochist wrote: post #9

Q for the author: how valuable would an actual proprietary airport X-ray be, in terms of designing devices (as compared to another X-ray of similar spec)? Does having access to the actual X-ray for purposes of product testing really make that much of a difference to a technically gifted bomb-maker?

Yes. See my comment below to djmdjm, but also, I'll add one more thing. Take a knife out of your kitchen drawer and hold it in your hand in front of you such that the sharp side of the blade is on the left and the dull side is on the right. Easy to see. Now rotate it 90 degrees such that the sharp side is facing you and the dull side is facing away. Much harder to see, especially if you can imagine what it would look…

Angle-shifting units make this harder, but the obvious blindspot is the conveyor belt entrance/exit holes (they cannot have imaging equipment in them).

Re: Laptop Ban a Reaction to X-Ray Equipment Stolen by ISIS

#76

Post by dfox » Mon, May 22, 2017, 9:49 PM UTC

_ph_ wrote: post #54

kmonsen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking people to turn on the device seems stupid. Just do half battery half bomb and make it functional enough it will work for 10 min.

That would already cut the amount of explosives in half. Modern laptop batteries are not exactly huge to start with. So it is much less likely to do big damage to the airplane. Add to that, it is not trivial to make a battery half the size which still has enough voltage to power the laptop - you would need cells half the size for that. And all bombings of airplanes have been done with bombs in the cargo bay.

Typical laptop battery has pairs of cells in parallel, so removing half of them is trivial.

Re: Laptop Ban a Reaction to X-Ray Equipment Stolen by ISIS

#77

Post by dvdhnt » Mon, May 22, 2017, 9:53 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #32

The secrecy issue has gotten out of hand. The classic military view of secrecy is time-limited. "Where the ship was last week is unclassified. Where the ship was yesterday is confidential. Where the ship is now is secret. Where the ship will be tomorrow is top secret." The opposition will eventually find out what you're planning on doing. The goal is for them to find out the hard way, when incoming fire starts hittin…

This is wrong.

The classification level of information is determined by confidentiality of the information's source. This is done to protect deeply embedded or highly technical means of information gathering.

For example, information that could have only come from the second in command of some organization would require the highest of security classifications whereas information that could have come from any dozens of members of that organization would only require a confidential or secret classification.

Information is required to be classified at the lowest possible level, a guideline that is both taught and enforced throughout most if not all of the Intelligence Community.

source: I was an intelligence analyst for 6+ years.

Re: Laptop Ban a Reaction to X-Ray Equipment Stolen by ISIS

#78

Post by simonh » Mon, May 22, 2017, 9:55 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #74

digi_owl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The anti-terrrorism community has adopted the intelligence community mindset. This is a problem. Wonder how much that has to do with overlap between the two. Today's terrorist may well have been yesterday's informat, and may well be an informant again tomorrow. After all, the CIA was deeply involved in Afghanistan back when the USSR was fighting there. And many of the people that the CIA supported then later turned…

And then the CIA allied again with alQaeda when fighting Assad. And round and round it goes. Too bad the public is made a to be a sucker every time.

They didn't 'ally with Al Qaeda', they just both happened to be opposed to the same guy while also being opposed to each other. It's a complicated situation out there. Even at the height of the Cold War, sometimes the CIA and KGB would share information of mutual benefit. That didn't mean the CIA was allying with communism. Even Trump has learned this when his 'bombing Syria is the wrong thing to do, what Assad gets up to is non America's business anymore' policy lead to Assad feeling free to start nerve gassing civilians again. Oops. Turns out him being against Islamic State doesn't make him our friend either. It's a horrible nasty mess, but even trying to stay out of it just makes you even more vulnerable to even greater problems in the long run.

Re: Laptop Ban a Reaction to X-Ray Equipment Stolen by ISIS

#79

Post by syphilis2 » Mon, May 22, 2017, 10:02 PM UTC

It seems to me that if an X-Ray scanner was stolen from an airport, that information would reasonably be considered SSI due to its relation to screening passenger luggage. I wouldn't be comfortable spreading news that stolen equipment is available, that there's a security vulnerability allowing equipment to be stolen, that ISIS is in possession of the stolen equipment, or any vulnerability assessments of the equipment. The unnamed source seemed convinced that any security decision was made to avoid scaring "mom from the midwest," but that comment appears short-sighted if anything more than conjecture.

Re: Laptop Ban a Reaction to X-Ray Equipment Stolen by ISIS

#80

Post by Animats » Mon, May 22, 2017, 10:10 PM UTC

jamessb wrote: post #33

Animats wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No longer available. Considered a hijacking risk.

This doesn't seem to be true. This site [1] lists many agencies (based in the US, UK and other countries) that will sell you a passenger ticket for a cargo ship. Availability is probably limited though, as each ship can only take a few passangers: "Cargo ships can carry a maximum of 12 passengers although most vessels only have accommodation for 4 to 6 passengers" [2]. [1]: http://flightlesstravel.com/plan/cargo-ship…

You're right. Things seem to have opened up a bit. For a while, security was a big concern. CMA CGM will take passengers on some freighters. Maersk, the biggest line, won't.