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Evading Airport Security

schneier.com

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Re: Evading Airport Security

#61

Post by CWuestefeld »

pkfrank wrote: post #10

I fundamentally don't understand the danger of "traditional" (box cutters, etc.) weapons getting through airport security. I understand that we need to continue testing for bombs and anything that can actually bring a plane down. It would obviously be tragic and damaging for someone to attack "defenseless" passengers with "traditional" weapons, but -- in my eyes -- it's not terribly different from a random attack in…

I seem to recall just a couple of months ago the FAA proposed relaxing the rules so that small knives would be legal. Immediately following that, the media reported widespread public condemnation of the proposal by people concerned for their safety.

So as much as I despise this nonsense, this seems to be what a significant, vocal portion of the people want.

Re: Evading Airport Security

#62

Post by twistedpair »

twoodfin wrote: post #20
viraptor wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's about the danger to the passengers as much as forcing your way to the pilot. I.e. someone capturing/torturing passengers until the pilot comes out.

I'm also a bit curious just how difficult it would be to take down a modern jetliner if you had the run of the back of the plane and whatever you could legally bring on board.

Using the plane as a weapon and bringing it down are very different objectives. The chief concern here is using that plane as a force magnifying weapon. If you wanted to pop a hatch in the floor and start messing with the avionics bay, you'd rather easily scuttle the plane.

Re: Evading Airport Security

#63

Post by Crito »

aestra wrote: post #56
tokenadult wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original 9/11 attack showed how simple traditional weapons could be used to leverage using four whole airplanes as nontraditional weapons, three of them with devastating effect, all of them with lethal effect. I think Schneier's point is correct that spending the same amount of money on intelligence, investigations, and emergency response would keep us safer than screening what innocent passengers bring on to air…

9/11 was different. People cooperated because that was protocol at the time for a plane hijacking. Nobody expected them to use the plane as a weapon with no regard to their own lives. This was an unprecedented attack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking "Before the September 11, 2001 attacks, most hijackings involved the plane landing at a certain destination, followed by the hijackers making negotiable d…

Remember that half of 9/11/2001 was different. By 10:03AM, the solution was designed/implemented/successfully tested.

Re: Evading Airport Security

#64

Post by mseebach »

viraptor wrote: post #15
pkfrank wrote: post #10

I fundamentally don't understand the danger of "traditional" (box cutters, etc.) weapons getting through airport security. I understand that we need to continue testing for bombs and anything that can actually bring a plane down. It would obviously be tragic and damaging for someone to attack "defenseless" passengers with "traditional" weapons, but -- in my eyes -- it's not terribly different from a random attack in…

I don't think it's about the danger to the passengers as much as forcing your way to the pilot. I.e. someone capturing/torturing passengers until the pilot comes out.

The pilots knows the same as the passengers: That if the hijackers take the cockpit, odds are nobody lives, so in a crisis, his best strategy for both personal survival and for saving the most passengers is to get the plane on the ground as soon as possible.

If a hijacker "just" wants to perform an old-school hijack, ie. not use the plane as a 9/11-style missile, his best odds are convincing the captain of that fact without taking the cockpit. The hijacker can verify that the captain is complying using a smartphone with GPS.

Re: Evading Airport Security

#65

Post by ufmace »

pkfrank wrote: post #60
easy_rider wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The cost of TSA (direct and indirect through delays, etc.) is immense" I hate debating based on speculative estimates.. That said, El Al seems to put sky marshalls on every single flight. I would throw in a dime that this would be a more (cost)effective and reliable solution compared to current screening implementations.

I haven't been able to find any instance of an air marshal actually confronting a "terrorism-related" event. I'm sure there are examples of them subduing an unruly or drunk passenger; but the sheer magnitude of flights, combined with the fact that on-board threats are very few and far-between, makes me doubt the cost-effectiveness of the program.

I hope they're trained better than that. It would be awfully easy for a small group of terrorists to have one of their group act like a unruly drunk asshole. If an air marshal intervened in that, he'd out himself, allowing any other terrorists on board to jump him from behind at their convenience.

Re: Evading Airport Security

#66

Post by glenra »

twoodfin wrote: post #3

I typically think Schneier is too cavalier about "security theater", but in this case I agree completely. On the other hand, I don't think that means airport security should be drastically scaled back: There are probably 10x as many dumb potential attackers as smart ones, and it makes sense to be eliminate the easy avenues for the dumb ones while you concentrate other resources on the smart ones. It's also important…

> On the other hand, I don't think that means airport security should be drastically scaled back

It absolutely should be drastically scaled back. Or eliminated entirely. The thing you're ignoring is that the current level of airport security kills a lot of people. It does so largely by making flying more expensive and inconvenient so people drive instead of fly and as a result die in auto accidents. The TSA makes us all poorer and causes a great many deaths for no clear benefit whatsoever. The hypothetical attackers who you are postulating might be deterred are a sufficiently weird edge case that it's unlikely they exist at all. Basically, you're imagining somebody who has all the following attributes at once. He or she:

(a) is highly motivated to do evil things that kill lots of people in a high-profile fashion

(b) has the resources to actually implement a plan to do these evil things.

(c) is SMART enough that the attack WOULD succeed were it not for security. If they made a bomb, they were successful at figuring out how to make one that would work well (unlike the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber)

(d) but is DUMB enough that they just can't figure out any way to get around security.

(e) but is SMART enough to REALIZE they can't get around security, so they don't try to do so anyway (explaining the fact that security has never ever caught even a single person trying to do so)

(f) but is DUMB enough that they can't think of any way to use the same resources to carry out some OTHER attack that kills a similar number of people with similar terrorizing effect, like by attacking the security line or a bridge or a tunnel or a shopping mall.

If you can find anybody with all those characteristics at once, THAT is the person who airport security has saved us from.

Re: Evading Airport Security

#67

Post by twistedpair »

viraptor wrote: post #12
pinaceae wrote: post #2

airport security is not built to prevent evil geniuses to act out a brilliant act of terror macguyver style. airport security is there to prevent someone to walk onto a plane carrying a boxcutter knife - which they failed to prevent at 9/11. it's to weed out the idiots, mentally unstable, etc. the times square bomber types. it relies on underpaid, undereducated personnel. because it exists in reality, which means it…

> airport security is there to prevent someone to walk onto a plane carrying a boxcutter knife Sorry, but no. Sharpened edge of a credit card, pieces of belt, metal parts of the shoes, pins from the hat - that's just what I can come up with in seconds - these are the things I always get on the plane without issues and would be just as effective as weapons as the boxcutter knife. They may prevent boxcutter knifes, but…

Flying last week I watched a food delivery man in front of me go through security. He rolled an aluminum dolly loaded with boxes of foot up and put all the boxes on the xray conveyor. He was then scanned by the TSA and they rolled the dolly through to the otherside of the checkpoint after looking under it.

Point: the dolly was a hollow tube framerail construction. They didn't xray it as it was too large. They just rolled it through the screaming metal detector. You could have put whatever you wanted inside those framerails. And that's just the victualler. There are myriad ways to get stuff through. Theater at its best.

Re: Evading Airport Security

#68

Post by pavel_lishin »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #61
pkfrank wrote: post #10

I fundamentally don't understand the danger of "traditional" (box cutters, etc.) weapons getting through airport security. I understand that we need to continue testing for bombs and anything that can actually bring a plane down. It would obviously be tragic and damaging for someone to attack "defenseless" passengers with "traditional" weapons, but -- in my eyes -- it's not terribly different from a random attack in…

I seem to recall just a couple of months ago the FAA proposed relaxing the rules so that small knives would be legal. Immediately following that, the media reported widespread public condemnation of the proposal by people concerned for their safety. So as much as I despise this nonsense, this seems to be what a significant, vocal portion of the people want.

> this seems to be what a significant, vocal portion of the people want.

I wonder how many of them fly, and how many of them are just afraid that once we allow pocket knives on airplanes, they'll start falling out of the sky onto their heads.

Re: Evading Airport Security

#69

Post by grecy »

jheriko wrote: post #37
pkfrank wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I simply don't buy that any terrorist on board -- even if there were several of them and they were armed with box-cutters and the like -- could ever take the cockpit. The doors are locked, the pilots are sometimes armed; and mostly, the passengers would never let it happen. Even in the most extreme scenarios imaginable, the passengers would have a 20-1 advantage, and would understand that the cost of failing…

Locked doors and guns are one thing, and a pretty solid argument imo but... 20 american joe publics vs. any small number of arabs, maybe even just one? Fear of death is not such a great motivator as you imagine I think. have you seen people react to threats in the wild? especially from the first-world white middle class background? its just not a part of their life and generally they do really stupid things like free…

> any small number of arabs, maybe even just one?

Any small number of people.

There is no need to single out certain cultures.

Re: Evading Airport Security

#70

Post by khuey »

Crito wrote: post #63
aestra wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9/11 was different. People cooperated because that was protocol at the time for a plane hijacking. Nobody expected them to use the plane as a weapon with no regard to their own lives. This was an unprecedented attack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking "Before the September 11, 2001 attacks, most hijackings involved the plane landing at a certain destination, followed by the hijackers making negotiable d…

Remember that half of 9/11/2001 was different. By 10:03AM, the solution was designed/implemented/ successfully tested .

well, 25% really.
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