11–20 of 65 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those still aren't very good odds.
You can't talk about odds without talking about returns. 1-in-5 is f'ing fantastic if a $1 bet pays $1000.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't talk about odds without talking about returns. 1-in-5 is f'ing fantastic if a $1 bet pays $1000.
True, but if someone is going to go to the trouble of planning and financing an attack, I imagine they'd want a better than 20% chance of success. Especially since one attacker being caught could ruin the chances of all the others.
It's perfectly possible that an organization headed by the government whose primary focus is the security of airline passengers is completely incompetent and ineffective. But is it not also possible that the TSA is purposefully putting on the guise of an incompetent governmental entity? That would seem like an excellent strategy to take, as it follows the principles in Sun Tzu's Art of War to the letter. If you are s…
It's extremely unlikely. For one thing, appearing incompetent in order to encourage the incautious, freelancers, amateurs and copycats is essentially using the public as bait - if you happen to miss one, people die. As a strategy it's morally and probably legally questionable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but if someone is going to go to the trouble of planning and financing an attack, I imagine they'd want a better than 20% chance of success. Especially since one attacker being caught could ruin the chances of all the others.
WHY? Really, how much do you think a PETN bomb costs? Re-read the article: nothing that happens in response to these attacks fails to help the terrorists. They send 5 people and one blows up a plane: huge positive ROI . They send 5 people and nobody blows up a plane, but commercial air travel is disrupted to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars: huge positive ROI .
A side point: I suspect bombs are at bottom of the price chart in terms of financing an attack. More likely, the most expensive part is finding someone stupid enough to blow themselves up, and getting them to the right place at the right time. The cost of doing this undetected would probably increase non-linearly with the number of people involved in your attack.
Relevant parts: Paradoxically, the best terrorist strategy (as long as they have enough volunteers) under unpredictable screening may be to prepare a cadre of suicide bombers for the least rigorous screening to which they might be subjected, and not, as the strategy assumes, for the most rigorous. Sent on their way, each will either succeed at destroying a plane or be caught, but either outcome serves the terrorists'…
The idea that Matt Blaze thinks the three-ounce rule is sensible was surprising to me; I hit it, jumped back to the top, and re-read the whole article. What's the flaw in his reasoning? The three-ounce rule always seemed like one of the more ridiculous TSA measures.
It's perfectly possible that an organization headed by the government whose primary focus is the security of airline passengers is completely incompetent and ineffective. But is it not also possible that the TSA is purposefully putting on the guise of an incompetent governmental entity? That would seem like an excellent strategy to take, as it follows the principles in Sun Tzu's Art of War to the letter. If you are s…
This article demonstrates what I like about Matt Blaze's physical security writing that I don't like about Schneier's. Both are computer security experts by training, but Blaze's writing has a concrete engineering-driven perspective that Schneier's lacks. Schneier's writing always "feels" right, but leaves you with the sense that's it's not based on any operational reality. It's probably not a coincidence that Matt B…
But I don't think this applies:
But terrorist organizations -- especially those employing
suicide bombers -- have very different goals and incentives
from those of smugglers, fare beaters and tax cheats.
Groups like Al Qaeda aim to cause widespread disruption and
terror by whatever means they can, even at great cost to
individual members. In particular, they are willing and
able to sacrifice -- martyr -- the very lives of their
solders in the service of that goal. The fate of any
individual terrorist is irrelevant as long as the loss
contributes to terror and disruption.
So random screening works, not because that influences the behavior even of those who aren't checked, but because makes executing the attack more expensive to overcome the possibility of being detained in the random test.
Of course random screening is not as good as full screening, but from a realistic point of view is the only thing you can apply without shutting down world economy.
Relevant parts: Paradoxically, the best terrorist strategy (as long as they have enough volunteers) under unpredictable screening may be to prepare a cadre of suicide bombers for the least rigorous screening to which they might be subjected, and not, as the strategy assumes, for the most rigorous. Sent on their way, each will either succeed at destroying a plane or be caught, but either outcome serves the terrorists'…
The idea that Matt Blaze thinks the three-ounce rule is sensible was surprising to me; I hit it, jumped back to the top, and re-read the whole article. What's the flaw in his reasoning? The three-ounce rule always seemed like one of the more ridiculous TSA measures.
Do they have enough volunteers? The Shoe Bomber and the Undie Bomber, compared with the team that pulled off 9/11, are a couple of amateurish mooks. If these are the best men that al-Qaeda can send against the United States, they must not have a very deep bench.
This article demonstrates what I like about Matt Blaze's physical security writing that I don't like about Schneier's. Both are computer security experts by training, but Blaze's writing has a concrete engineering-driven perspective that Schneier's lacks. Schneier's writing always "feels" right, but leaves you with the sense that's it's not based on any operational reality. It's probably not a coincidence that Matt B…
First of all I must say I don't believe in these kind of unpredictable systems: rarely doing this 'select randomly the process from a set of processes' works better than using the best process in the set. But I don't think this applies: But terrorist organizations -- especially those employing suicide bombers -- have very different goals and incentives from those of smugglers, fare beaters and tax cheats. Groups like…