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Could British invention foil terror bombs?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Could British invention foil terror bombs?

#21

Post by mseebach »

junto wrote: post #18
mseebach wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An effective deployment of the device would probably involve a sort of sluice gate setup, that will detect traffic through an outer perimeter and, when triggered, seals an inner perimeter. The distance between the two is designed to be greater than that which can be covered on foot in the time the device takes to make a detection. That, of course, ignores a central lesson of the Brussels attacks: They happened before…

This is exactly the key point. You either have a queue of people inside the airport, or outside waiting to go through security. The target has just been moved and is equally as accessible (perhaps more so) as before.

The point is that you could deploy this device without having a queue, just a door to slam in the face of a positive detection. Worst case, you need to space people out a bit.

Re: Could British invention foil terror bombs?

#23

Post by golergka »

sametmax wrote: post #12
peterclary wrote: post #6

"First, a microscopic amount of Semtex 1A high explosive is dabbed onto a T-shirt. To the naked eye, it is almost invisible - but from a large, red, metal box mounted on a portable steel trolley an ultra-violet laser beam flickers on to the white cotton surface of the garment. Immediately, a warning flashes up on the display monitor." So you would be able to cause disruption AND get innocents locked up by simply cove…

And by spraying markers on a lot of people you can either: - cost a lot of money by forcing events to be cancelled; - enforce more invasive/costly security measures; - diminush the value of the security mesure and pass a bomb in. But this is what's strange with terrorists : they strike ma as utterly incompetents. There is so many easy ways to fuck things up, and they always do the ineficient and hard things. My fathe…

I don't think that intelligence is in any way correlated to having worldviews of most of modern terrorists. Just compare their methods to Unabomber, for example.

Re: Could British invention foil terror bombs?

#24

Post by jjoonathan »

wildmusings wrote: post #17
sametmax wrote: post #3

I find crazy the amount of resources we deploy to fight something: - that causes little deaths compared to most diseases or social issues. - cost little compared to most economical or educational issues. - has little long term consequences on the country compared to internal and external policies, laws, politics and visions; - is a direct consequence of social, economical and educational issues and a by product of po…

> that causes little deaths compared to most diseases or social issues. cost little compared to most economical or educational issues. has little long terme consequences on the country compared to internal and external policies, laws, politics and visions 9/11 was an extra 20% on top of US murders in 2001. The Paris attacks also clock in at an extra 20% of the murder rate in France. Larger versions of sophisticated a…

There's a difference between "letting down your guard" and being selective about the policies you're willing to adopt to effectively fight terrorism. Unless you're willing to defend the patriot act, wars on terror, the parts of the TSA that are obviously just security theater, police militarization, etc as reasonable, then you have to accept that we overreacted. Those parts of our reaction are emphatically not part of our "guard," and getting rid of them is not in any way lowering our guard. Quite the opposite due to their propensity for misuse.

Re: Could British invention foil terror bombs?

#25

Post by nkozyra »

rayiner wrote: post #20
sametmax wrote: post #3

I find crazy the amount of resources we deploy to fight something: - that causes little deaths compared to most diseases or social issues. - cost little compared to most economical or educational issues. - has little long term consequences on the country compared to internal and external policies, laws, politics and visions; - is a direct consequence of social, economical and educational issues and a by product of po…

People don't view the impact of death merely in terms of body count. If we did, we wouldn't care about serial killers or child abductions or people shot by police. We devote major resources to fighting terrorism not because of the body count, but because we feel it deeply unjust to allow terrorists to kill innocent people to make a political point, especially when that political point is an attack on fundamental prec…

One other difference - at least in terms of perception - is that the threats you listed are relatively static over time. Terrorism is a movement that involves recruitment and contains inherent plans to expand.

To be the first to invoke Godwin's here, the Nazis did not statistically represent a significant daily threat to health and safety in 1928, either. Looking at present body counts as a gauge for what's worth "freaking out" about seems incomplete.

Re: Could British invention foil terror bombs?

#26

Post by jjoonathan »

rayiner wrote: post #20
sametmax wrote: post #3

I find crazy the amount of resources we deploy to fight something: - that causes little deaths compared to most diseases or social issues. - cost little compared to most economical or educational issues. - has little long term consequences on the country compared to internal and external policies, laws, politics and visions; - is a direct consequence of social, economical and educational issues and a by product of po…

People don't view the impact of death merely in terms of body count. If we did, we wouldn't care about serial killers or child abductions or people shot by police. We devote major resources to fighting terrorism not because of the body count, but because we feel it deeply unjust to allow terrorists to kill innocent people to make a political point, especially when that political point is an attack on fundamental prec…

> we feel it deeply unjust to allow terrorists to kill innocent people to make a political point

Our response was to go over and kill 100 of their innocent civilians for every 1 of our innocent civilians that the extremists killed in order to make our political point. I don't buy the argument that this was premised on any noble principle such as the one you describe.

Re: Could British invention foil terror bombs?

#27

Post by junto »

mseebach wrote: post #21
junto wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the key point. You either have a queue of people inside the airport, or outside waiting to go through security. The target has just been moved and is equally as accessible (perhaps more so) as before.

The point is that you could deploy this device without having a queue, just a door to slam in the face of a positive detection. Worst case, you need to space people out a bit.

Wherever you have a funnel, you get a queue. You have people standing outside waiting for the bus, smoking a cigarette. People gather and there is nothing that you can do about it.

Re: Could British invention foil terror bombs?

#28

Post by noir_lord »

sametmax wrote: post #12
peterclary wrote: post #6

"First, a microscopic amount of Semtex 1A high explosive is dabbed onto a T-shirt. To the naked eye, it is almost invisible - but from a large, red, metal box mounted on a portable steel trolley an ultra-violet laser beam flickers on to the white cotton surface of the garment. Immediately, a warning flashes up on the display monitor." So you would be able to cause disruption AND get innocents locked up by simply cove…

And by spraying markers on a lot of people you can either: - cost a lot of money by forcing events to be cancelled; - enforce more invasive/costly security measures; - diminush the value of the security mesure and pass a bomb in. But this is what's strange with terrorists : they strike ma as utterly incompetents. There is so many easy ways to fuck things up, and they always do the ineficient and hard things. My fathe…

I made this argument years ago, if you want to weaken a population and cause maximum disruption go after infrastructure, a lot of it isn't guarded by more than a chainlink fence and is out in the middle of nowhere (electrical sub-stations been a good example).

Modern society is incredibly dependent on lots of complex systems with moving parts all functioning at high capacity, it wouldn't take a lot to get things wobbling.

Re: Could British invention foil terror bombs?

#29

Post by seivan »

sametmax wrote: post #3

I find crazy the amount of resources we deploy to fight something: - that causes little deaths compared to most diseases or social issues. - cost little compared to most economical or educational issues. - has little long term consequences on the country compared to internal and external policies, laws, politics and visions; - is a direct consequence of social, economical and educational issues and a by product of po…

You should tell that to women and kids who were hit by chemical bombs from British Muslims in Rojava.

Re: Could British invention foil terror bombs?

#30

Post by wildmusings »

jjoonathan wrote: post #24
wildmusings wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that causes little deaths compared to most diseases or social issues. cost little compared to most economical or educational issues. has little long terme consequences on the country compared to internal and external policies, laws, politics and visions 9/11 was an extra 20% on top of US murders in 2001. The Paris attacks also clock in at an extra 20% of the murder rate in France. Larger versions of sophisticated a…

There's a difference between "letting down your guard" and being selective about the policies you're willing to adopt to effectively fight terrorism. Unless you're willing to defend the patriot act, wars on terror, the parts of the TSA that are obviously just security theater, police militarization, etc as reasonable, then you have to accept that we overreacted. Those parts of our reaction are emphatically not part o…

I agree with some of what you're saying, and there's a whole separate debate to be had there. Today, in this thread, I'm only interested in refuting this idea that terrorism is an overblown threat. It absolutely is not. If anything, the threat is being understated by the current administration in the US, using arguments along the same lines as sametmax's.
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