Via Bruce Schneier, a really good article about security theater:
At the time, it seemed reasonable. Richard Reid tried to ignite explosives hidden in his shoe while aboard a December 2001 flight from Paris, so Congress banned butane lighters on planes.
But in retrospect, the costs of the ban outweighed the benefits. Airport retailers had to stop selling lighters. Lighter vendor Zippo Manufacturing Co. laid off more than 100 workers in part because of the prohibition. Transportation Security Administration screeners at one point had to confiscate 30,000 lighters every day, quadrupling the amount of garbage the agency had to dispose of. TSA even had to hire a contractor to help with all the extra trash.
Welcome to homeland security, where everyone has an incentive to exaggerate threats. A Congress member whose district includes a port has little to lose and much to gain by playing up the potential for container-borne terrorism. A city with a dam talks up the need to protect critical infrastructure. A company selling weapons-detection technology stresses the vulnerability of commercial aviation. A civil servant evaluating homeland security grant applications has an interest in over-estimating dangers that might be addressed by grantees rather than denying funding and risk blame in the event of a disaster.
(Via Bruce Schneier.) I'm really not sure what to make of this, or what, actually, they're selling:
Via security guru Bruce Schneier, an actual, real-world Trojan Horse that gets in...well, almost everywhere.
Via Bruce Schneier, a former British military bomb-disposal operator offers some thoughts about the clowns who completely failed to bomb anything in the UK last week:
If these guys at the weekend really were anything to do with al-Qaeda, all one can really say is that it looks as though the War on Terror is won. This whole hoo-ha kicked off, remember, with 9/11: an extremely effective attack. Then we had the Bali and Madrid bombings, not by any measure as shocking and bloody but still nasty stuff. Then we had London 7/7, a further significant drop in bodycount but still competently planned and executed (Not too many groups would have been able to mix up that much peroxide-based explosive first try without an own goal).
...
Remember, this country carried on successfully for six years with hundreds—thousands, sometimes—of tons of explosives raining down on it every night for six years, delivered by very competent Germans who often died doing that job. The civilian death toll was around 60,000 according to most sources; the equivalent of 20 9/11s, more than three for every year of the war. Civilisation was not brought down. Germany and Japan withstood even greater violence, and survived it too.
Bruce Schneier asks: "Is there a Special Olympics for terrorists going on in the U.K. this week?"
Happy dog with tennis ball:
I'm starting a new project on Monday that will consume tons o' time. The good news is that Parker will be with me in the office probably four days a week. The bad news is that "Today's Daily Parker" will become "The Daily Parker Roundup" starting next week. In other words, The Daily Parker may not have daily Parker for a while. Somehow, I think we'll all survive.
Via Bruce Schneier, a report of an English artist being arrested for sketching a military asset...in 1748.
I just spent two hours removing blog spam. I hate these guys.
From Bruce Schnier: "At least they're honest about it this time."