The Two Classes of Airport Contraband | Hacker News Reader

The Two Classes of Airport Contraband

schneier.com

40 pointsraju14 comments

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Once again Bruce Schneier makes sense. Rock solid, perfect sense, as always.

And yet society will continue to be dominated by theater rather then common sense.

That's just how the world is.

I'm reminded of a surprisingly profound exchange in the otherwise zany classic, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World":

"Now take it easy, honey. These things happen, ya know."

"Now what kind of an attitude is that, 'these things happen?' They only happen because this whole country is just full of people who, when these things happen, they just say 'these things happen,' and that's why they happen! We gotta have control of what happens to us."

(I'm not saying you aren't taking action, or that you would be able to change this. Please don't take this as an accusation. I might have posted exactly the same thing as you, if I'd seen it earlier. I don't actually have a point. Maybe I just like imagining Ethel Merman responding to your comment.)

I think I know what you mean. One thing I've noticed living in many countries, is that every culture has a different level of BS it is willing to put up with.

I guess that's the bright side.

The other side is that culture changes slooooooooooowly.

"No terrorist is going to base his plot on getting a gun through airport security if there's decent chance of getting caught, because the consequences of getting caught are too great."

That wouldn't seem to apply to lone suicide bombers, since the worst consequence for them comes if they don't get caught. And if they were caught, they could at least detonate in the airport and cause some havoc.

A suicide bomber doesn't need to worry about airport security at all. They just need to figure out when the airport is at its most crowded and stand in a check in line and detonate their bomb.

A wearable bomb can only kill (say) few dozen people, even in a crowded area, but the same bomb detonated on a 747 could kill 400.

It could also allow them to gain control of the aircraft (maybe, depending on whether they can persuade the people on board that they aren't planning to crash it into anything).

Suicide bombers generally aren't rational folks who multiply "number of infidels I can kill" versus "chance of being caught" though. And we should be thankful that they aren't so rational.

I don't know why they're not already doing this. In fact, they might be better off still just walking in with machine guns and shooting as many people as they can. You could probably mow down a lot at a crowded airport.

It makes me think that we're doing a pretty good job of keeping most of them out of the country in the first place. Otherwise I think we'd be seeing a rash of smaller scaled, highly targeted incidences like this.

But if you are a lone suicide bomber, getting caught IS the worst consequence (dying when you explode your bomb is optimal.) Rather than achieving your goal, in the worst case scenario, you're caught and prevented from being able to attempt it again.

The author is absolutely right. The non-dangerous category is part of a knee-jerk reaction to simply "do something" rather than to do something effective.

Death is not the worst consequence for a voluntary suicide bomber since it occurs in all outcomes.

Not when they get caught. Often they don't detonate.

And even if it were the only consequence, it would therefore be the worst (and the best).

I assume the worst consequence, from their point of view, would be humiliation.

Either a humiliating failure to detonate, or a humiliating detonation that kills only them, and slowly, like that guy who tried to drive a truck bomb into Glasgow airport.

Detonate their gun?

Last time I was walking through security I started to wonder if you could fill your 1 Gallon zip lock back with as many 3.5oz bottles of water? What would happen if you had everything correctly packaged...

All because there were _two_ checkpoints at security when I last flew internationally... First one was the "gun check" the second was ... oh, you're flying to US so that bottle of water you just bought while roaming around the "mall" for the last hour, that has to go...

Would someone please put him in charge (or at least make him the power behind the throne) of Homeland Security. This cannot happen soon enough.

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