{"id":176,"date":"2010-01-04T09:03:24","date_gmt":"2010-01-04T08:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"\/Blog\/?p=176"},"modified":"2010-01-06T13:40:56","modified_gmt":"2010-01-06T12:40:56","slug":"usa-enhanced-stupidity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/usa-enhanced-stupidity\/","title":{"rendered":"USA: enhanced stupidity at airports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stupidity and misunderstanding on how security works has reached new heights in the USA: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2010\/TRAVEL\/01\/03\/tsa.measures\/index.html\">TSA: Enhanced screening for people flying to U.S. from certain nations<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>How bloody stupid must one be to react this way to a <em>failed<\/em> attack? Yes, <em>failed<\/em> means exactly that a security measure &#8212; in this case a terrorist attack that was thwarted by passengers(!) &#8212; works. But instead of relying more on what obviously works, the TSA (and of course, this one is backed by the government; proving that Bush and Obama really do the same bollocks) has decided to implement something else, something incredibly stupid which will actually <em>lower<\/em> security. <\/p>\n<p>Security professionals worldwide don&#8217;t even know if they should laugh or cry at such a bold display of imbecility. I&#8217;ve not yet seen what Bruce Schneier has to say about this specific idiocy, but here&#8217;s an essay which essentially explains the issue: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.schneier.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/10\/screening_peopl.html\">Screening People with Clearances<\/a>. Just so you can see that I&#8217;m not the only security professional who thinks this way, and Bruce Schneier has rather more clout than me. ;) <\/p>\n<p>Do you really think terrorists won&#8217;t be likely to fly NOT from those 14 countries? Or &#8212; gosh &#8212; use a false passport? Hell, they might even recruit people from a country deemed &#8220;safer&#8221;, the USA itself for instance. And of course, increased scrutiny of certain passengers will draw resources from scrutinizing other passengers. <\/p>\n<p>Congratulations, you&#8217;ve just implemented a fast lane for terrorists while harassing other passengers coming from some 14 countries. Mindbogglingly stupid. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hanlon%27s_razor\">Hanlon&#8217;s Razor<\/a> I&#8217;m forced to conclude that the USA is run by drooling idiots. <\/p>\n<p>Addendum: Bruce Schneier has now put it nicely: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.schneier.com\/blog\/archives\/2010\/01\/christmas_bombe.html\">Christmas Bomber: Where Airport Security Worked<\/a>. I can only add &#8220;and in whose aftermath common sense did not&#8221;. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stupidity and misunderstanding on how security works has reached new heights in the USA: TSA: Enhanced screening for people flying to U.S. from certain nations. How bloody stupid must one be to react this way to a failed attack? Yes, failed means exactly that a security measure &#8212; in this case a terrorist attack that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,67],"tags":[69,68,70],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-security","tag-security-theater","tag-tsa","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}