On Thu, Sep 13, 2001 at 10:42:50AM +0100, Alan Pearson wrote:
> > What kind of security is going to protect against that kind of attack? I
> > have a knife like object I use to open my mail, its called a CIA Letter
> > opener, made of glass reinforced nylon it has no xray image, yet is strong
> > enough to be pounded thru 5/8" plywood without breaking.
>
> Three things leap to mind:
>
> 1. ban all hand luggage
> 2. perform security checks right before boarding the plane as well as at the
> gate and departures entrance
Won't help. You can easily hide a knife somewhere in/under your clothes on
your body. No need for hand luggage. And if the knifes are free of metals
you won't find them - save by strip searching _every_ passenger. I don't
think having a bunch of security guards strip search (including closely
checking out bodily orifices) every passenger before every flight is going
to make flying more popular. And it still won't provide absolute safety,
even at this cost.
> 3. have at least three armed counter-terrorist specialists on every flight
> to cover front, middle & rear sections of the plane. Maybe even six.
That _might_ help a little. But the extreme costs and logistics involved in
this will make it prohibitive for prolonged use. And it can be overcome to:
Just have a bunch of people with very good memory fly the flight in question
for a while and have them check out the passengers. They might spot some
of the antiterrorists. And on doomsday, the antiterrorists just will be
neutralized first - at least it will be tried.
> One thing's for sure - until airlines/governments implement these kind of
> measures there's *no way* I'm getting on another plane. No way.
Then you might better forget about flying.
It is _extremly_ hard - if not impossible - to guard against a _very_
determined suicide attacker.
There is an old rule in the security business: You _cannot_ reach absolute
security, you just can make the price of breaching the defenses much
higher than what can be gained by it. This will protect against _most_
possible attackers, but unfortunately not against all. There will always
be someone who is willing to pay _any_ price to breach a given defense.
And on very bad days, some of those might succeed.
Regards,
Alex.
--
We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of
distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being
increasingly capable. -- Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs
Received on Thu Sep 13 2001 - 13:30:40 BST