The Glade 4.0

80% of their own tests fail their standards which are a 50% detection rate. Do the math yourself.

Not worth it. I suppose the lack of terrorist attacks on planes for decades before 9/11 proves that the TSA is useless?

DE your BS doesn't fly here anymore.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

"60% of the time, it works every time."

I'm not a smart man, I didn't take e-con, poli-sci, physc, or any other fancy abbreviated subject in college. here is what i know.

1. The opposite of security is accessibility. For a system (computer, building, airplane) to be 100% secure, it has to be 0 % accessible. This is counter-productive to riding in an airplane. Until the American Populace is ready to realize that, nothing is going be good enough.

2. Deterrent based security (you know those upright detectors at the door and the RFID tags that go with), in my department store, doesn't stop the organized, dedicated criminals. It stops the run of the mill, impulse based shoplifter. The pros know how to beat the system. So applying it to people willing and desirous to die in order to take their supposed enemies with them, is just plain silly.

2b. Resultantly, I think if they've gotten to the airport in all honesty it's too late. Occasionally we get lucky/experience divine intervention, like the underwear guy's bomb not going off, or spotting the shoebomber. I don't think its a good idea to hope we catch these people in line without having a clue who they are ahead of time.

2c. We catch the pros by knowing who they are in advance and how to spot them. We use undercover individuals to see who is acting strangely when approached. We don't catch them all because we don't have a large LP Staff. Again, see 1. Also we manage to do this without Alienating customers of any people group.

3. If white male "Baptists" of German decent were hijacking airplanes and flying them into buildings, I would understand if I got a second look at the airport and wouldn't think that means everyone's just racist. More so if I buy a one way ticket or am known to travel places where these terrorist frequent. I understand what it's like to be judged by the loudest among those who share your religious and national title.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

You know what? I say get rid of it and see what people say. I'm willing to bet that the majority would be incensed and demand to have it back.

I wonder what the cost would be if they dropped the whole body-scanner thing, went back to pat downs (similar to when you go to a sporting-event) and focused on bomb-screening and putting an Air Marshall on EVERY commercial flight? You guys are smarter than I, anyone ballpark it?

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People would rather go through the scanners -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/2 ... 87523.html

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In time, this too shall pass.

Ok then, what would be the cost to switch to scanners/bomb-detection and an Air Marshall on every commercial flight?

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Twenty seven.

(was that a rhetorical question or did you expect someone to be able to answer that?)

I was hoping someone could ballpark it. If we knew how many commercial flights there are per year and the salary of an Air Marshall I'd imagine we could get close.

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http://lmgtfy.com/?q=number+of+commercial+flights+united+states

Very obnoxious, I know, but still funny.

Anyway, apparently it's 28,537 flights per day. That's 10,416,005 per year.

It looks like $45k per year is on the low end. So...

Calculating the number of flights per week, and dividing by 15 flights per week per marshall (3 a day, 5 days a week?), means you need 13,317 marshalls. More, if you want them to be able to get sick once in a while.

13,317*$45,000=600 million. Double that to include training and benefits? 1.2 billion?

No idea about the scanners.

I don't think we should do nothing, Xeq, but we shouldn't "Do something" just for the sake of doing something. It needs to be the right something for our situation and opponent.

If we look at what caused 9/11 the biggest answer is "intelligence failure" and "unsecured cockpits" not "We didn't grope everyone enough"

Also it seems like we our playing two moves behind while the those wishing to attack airplanes are coming up with different ideas.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

The air marshals are producing value by being on planes... it's not like burning gasoline in a pit or something. So the cost isn't too important. What would they be doing instead?

This argument doesn't work, unless you can show me some evidence that terrorists would for some reason not exploit the ability to hijak or otherwise attack aircraft when the opportunity presents itself. The analogy does not work because while a rock bears no relationship to the presence of tigers, screening who and what goes onto an aircraft does, in fact, bear a relationship to what and who is on that aircraft. Your argument is akin to calling the village wall a tiger rock, and claiming it must not keep tigers away because there really are no tigers, despite the fact that the wall was built after a tiger attack.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And Vindi is wrong, as I have pointed out, ebause his analogy is not appropriate.



Then perhaps you'd be so good as to provide that meaning and explain why we should listen to Bruce Schneier, whoever he is, especially since the fact that he feels it is necessary to coin terms like "security theater" does not say anything favorable about his ability to actually make such assessments?



Ah. In other words, you are simply appealing to motive, and claiming I am not familiarizing myself with "security, its economies, psychologies, and philosophies" simply because I am saying something you don't like, despite the fact that I know a great deal about security and have acknowledged that the TSA is not perfect and the Israeli method is better. You, on the other hand, don't know your *** from a hole in the ground in this regard and are simply falling back on the tactic of accusing your opponent of making emotional arguments in order to distract fromt he fact that you have nothing of substance to say on the subject and are really just interested in ***** about something the government does that you don't like.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Bruce Schneier is a cryptology and computer security expert. He's written books on the topics, and in computer circles he's accepted as knowing what he's talking about.

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These are in conflict.


Is that your professional opinion? Because I am a security professional, and my professional opinion of you is identical.

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The analogy I derives from the following:
A single bear wanders into town.
The residents of Springfield over react.
Homer declares that the town is infested by bears.
A bear patrol is instituted.
Homer stands outside and proclaims, “Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol is working like a charm!”
Lisa explains: “That’s specious reasoning, dad.”
Lisa continues: "By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away."
Homer: "Oh, how does it work?"
Lisa: "It doesn't work."
Homer: "Uh-huh."
Lisa: "It's just a stupid rock."
Homer: "Uh-huh."
Lisa: "But I don't see any tigers around, do you?"
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
Homer: "Lisa, I want to buy your rock."
[Lisa refuses at first, then takes the exchange]

Correlation does not imply causation. Just because two things occur together, does not mean that one caused the other. Lisa, in an attempt to explain to Homer his illogical belief, argues that as the presence of her rock is correlated with an absence of tigers, the former must have caused the latter.

You arguing that not having "regular terrorist incidents aboard aircraft is more than enough proof" that the TSA must have stopped the terrorist incidents is directly analogous to Homer arguing that as the Bear Patrol vans are correlated with an absence of bears, the former must have caused the latter.

I'll make it very clear:
Homer arguing that as the Bear Patrol vans are correlated with an absence of bears, the former must have caused the latter, is directly analogous to Diamondeye arguing that as the TSA presence is correlated with an absence of regular terrorist incidents aboard aircraft, the former must have caused the latter, is directly analogous to Lisa arguing that the presence of her rock is correlated with an absence of tigers, the former must have caused the latter.



As I have pointed out, I am not wrong, the two are directly analogous.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

+1

Your (DE's, not Mook's) reaction whenever someone mentions Schneier is baffling to me. Particularly in a case like this, where his opinions aren't even being invoked in favor of (or against) some argument, but merely being mentioned in an explanatory aside about vocabulary. He's a widely recognized expert in the fields of cryptography (particularly applied), computer security, and general security theory/analysis -- and with good reason. There's nothing wrong with not knowing who he is, but you should probably refrain from attacking someone that you obviously know nothing about. To be completely blunt, your **** reaction whenever he's mentioned and your insinuations that his use of the phrase "security theory" somehow negates or refutes his knowledge and expertise ... well, it doesn't "say anything favorable" about your ability to carry on a rational discussion.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Um... don't you own several guns for exactly the same reason? Maybe it's over my head though.

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Nope, I know the guns don't keep anything away (in and of themselves); never claimed they did. They are tools. If Lisa were saying that the tiger rock is for bashing tigers when they show up, and she likes to bash other things with the rock, and she likes to use the rock to bash things to feed her family..., it might be "exactly the same reason".

I don't think it's over your head, I think you're just not trying (or rather, you're trying to get a "gotcha" instead).

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

No I am struggling conceptually. I have seen the wall of confiscated **** the TSA has taken from people in just Cleveland so clearly it isn't a perfect deterrant or the wall would be empty, but at the same time it is clearly also effective (otherwise again the wall would be empty) but again not perfectly so. Similar to your gun(s), in that it may not deter criminals but it would be effective in stopping them (but again not perfectly so).

Not sure who presented this theater of security argument but the fact that they have stopped people from boarding with weapons definitively debunks it.

Homer's tiger rock or bear rock or whatever may not keep tigers away, but you could bash its brains in with the rock making it an effective anti-tiger/bear weapon.

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The gap you're jumping is the part where you don't have any idea how many of the confiscated weapons were going to be used to cause mayhem in the airport, on the airplane, or at the destination. If somebody wasn't going to engage in criminal acts in the first place, you haven't deterred them from engaging in criminal acts by taking away things that they weren't going to engage in criminal acts with.

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I personally have had a nice pocket knife and a multi-tool confiscated by airport security. There is a 100% chance that I showed up at the airport that day with absolutely NO intention of causing mayhem. I just simply forgot that I had them in my laptop bag when I went through security.

I'm pretty sure that this explains the very large majority of the stuff on that wall.

No, Hopwin, the argument made wasn't that the TSA coldn't find and confiscate the same **** that the old security could find and confiscate (minus the kids toys, paperweights, cupcakes and water bottles), the argument was that the TSA's methods work and the evidence is "the fact that we do not, in fact, have regular terrorist incidents aboard aircraft".


Again, the argument wasn't that Lisa's tiger rock was or wasn't an effective anti-tiger weapon. I'd go so far as to say that even that is illogical. Just because something can do something in theory, does not mean it can do something effectively.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko