Bruce Schneier has announced an April Fool's competition with a semi-serious point. He's asking for 'movie-plot' terrorist threats with which to frighten the unsuspecting public, mainly as a way of pointing out the ridiculous waste of time, money and resources currently being thrown away tackling such 'threats'.
I have to admit to a small-scale imagination when it comes to disaster scenarios, although whatever anyone comes up with, I can always find a way to make it worse. The point of Bruce's competition is to find how a small, relatively cheaply funded group can sow the maximum amount of disruption and upset. Note that this does not necessarily mean killing large numbers of victims (though that does serve as a good way of getting attention), but it may be directed at economic disruption instead. The general consensus of opinion seems to be that poison is a good tactic, being invisible and simple to spread when you don't even care who the victim is. But I think this lacks the direct impact of a bomb blast, as well as meaning larger numbers of individuals need to be involved over time - and it further lessens the impact if the perpetrators are caught, much better to leave them in the shadows for a future attack.
Plots tend to congregate around choke points, so defending these seems fair enough. But it only takes a little thought to realise that there are too many to defend properly - if we concentrate on the airports, the attackers move towards rail or road transport. If we protect the tunnels, they hit the bridges. Bruce's argument is the the money and resources spent on making people feel better by having visible checks would be more effective at fighting terrorism if it were spent on intelligence and identifying the instigators before they act. Just how many terrorists have been stopped at airports by the added security? Then think about how many inocent people have been harrassed or inconvenienced by the same security...
No comments:
Post a Comment