Be afraid, particularly of batteries
Have you seen this story? Our Boston leadership (and I use the term loosely) is once again promoting terror, fear, and ineptitude, in one happy package. An MIT student had a “bomb hoax” on her shirt.
“Hoax” implies she was trying to pull one over on the police. No, she had a piece of wearable electronics that (a) looks NOTHING like a bomb–it looks like two batteries and a breadboard, and (b) had no intent to blow up or deceive anyone.
They’re almost proud as they discuss how, thanks to her cooperation, they didn’t shoot her dead on the spot.
So what’s the point of this story? My takeaway is that their security people are scared by a battery and a piece of wire that doesn’t even remotely resemble a bomb. That doesn’t fill me with confidence. Yet they seem to want to tell us that they somehow saved us from some would-be evildoer.
Is this the world we’ve created? Where inadequately trained security people can’t tell the difference between AA batteries and a bomb, and we’re proud of our restraint in not killing a science student in our overreactive frenzy? Absurd!
If not suicidal I think she did a stupid thing. Glad they coughed her that means the security setups work.
September 24th, 2007 at 3:14 amMy view may be colored as my encounters are false positives such as the key/belt buckle/coin detectors used as security devices and wailing cars, but agree this seems like an over-reaction.
Got around to finding the good articles I had read. Really liked:
http://articles.citypages.com/2007-08-22/news/everything-we-know-about-security-is-wrong/
And this: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070826/3qa.htm
TSA interview - I was surprised the the no fly list actually caught anyone, liked the behavioral detection - http://www.schneier.com/interview-hawley.html
October 24th, 2007 at 12:36 pmSorry, Stever, but as a trained and experienced security professional myself, I’m going to respectfully disagree with your basic premise.
Security officers in airports, hospitals, shopping malls, and the like will quickly learn what is typical of the hundreds of people who visit their sites, and anyone who “violates” that “rule” will stand out sharply. The woman in question walked into an AIRPORT while wearing BATTERIES AND WIRES. No one is going to convince me that she was surprised to have been thought to be strapped to a bomb. Like the big hairy guy who tried out for American Idol while dressed in the metallic bikini, she knew what she was doing.
There is absolutely no such thing as “look like a bomb” and “doesn’t look like a bomb”, but the officers’ response was perfectly reasonable this time. An AA battery and a bit of nichrome wire can detonate an explosive device easily.
It’s easy to claim IN RETROSPECT that they over-reacted.
Incidentally, shooting her would have been a bad idea if she had been wearing a bomb. Mercury switches are cheap and easy to build.
January 28th, 2008 at 5:32 pm