Airline Security

Bruce Schneier has written a nice article for Wired on why Airline Security [is] a Waste of Cash. In his Op Ed piece IDs and the Illusion of Security Schneier goes further, he points out that ID checks and profiling are basically un-American.

Frankly I buy his arguments hook-line and sinker. I don't fly much - I probably average a half dozen flights a year. But that's enough to witness a number of glaring security SNAFUs since 9/11. That's quite apart from all the exploitable flaws in the system I've thought about but of course did nothing about. If it helps think of each plane as a home computer, and all the airline companies as computer network companies. Like any non-trivial system, no matter how hard you try there will be security flaws, and no matter how many patches and anti-this and anti-that add ons you layer over them there will still be flaws not covered, and new flaws in the cover-ups.

Mostly I think all the security checks have probably served to do one thing - reduce the likelyhood of some idiot having a weapon on board and killing someone in a fit of air-rage due to the lack of chicken or beef. Shudder the thought they might actually get pissed off about something real - like non-functioning headphones, snoring or yacking neighbors, elbow wars, reclining seat invasions, poison gas attacks from the restrooms, and insurgent babies running amuck in the aisles.

A Schneier points out, the single most important thing they've done (they being the government) for airline security since 9/11 was reinforcing and locking the cockpit door. Arguably you could say the single dumbest thing they did was allow a gun inside the cockpit. That provides an excuse for hijackers to take hostages and kill passengers by non-firearm, pocket knife and nail-clipper based means (everyone knows special forces around the world are trained to kill with a rolled up newpaper or slight of hand), and then wait for a gung-ho Captain to charge out thinking he can save the day Rambo style (which is unfair to Rambo because he actually seemed to know what he was doing). After that its all over.

Finally Schneir points out the thing most likely to improve security was caused by the 9/11 hijackers themselves - alerting passengers to the fact that being on a hijacked plane may well turn into something more than an inconvenient detour to an different airport from where you wanted to go. But this fact seems to be the one that the government seems least interested in exploiting (for obvious financial reasons). They'll warn you about the hazards of alcohol contained within the plane as you board you US carrier's aircraft, but might fail to mention the hazards of in-flight hijacking by your flying companions. Why don't the pre-flight safety briefings include safe and effective ways to incapacitate a hijacker, where to find a blunt instrument under you seat, how to remove and use the seat tray as shield against knife attacks, and what to do with the tazer gun that will drop from the ceiling in case of hijacking?