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July 07, 2005 | Not Excused
I'm with Adam.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 11:13 AM | TrackBack
July 07, 2005 | Citizens of LondonI'm frankly amazed by the calm and poise of Londoners I've seen on television this morning.
We all knew this was coming again -- we just didn't know if it was going to be Auckland, Paris, Berlin, Rome or Chicago.
Turns out this time, the fundamentalists decided to slaughter the cosmopolitans in London.
My thoughts are with the families of those who died, with those who managed to make it out of the tunnels, and with all those in London shaken by the blasts.
Maybe one day, our worst will stop feeding their worst and their worst will stop feeding our worst and us cosmopolitans will no longer feel brave getting on the El, the J line or the Paris Metro.
And just to note, London's thousands of surveillance cameras proved themselves not so helpful in stopping the attacks.
It will, however, be interesting to see what, if any, evidence they provide to investigators.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:54 AM | TrackBack
March 15, 2005 | John Gilmore: A User's ManualCryptome.org has posted an email from Brad Barnhill describing how to get avoid having to show identification at the airport.
As many of you know, John Gilmore is currently suing the government to reveal whether the identification requirement exists and to actually make the law public. (See here and here).
Barnhill's method basically involves getting your boarding pass printed ahead of time using the Internet, bypassing the airline altogether by not checking any bags and then pressing TSA employees to show you the rule. They will likely harass you for acting differently and then just send you to (yup, you guessed it) secondary screening, where they will swab all your stuff for explosives, pat down your chest and make you undo your pants.
Barnhill claims to have all the FAA rules regarding identification rules. I think he is mistaken here in thinking he has all of them. There likely exists a security directive, which is classified, that sets the policy for airlines and TSA employees regarding identification. It's just that they won't show it to you.
Of course, this won't work if your name matches or approximates a name on the selectee or no fly list, since you wouldn't be able to print your boarding pass ahead of time.
If you are on the selectee list (meaning you can fly but you have your boarding pass marked SSSS to tell TSA personnel to screen you closer), you'd need to try the method Slate publicized a few months ago (though others talked about the vulnerability before then and the TSA knew about it, according to Adam Shostack) to get past the gates without triggering secondary screening.
If you are on the no fly list, you'd have to have someone else buy your ticket and then use the Slate method.
So far as I can tell, the Barnhill method isn't a security risk. Anyone using it is going to have their person and their possessions scrutinized.
Oh, and though many, many others pointed to the story already -- go read the Gilmore profile by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Dennis Roddy. It's a small masterpiece.
And when you are doing that check out this column he wrote on Saturday that asks questions about the kind of world we live in where companies named after birds of prey are hired by schools to make sure every visitor isn't a sex offender.
Oh, hell, make it a Roddy fest. This one is worth thinking deeply about, too.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:44 AM | TrackBack
February 21, 2005 | Hunter S. Thompson's DeadMy friend Chris wrote to tell me this last night. My spam filter decided that either I wasn't interested in the news or that Thompson was too risque to put in a subject line. It filed the email in the possible spam folder. Wish it were one more fake email.
As a college kid, I loved the first three pages of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,"
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert whent he drugs began to take hold. I reemeber saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diveing around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to LAs Vegas. [...] No point mentioning the bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.
When I got older, I realized that "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" was his real masterpiece. Vegas, drugs and the 1970's were too easy a target for Thompson's .44 magnum.
Nixon, the media and American retail politics were harder and more important prey.
I'll miss Hunter S. Thompson, however unimpressive his later books were.
He always could see the fucking bats before the rest of us could.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 03:06 PM | TrackBack
January 27, 2005 | Ready or notLast night, while attempting to make breakfast for dinner (eggs, hash browns and toast taste good anytime), I found that the gas had been turned off in my apartment.
It turned out to be no big deal, just something overlooked by some guys working for my landlord.
But it got me to thinking about disaster kits, partly since I was considering going to the basement to get out my camping stove to make myself some coffee.
Given I live in San Francisco, I really should have a disaster kit, with water, food and provisions for when the big one hits. My main stumbling block comes in knowing where to store it. Do I keep it in the basement or in the second floor apartment or at my one-story office a few blocks away?
I also got to thinking about the new Homeland Security preparedness guide put out by DHS this week. They are asking real estate agents around the country to distribute the guide when selling houses.
It's a good enough guide (.pdf) so far as it goes, with the appropriate instructions on preparing water, food and a communications plan.
I'm not technically qualified to comment on the mask recommendations in the report and while its hard not to snicker at the duct tape and plastic sheeting section, for all I know, that might actually help in the case of a chemical attack.
But the document is lacking one very key element, whose absence is present here in the booklet's opening paragraphs.
Potential Threats: Terrorists are working to obtain biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological weapons, and the threat of an attack is very real. Here at the Department of Homeland Security, throughout the federal government, and at organizations across America, we are working hard to strengthen our Nation’s security and to reduce our vulnerability to emergencies of all kinds.Whenever possible, we want to stop terrorist attacks before they happen. All Americans should begin a process of learning about potential threats so we are better prepared to react during an attack, natural disaster or other emergency. While there is no way to predict what will happen, or what your personal circumstances will be, there are simple things you can do now to prepare yourself and your loved ones. Some of the things you can do to prepare for a terrorist attack, such as assembling a supply kit and developing a family communications plan, are the same for both a natural or man-made emergency. However, as you will read in this brochure, there are important differences among potential terrorist threats that will impact the decisions you make and the actions you take. With a little planning and common sense, you can be better prepared for the unexpected.
What's missing here is risk assessment.
Americans -- or maybe humans generally -- are particularly bad at deciding what is risky and what is not. For instance, most people are more afraid of dying in a plane crash than in car crash, though the latter are way more common. Some 40,000 people die in automobile crashes every year. That risk is higher both on a per-trip basis and a per-mile basis.
It's also true that most Americans have little to fear from a terrorist strike, whether that be a dirty bomb, a car bomb or an attack on a chemical plant.
Those living in urban areas are certainly at the highest risk, and people who live near chemical and nuclear plants should take precautions, not just because of the possibility of a terrorist attack, but also because Bhopal or Three Mile Island could happen again.
But for most people, including suburbanites who don't live or work in a city, the risk of dying in a terrorist attack is virtually nil.
But the pamphlet makes no mention of such thinking anywhere.
Not advising people to make a logical assessment of their risk level is simply irresponsible and alarmist.
Imagine if this were a health advisory. Should everyone go get checked for sickle cell anemia, HIV, prostate cancer or breast cancer? Of course not.
Should it be the policy of the government to encourage doctors to hand out pamphlets on what to do in the case of an Ebola virus outbreak to every patient? What about syphilis?
Sure, we should all know about the possibility of Ebola virus outbreak or the risks of contracting HIV through unprotected sex, but the former is extremely rare and the latter is most likely to strike certain populations.
I assume that one reason that DHS did not include any discussion of risk-assessment is to make sure they are covering their ass. But that CYA contributes to a climate of unnecessary fear that is disproportionate to the real risks our country faces from radical fundamentalist terrorists and homegrown right-wing separatists.
While I am not suggesting that DHS is intentionally trying to scare people, widespread fear does serve the department's institutional goals (all organizations strive to keep themselves relevant and well-funded).
Suggesting, if only by omission, that the good folks in Miles City, Montana need to worry as much about fallout from a dirty bomb as those who live in the nation's capital is irresponsible, scare-mongering, even if it is unintentional.
The ongoing national conversation about terrorism deserves better from the folks who brought you ready.gov.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 10:33 AM | TrackBack
January 10, 2005 | Grim Assessment for the New YearKroll, a risk consulting company, publishes the Middle East Risk Monitor every Thursday. It is usually an honest and balanced assessment, since Kroll's customers rely on it to keep their employees safe.
Here's a snippet from their take (.pdf) on the New Year in Iraq and the war's effect on Al Qaida. Worth clicking through to the pdf.
Iraq: Violence to continueThe political and security situation can be expected to continue to deteriorate through 2005 and beyond, in spite of the successful dismantling of the former Baath regime and the January 30 elections.
This year is a crucial one for the transition to democracy in Iraq. Since last June a semi-sovereign government has held office, [...]
To date, however, the transition process has proved a security nightmare for the coalition forces and the Iraqi interim government, and the situation remains far from stable. A particular cause of tension is concern that this month’s elections, by giving new power to the Shiite majority, could ignite conflict with the Sunni minority. Shiite areas have seen some outbursts of violence in the past year but most of the unrest has been among Sunnis. Despite several American-led offensives against insurgents in the so-called Sunni triangle, these have not been pacified and there are grave doubts that valid elections can be held there.
Al Qaida, meanwhile, has steadily built up its operations in Iraq, opening up a new front for Muslim radicals seeking to fight the American presence in the region. A group headed by the Al Qaida leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi has waged a relentless war against the American presence, successfully targeting foreigners in a spate of kidnappings and killings. Coalition troops continue to face daily attacks orchestrated by this group and by Iraqi insurgents sympathetic to its cause, and the pressure is expected to increase and persist until well beyond the January 30 vote.
Politically, the transition timetable set by the U.S. is likely to come under pressure because of the enduring violence, which has also hampered economic recovery. This uncertainty will continue to fuel popular frustration and may provoke further violence against the foreign military presence, as well as inter-religious and inter-ethnic tensions.
[...]
The Gulf: Further fallout from the Iraq invasion
The Gulf region will experience further instability this year arising from events in Iraq. The growth in anti-U.S. sentiment promises to have unpredictable consequences, most notably in Saudi Arabia.
The instability in Iraq has inevitably caused reverberations in the politics and stability of the Gulf.
The presence of 200,000 American troops in the region has fuelled anti-American sentiment and this in turn has bred popular discontent with Gulf governments. In addition there is an increasing threat from Al Qaida, which is believed to have moved some key operatives into the region, presumably in preparation for further actions in 2005. Saudi Arabia is the country most affected, with a strong growth of anti-U.S. and anti-government feeling.
The huge U.S. presence in the region has confirmed the widespread belief among Saudis that the United States is seeking control of oil resources across the Gulf region, while many Saudis also believe their own government co-operated with the U.S.-led war in Iraq, despite official denials. [...]
In spite of government plans for political reform and an intense security crackdown, it is unlikely that the Al Qaida threat can be eliminated in the near future. The threat may also spread to other countries, especially Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, provoking at the very least an increase in uncertainty.