The piece of paper that fooled Hitler
The deception of the Normandy invasion. Like other spy games, it was helped along by some bias. If you tell the other side what the think is true or what they want to believe, they are more likely to accept it as genuine intelligence.
Why your IT department’s password policy is probably wrong and unnecessarily user-unfriendly.
Florida Professor Arrested for Having a “Suspicious” Bagel on a Plane
A Florida professor was arrested and removed from a plane Monday after his fellow passengers alerted crew members they thought he had a suspicious package in the overhead compartment.
That “suspicious package” turned out to be keys, a bagel with cream cheese and a hat.…
Monday’s incident is another example of other passengers essentially becoming the authority on terrorist activity on planes.
Got this from Daring Fireball, not Schneier (I suspect it will be there soon*), and Gruber had a comment:
“Suspicious Bagels” would be a good name for a bagel store.
I think it would be a good name for a band.
* and he will point out that when you have amateurs doing your security, that what you get is amateur security.
The first truly honest privacy policy
This privacy policy may change at any time. In fact, it’s changed three times since we first started typing this. Good luck figuring out how, because we’re sure as hell not going to tell you. But then, you probably stopped reading after paragraph three.
Or dead, anyway. This little drama unfolded over my recent vacation.
A friend had been talking with a coin collector he knew, who has a store in the area. The collector had come into possession of an old safe, along with the contents thereof, and it included a pair of aluminum containers. Inside the containers were vials of clear liquid, bolted to the inside. What was really strange is that the vials were sealed shut — no stopper or cap at all. There would be no way to get the liquid out except by breaking the vial.
Well, that made my friend nervous. One reason for storing a liquid like that is that it is nasty stuff, and hanging on to them would be potentially dangerous, so he urged the coin collector to turn them in to some responsible party. I got peripherally involved when he asked my advice, thinking that if these were a weapon of some sort, I might know someone who could help figure the mystery out, but I don’t. The consensus we reached was to contact the local Hazmat unit, but he ended up turning them into the cops, after some prodding by my friend.
The verdict? Poison gas. Or something that turns into poison gas; the word I got was phosphene (or phosphine), but the story has now hit the paper and they say phosgene. In either event, it’s nasty stuff.
Authorities say they believe the ampuls, which were held two apiece inside metal brackets, contained liquid phosgene, a deadly World War I-era chemical weapon used to choke enemies and, later, as a booby trap for safecrackers.
The idea being that if you drill the safe, you break the vial. Internet references more often point toward tear gas as being used, but something more sinister wouldn’t be out of the question. It wasn’t hard to find this picture of a different safe with a “Beware of poison dog” label on it, stuck over a tear gas warning label.
Takes a little romance out of the portrayal of the TV/movie jewel thief.
[A] bank’s ability to block payments to a legal entity raises a troubling prospect. A handful of big banks could potentially bar any organization they disliked from the payments system, essentially cutting them off from the world economy.
The fact of the matter is that banks are not like any other business. They run the payments system. That is one of the main reasons that governments protect them from failure with explicit and implicit guarantees. This makes them look not too unlike other public utilities. A telecommunications company, for example, may not refuse phone or broadband service to an organization it dislikes, arguing that it amounts to risky business.
Of course, the net neutrality issue isn’t exactly settled. But the arguments have common roots.
While this does not represent my endorsement of Wikileaks, I think that the treatment they have received at the hands of both the government and business is scary. Nobody has been charged with a crime, and the news organization which have been relaying the leaks have not been targeted. Illegal and extra-legal actions have occurred or been contemplated. Does it not occur to “responsible” politicians and pundits that calling for assassination might be problematic? Due process, anyone? Another example of a-la-carte constitutionality. Does anyone expect that to change with Tea-Partiers arriving in a few days, or are some going to be shocked, shocked that the constitution is again being treated as a document of convenience.
I find myself in an unusual situation with regards to safeguarding information. I work for the Department of Defense and have served in the military, yet I am a scientist. I understand and agree with points on both sides. As scientists, it is pounded into our heads that information should be shared, and that the best thing that can happen is to have lots of smart people looking at a problem. The military view is just the opposite — information is to be compartmentalized so that it does not get out. It’s always a struggle to achieve a balance, because scientists don’t work very effectively when they are cordoned off. Maybe the security trade-off is worth the slower pace, maybe it isn’t. When scientists get together and talk science, they share information. You can’t just be at the receiving end all the time. Younger scientists, just starting out, are included because of the expectation that even if they have nothing to share now, they will be able to do so very soon. If you have nothing to share, you will eventually be cut off. It won’t happen right away — we love to talk about our work and contemplate interesting questions, but it has to be a two-way street. So secrecy has a very strong quenching effect on the ability to do science.
But countries do need to keep secrets. And the big problem I have with Julian Assange and Wikileaks is that they do not seem to be discriminating between secrets that are held because they are covering up behavior — the kind of “Pentagon Papers” information that they are using as a justification for their actions — and the secrets that a government needs to keep. The difference between covering up and giving cover. You show people how the sausage is made if the ingredients are not what is given on the label, otherwise you don’t need to know. Wikileaks is telling us how the sausage is made, regardless. That seems more like poking the anthill for the fun of it than the actions of (to paraphrase Justice Black) a free and unrestrained press exposing deception in government.
The airline passenger who wore a very realistic mask to get past security was just the start. Now it’s bank robbery: Masks so realistic they’re arresting the wrong guy
A white bank robber in Ohio recently used a “hyper-realistic” mask manufactured by a small Van Nuys company to disguise himself as a black man, prompting police there to mistakenly arrest an African American man for the crimes.
From the manufacturer:
“We’re proud of the fact that our masks look real, but I’m not proud of the way they were used,” said Slusser, a 39-year-old former makeup artist. “We’re very embarrassed this has happened. We were shocked that this happened.”
Shocked. Shocked. Yes, Captain Renault is shocked.
Exclusive: TSA frisks groom children to cooperate with sex predators, abuse expert says
An expert in the fight against child sexual abuse is raising the alarm about a technique the TSA is reportedly using to get children to co-operate with airport pat-downs: calling it a “game”.
Oh … my … God
Security and Terrorism Expert Bruce Schneier: TSA Scans “Won’t Catch Anybody”
And why would they? Zero bombers made it through (or were caught by) the old system.
Errata Security: I was just detained by the TSA
Today, I was detained by the TSA for about 30 minutes for taking pictures while going through security. Taking pictures is perfectly legal.
…
TSA: How would you like it if somebody came to your work and disrupted your procedures? How would you like it if people took pictures of you at your work?
Me: I don’t work for the government. Government agencies need to be accountable to the public, and therefore suffer disruptions like this.
TSA: Not all parts of the government are accountable to the public, especially the TSA.
Me: Wow. No, ALL parts of the government are accountable to the people, especially the TSA. I’m not sure what type of country you think we live in.
The TSA and America’s Turning Point
If America has a single founding principle, it is this: no government has any authority to take any action without the consent of the governed. Our Founding Fathers did not object to the principle of paying taxes per se; they objected strongly to the idea of being forced to pay taxes to a government where they had no input. Freedom’s cry was not “No taxation” then, and it isn’t now; it was “No taxation without representation.” The same goes for any other intrusive regulation.
George Will takes another tactic: The T.S. of A takes control
What the TSA is doing is mostly security theater, a pageant to reassure passengers that flying is safe. Reassurance is necessary if commerce is going to flourish and if we are going to get to grandma’s house on Thursday to give thanks for the Pilgrims and for freedom. If grandma is coming to our house, she may be wanded while barefoot at the airport because democracy – or the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment; anyway, something – requires the amiable nonsense of pretending that no one has the foggiest idea what an actual potential terrorist might look like.
I have to disagree here, because I don’t think that it’s amiable nonsense at all. Here he falls into the trap that the TSA has: implementing a protocol to stop a specific threat. It’s inefficient and ignores the thousands of other ways a successful attack could be carried out. If you start profiling, then all it would take is someone who doesn’t fit the profile. People, Juan Williams being a prominent example, have expressed the feeling that they are nervous about flyers who are “in Muslim garb.” All a terrorist has to do, then, is dress to blend in, to allay that fear. But it doesn’t get rid of the threat. People in Boston famously freaked out over some flashing LEDs (twice) in recent memory, because “that’s what bombs look like.” Which is nonsense. Bombs “look like” pretty much whatever you want them to. The same goes for terrorists. At the very least they could wear a mask.
More commentary and links at Uncertain Principles: Invasive Searches and Underage Drinking in which Chad makes the comparison to other situations which seem to fall under the rubric of “We must be seen as doing something about the situation. This is something.” Which is nothing but a CYA move. “Don’t blame me, I did something!”
The bottom line is that in all things there is always, and will always be, risk. 100% safety is unattainable, and it’s dishonest to imply otherwise. It’s dishonest to manufacture fear in order to justify actions restricting our freedoms.
Update (11/26): Roger “Carlos the Jackal” Ebert: Where I draw the line