sgt_steve wrote:

Another set of interesting numbers can be found here. It's hard to say what's cause and what's effect, but the numbers are nonetheless interesting. Obligatory quote: "...In the 2000s, a total of 469 passengers (including crew and terrorists) were killed worldwide as the result of Violent Passenger Incidents, 265 of which were on 9/11 itself. No fatal incidents have occurred since nearly simultaneous bombings of two Russian aircraft on 8/24/2004; this makes for the longest streak without a fatal incident since World War II. The overall death toll during the 2000s is about the same as it was during the 1960s, and substantially less than in the 1970s and 1980s, when violent incidents peaked. The worst individual years were 1985, 1988 and 1989, in that order; 2001 ranks fourth."

Just follow the El Al model and everything will be fine. Which brings up an interesting point - El Al is a very safe airline to fly so do they have no need for security or is it because of their security? A proven axiom of crime prevention is that you harden one target and criminals go to softer targets. I'm all for making airlines as difficult as possible, given the potential for casualties both in the air and on the ground. Why didn't the guy try to blow up his pants over the Atlantic or Greenland or wherever? Because the potential for casualties was less. No one really knows how many "plots" have been broken up or prevented because of data mining, profiling, etc. We only hear about our prevention failures. Thank god this time the damage was limited to the area around the bomber's shorts. As far as 2001 ranking fourth, that doesn't take into account 911 ground casualties or the enormous economic loss - and intended loss. It could have been much worse.

If you blow up your junk in this life, does it effect your ability to please your 70 virgins in the next life?
_________________
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand
-Kurt Vonnegut

http://manly-but-bookish.blogspot.com/

Sean wrote:

If you blow up your junk in this life, does it effect your ability to please your 70 virgins in the next life?

One can only hope.

Tito wrote:

Sean wrote: If you blow up your junk in this life, does it effect your ability to please your 70 virgins in the next life? One can only hope.

Well, you can spread your arms out wide and truthfully say "My junk is THIS big."
_________________
"If you allow yourself to be offended, then you're a bit of [a] nitwit."
(Christopher Moore)

Yeah, I guess it's got length and girth, but it lacks density.
_________________
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand
-Kurt Vonnegut

http://manly-but-bookish.blogspot.com/

Aside from knowing this incident would make it even harder for me to fly back and forth from the US, I wondered if failed terrorists are embarrassed. Oh, and I wondered if he was even more embarrassed at the state of his "junk" now, as Sean calls it.

On this side of the pond, they're talking about using the full body scanning machines. What do you guys think of them?

imonica wrote:

Aside from knowing this incident would make it even harder for me to fly back and forth from the US, I wondered if failed terrorists are embarrassed. Oh, and I wondered if he was even more embarrassed at the state of his "junk" now, as Sean calls it. On this side of the pond, they're talking about using the full body scanning machines. What do you guys think of them?

I'm all for them. I'm proud of my junk, padded with a bomb or simply going commando.

trained beagles would be much less expensive, less intimidating (unless they detected something), more time and energy efficient and at least as accurate.
_________________
To Learn is to Know
To Know is to Love
To Love is our aim

~~~~~~~

Why should we bother with immortality when we are eternal?

Tito wrote:

Just follow the El Al model and everything will be fine. Which brings up an interesting point - El Al is a very safe airline to fly so do they have no need for security or is it because of their security? A proven axiom of crime prevention is that you harden one target and criminals go to softer targets. I'm all for making airlines as difficult as possible, given the potential for casualties both in the air and on the ground. Why didn't the guy try to blow up his pants over the Atlantic or Greenland or wherever? Because the potential for casualties was less. No one really knows how many "plots" have been broken up or prevented because of data mining, profiling, etc. We only hear about our prevention failures. Thank god this time the damage was limited to the area around the bomber's shorts. As far as 2001 ranking fourth, that doesn't take into account 911 ground casualties or the enormous economic loss - and intended loss. It could have been much worse.

Not too long after 9/11 there was a big writeup on how effective El Al had been at keeping hijackers and terrorists off of the planes. The author's opinion was that US travellers would never tolerate what El Al does in terms of searches, limited items in the cabin, etc. Conversely, the author said that probably the most significant deterrent was the more secure doors into the pilot area coupled with a refusal to open that door even if someone had hostages in the cabin. Mind you, at the time they were more worried about hijackers than actual explosives, but you get my drift.

You're dead on about moving on to the easier targets. Dumb terrorists get caught trying to do the same old thing. Smart ones look for the next available target rather than go after the hardened one.

sgt_steve wrote:

The author's opinion was that US travellers would never tolerate what El Al does in terms of searches, limited items in the cabin, etc.

I'd welcome it. Especially when I'm flying with my kids. And, with the two recent "disruptive passenger" incidents, I'd be happy to ban alcohol and any inflight movie featuring Jim Carey.

Tito wrote:

sgt_steve wrote: The author's opinion was that US travellers would never tolerate what El Al does in terms of searches, limited items in the cabin, etc. I'd welcome it. Especially when I'm flying with my kids. And, with the two recent "disruptive passenger" incidents, I'd be happy to ban alcohol and any featuring Jim Carey.

I'm cool with the last 2- in fact, they can ban all inflight movies as far as I'm concerned-
but I still ain't willing to get on planes with loud, stinky strangers...

Tito wrote:

sgt_steve wrote: The author's opinion was that US travellers would never tolerate what El Al does in terms of searches, limited items in the cabin, etc. I'd welcome it. Especially when I'm flying with my kids. And, with the two recent "disruptive passenger" incidents, I'd be happy to ban alcohol and any inflight movie featuring Jim Carey.

dude.....can't ban alcohol.....

Schneier has an op-ed piece on this particular incident here. Tito and I would both find things in it that we agree with.