somebody wrote:

> Are you saying those who design airport security are dumb?

No, just handicapped by politics and economics.

In this world, rarely is the best technical solution the one that 
actually gets chosen. (Exhibit A: Betamax.)

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gregjohn wrote:
> Any ideas on how to design a truly secure airport? 

We already have. More planes go down from mechanical failures than terrorism.

You cannot design a truly secure airport, as demonstrated by several wars in 
which bombers blew up runways.

If you ensured that every passenger was "safe", you now have to ensure that 
no pilot has been given $10million to crash the plane into a building.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4b4dfaf9$1@news.povray.org...
> If you ensured that every passenger was "safe", you now have to ensure 
> that no pilot has been given $10million to crash the plane into a 
> building.

For that matter, make the airport as secure as you want. Pack the passengers 
nude into giant plastic bags with air tanks after submitting them to an MRI. 
Don't allow any luggage on the plane of any kind. Use a computer program for 
a pilot.

Won't stop a ground-to-air missile launched somewhere along the flight path.

I approve of airport security in general, I think it's a good idea to at 
least stop the amateurs who want to cause harm and havoc. But someone will 
always find a way around it, I feel certain of that.

--
Jack

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Captain Jack wrote:

> I approve of airport security in general, I think it's a good idea to at 
> least stop the amateurs who want to cause harm and havoc. But someone will 
> always find a way around it, I feel certain of that.

Much better: Maybe try stopping people *wanting* to blow up planes?

Just an idea...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:4b4e0e7b$1@news.povray.org...

> Much better: Maybe try stopping people *wanting* to blow up planes?
>
> Just an idea...

That'd be great, but I'm not sure where to start with that. Last I heard, us 
hair-challenged apes were approaching 7 billion (the billion with 9 zeros, 
that is) here on this little blue marble out by the edge of the Milky Way. 
Even a tiny, tiny chunk of that number being disgruntled enough to feel 
justified in hurting innocent people is a lot of minds to change.

I'm all for it, absolutely, but I don't know how to do it. I do feel pretty 
sure that logical arguments won't yield much fruit. Once a man decides it's 
okay (or worse, righteous) to kill another human being, he becomes a tough 
nut to crack.

(Geez, do you think I mixed up enough metaphors and platitudes there? Who 
talks like that?)

(Well, okay, obviously, I do...)

--
Jack

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>> Much better: Maybe try stopping people *wanting* to blow up planes?
>>
>> Just an idea...
> 
> That'd be great, but I'm not sure where to start with that.

Agreed.

To me, the best strategy is to have enough security to stop the random 
crazy people, and then work on the root causes of the _large numbers_ of 
people who are unhappy for the same reason.

But now we're talking about *people*, and this is far beyond my area of 
expertise. :-(

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Much better: Maybe try stopping people *wanting* to blow up planes?
>>>
>>> Just an idea...
>>
>> That'd be great, but I'm not sure where to start with that.
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> To me, the best strategy is to have enough security to stop the random 
> crazy people, and then work on the root causes of the _large numbers_ of 
> people who are unhappy for the same reason.
> 
> But now we're talking about *people*, and this is far beyond my area of 
> expertise. :-(
> 
Most people are unhappy. The root cause isn't people not liking the way 
things are, its them being told by lunatics that their is a reason for 
this, and that the solution is to kill a bunch of people that belong to, 
follow, believe in, or belong to, that reason. Sadly, #1 biggest problem 
in solving *that* problem is that, in most places, such bullshit is 
"protected", and where it isn't, its still lent undue credence, by 
clueless morons, that like to stand around claiming its just the people 
that don't *get* it properly doing stupid stuff, even while they stand 
their signing a petition to remove lobsters from signs, or some 
similarly stupid idiocy, because it might somehow offend their own 
*protected* gibberish.

In short. You need to watch out of people acting obsessed, crazy, 
unreasonable, and dangerous to others, then try to either a) fix the 
problem, or b) lock them up. Unless... its the "protected" sort of 
crazy, in which case you are supposed to ignore it and just add more 
full body scanners to the nearest airport, in hopes that you catch more 
underwear bombers than you do incensed idiots whining about being 
embarrassed that they wear adult diapers (which is one of the current 
stupid arguments among the anti-scanner people in the US).

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> somebody wrote:
>
> > Are you saying those who design airport security are dumb?
>
> No, just handicapped by politics and economics.
>
> In this world, rarely is the best technical solution the one that
> actually gets chosen. (Exhibit A: Betamax.)

I've seen a specific security measure, like, "Your FOO is going to be thoroughly
examined and you may only possess items measured less than BAR."  So everyone is
greatly inconvenienced with their FOO's and measuring things less than BAR.
This is maddening to me because crazy bad guys could still create mischief with
their non-FOO and with something of size less than BAR.  Given the possibility,
I believe it is a cynical  response-- motivated not by security of the
passengers but to avoid lawsuits-- to have the current level of inconveniences.
So, in this analysis, security measures are nowhere near tough enough.

I'm wondering what security measures would be in place after a century of
dealing with the bad guys pushing of the envelope.  Yes, do we use knockout gas
and transport people nude in plasteel bubbles, do we give up on the whole thing,
do we use Trek-style transporters?   For example, do we just have a spigot on
the back of the seat for drinking water, and ban all fluids of any size?

As for intelligence of transport authority figures, there is one story of a
guard having "discovered" someone guilty of "industrial espionage."  Turned out
it was a lame artist with a notebook full of cartoony sketches of cars he'd seen
in Europe, (cars available for sale to the public, ones for which the internet
had hundreds of online photos available to anyone, spy or no.)

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gregjohn wrote:

> I've seen a specific security measure, like, "Your FOO is going to be thoroughly
> examined and you may only possess items measured less than BAR."  So everyone is
> greatly inconvenienced with their FOO's and measuring things less than BAR.
> This is maddening to me because crazy bad guys could still create mischief with
> their non-FOO and with something of size less than BAR.  Given the possibility,
> I believe it is a cynical  response-- motivated not by security of the
> passengers but to avoid lawsuits-- to have the current level of inconveniences.
> So, in this analysis, security measures are nowhere near tough enough.

Ah yes, nobody is allowed more than 100 ml of liquid.

Becuase, you know, there's just no way that 100 ml of explosives could 
possibly cause a devastating explosion. Or release a deadly nerve gas 
and kill everyone on board. And there's no way that three suicide 
bombers could all get on the same plane, each carrying 100 ml, together 
making 300 ml in total. Or, for that matter, there's no way you could 
hide more than 100 ml of liquid about your person without somebody noticing.

Oh, wait... I think my brain just switched back on.

> I'm wondering what security measures would be in place after a century of
> dealing with the bad guys pushing of the envelope.

I'm wondering why they don't put humans through the X-ray machine. I'm 
guessing because then anybody who does a lot of travelling is going to 
start receiving dangerous amounts of X-ray exposure over time... So 
maybe we just need to invent a scanning technology that's less harmful.

Oh, wait. We already have several. Ultrasound, NMR, PET and so on. So 
I'm guessing it's just too expensive or impractical. (Ultrasound 
apparently requires close contact with the item to be scanned, or else 
the item must be immersed in liquid. Neither is especially practical.)

Then again, for any given scanning technology, there is probably 
something that's invisible to it. Ultrasound sees only changes in 
density. X-rays can't see liquids, only dense solids. And so on.

The again, maybe we're looking at this all wrong. I mean, why the 
obsession with airport security? Currently, anybody who feels like it 
can nip down to their local friendly chemist, buy a few chemicals, mix 
'em together, walk down the street to their location of choice and set 
off a devastating explosion. And nobody will stop them. Indeed, it seems 
utterly implausible that it's even physically *possible* to detect that 
somebody is about to do this and try to stop them. They could be 
anybody, anywhere, any day or night.

Then again, how many people actually do this? Not that many.

Interesting perspective: Road traffic accidents kill ten people PER DAY 
in the UK, apparently. And yet I don't see anybody freaking out and 
saying we need tougher controls on the roads...

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4b507277$1@news.povray.org...

> Interesting perspective: Road traffic accidents kill ten people PER DAY
> in the UK, apparently. And yet I don't see anybody freaking out and
> saying we need tougher controls on the roads...

How many people die daily from "old age"? If anything, we should be freaking
over *that*.

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