>There's no evidence that the London liquid bombers actually had a workable plot, but assume for the moment they did.

Yes, let's do that, Bruce. Let's also assume that the fluid in one's bladder can be used as an explosive. Now there's no evidence that that is a workable plot, but we've got to assume that it is and begin setting up TSA catheter stations next to the metal detectors.

From right near the bottom of the article...
"If something is dangerous, treat it as dangerous"

Example: Don't take all the confiscated liquids, and throw them randomly into a plastic garbage can. That only proves you don't consider them remotely dangerous.

Mark: You might want to correct the link to be more direct to the actual item quoted: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0810.html#2

Interesting point. Reading this, I couldn't help but imagine a terrorist showing frustration that his plot is foiled by the TSAs throwing out his knitting needles. "Argh! Curse you TSA! You are too clever for us and our freedom hating ways!" *Shakes fist*

About a month ago, I was boarding a plane in Newark and unwittingly packed a tube of 4oz. toothpaste into my carry-on luggage. I was amused at the fact that the TSA agent pulled me aside, rummaged through my bag, and questioned me about the offense.

TSA Agent: "What's this?"
Me: "Oh, that's my toothpaste"
TSA Agent: "You realize you are not permitted to carry-on any liquid containers over 3oz."
Me: "Yes, sorry, it was an oversight, that's my prescription toothpaste"
TSA Agent: "Oh, it's a prescription?..." He drops the toothpaste back into my bag and bids me good day.

I've read the statement several times because I keep feeling I must not understand it correctly:

If there's no consequence to getting caught with it, then confiscating it only hurts innocent people. ...

If something is dangerous, treat it as dangerous and treat anyone who tries to bring it on as potentially dangerous.

So treating everyone as dangerous is supposed to hurt innocent people less than just having their toothpaste confiscated?

I'm missing something...

Agreed Daemon. Clearly even if they did later discover a discarded item had something dangerous, they'd have no direct way to go back and figure out who it was. There is no linkage of the item to the holder, beyond I suppose digging into security video.

I think you are missing something. He isn't saying treat every person as dangerous, he seems to be saying to develop a list of things that are really dangerous and then hold people accountable if they violate the rules.

"So treating everyone as dangerous is supposed to hurt innocent people less than just having their toothpaste confiscated?

I'm missing something..."

Yes, you're missing the fact that treating everyone as dangerous would actually prevent terrorists acts, which are actually a great, great threat to everyone, remember?

The airlines charge astronomical prices for flying, a fee for every conceivable service and the TSA is elbow-deep in everybody's luggage, all under the idiotic auspice of "dem turrists iz gun keel ya if'n we don't take dat dangrus toofpaste."

Gee, I can't imagine why the commercial airline industry is on its knees.

Yes, you're missing the fact that treating everyone as dangerous would actually prevent terrorists acts, which are actually a great, great threat to everyone, remember?

Oh, I see. I'm sure innocent people will be thrilled by this clever and highly sophisticated plan.

I read through the article and can't tell: is this satire? Or is the author trying to make a point by examining the extreme opposite?

God I miss George Carlin...

"Airport security is a stupid idea, it's a waste of money, and it's there for only one reason: to make white people feel safe! That's all it's for. To provide a feeling, an illusion, of safety in order to placate the middle class. Because the authorities know they can't make airplanes safe; too many people have access. You'll notice the drug smugglers don't seem to have a lot of trouble getting their little packages on board, do they?......

"And by the way, an airplane flight shouldn't be completely safe. You need A little danger in your life. Take a fucking chance, will ya?...What, are you gonna read _PEOPLE_ magazine and eat at Wendy's till the end of internal linktime? Take a fucking chance.....

"As far as I'm concerned, all of this airport security--the cameras, the questions, the screenings, the searches--is just one more way of reducing your liberty and reminding you that they can fuck with you anytime they want. Because that's the way Americans are now. They're willing to trade away a little of their freedom in exchange for the feeling---the illusion---of security."

@sekino You might want to take a few steps back, there was a point back there...

I know he plays devil's advocate, but i'm sorry to see that Schneier is legitimizing the liquid ban, after it has been proven that this plot is not at all feasible.

The TSA is a Potemkin Security operation.

Irrespective of intention, I think it's a pretty insightful piece, even as an exercise in reductio ad absurdum. If my kid's yoghurt and my small bottle of diluted cranberry juice really are likely to pose a threat to the security of the free world, then for feck's sake [i]do[/i] something about it. Otherwise, please leave us alone.

@sekino You might want to take a few steps back, there was a point back there...

I do keep missing the rational, sensible point. That's why I asked the first time.

@ URSHREW I read through the article and can't tell: is this satire? Or is the author trying to make a point by examining the extreme opposite?

I hope so.

@#5, Sekino: What you're missing is that Bruce isn't discussing the validity of the claimed threat to aircraft security posed by fluids in quantities greater than 3 oz, he's simply demonstrating that even if the threat is real the security policy put in place to deal with it is still a waste of time.

@#5, Sekino: What you're missing is that Bruce isn't discussing the validity of the claimed threat to aircraft security posed by fluids in quantities greater than 3 oz, he's simply demonstrating that even if the threat is real the security policy put in place to deal with it is still a waste of time.

Thank you, TUBMAN: That is all I was asking. From other replies, it wasn't entirely clear that he was indeed playing the devil's advocate..

URSHREW@10: I think you answered your own question there. It seems to me that the author knows that treating all such discarded items as truly dangerous would further bog down the system from a crawl to complete stoppage in actual practice. He is pointing out the absurdity of discarding liquids under the premise of being dangerous by taking it to the ultimate extreme and taking their word for it.

DWTTSF@13: I don't think he is legitimizing this procedure at all, but rather pointing out where this kind of reasoning would get you if you truly believed it: i.e. thinking it through to the logical conclusion. It is a subtle way of critiquing the entire practice.

CODERDUK@11: Nice Carlin quotes, to which I add: "They told me to get on the plane, and I said: Fuck you, I'm getting in the plane!"

Sekino, does this help?

Terrst has 57 tubes of toothpaste explosives. He takes one with him every time he goes to the airport. 56 times it is found but, as there is no sanction / prison time associated (and as no one really believes anyone would seriously try and blow up a plane with a toothpaste bomb and thus don't actually check the toothpaste as to composition), he is free to try again. Time no. 57, boom. Or, he can try what TallPat did - "it's prescription" with the same result: boom.

Now, if there were a sanction (i.e. if the idiots at airports thought there really was a risk and locked people up for the "crime" of toothpaste smuggling instead of doing it to big up themselves) and people were locked up, then no more attempts for Mr Terrst.

@1, 5, 10, 13:

No, the author is not arguing in favor of the liquid ban... Nor is this satire. It's an argument designed to show how absurd the current laws are, and saying that if the really believed in the laws, that they would be duty-bound to arrest everyone who brought in toothpaste.

Either you believe toothpaste may be used for a bomb or you don't. If you do believe it, you need to arrest anyone trying to smuggle it on board, just as you'd arrest someone trying to smuggle a gun on board. If you don't, stop confiscating it.

Since the first scenario is absurd, TSA should quit pretending otherwise and allow us our toothpaste.

This is similar to the supposed Democrat threat a while back that they were going to push to have the draft re-instated. Not because they wanted their kids drafted, but they hoped that if everyone realized that their kids were going to be in Iraq, they'd realize that they shouldn't be in Iraq. Likewise, the TSA knows that if it were to arrest every single granny and bring them in for questioning, they'd be dismantled (one might hope).

As Bruce says:

To fix this, airport security has to make a choice. If something is dangerous, treat it as dangerous and treat anyone who tries to bring it on as potentially dangerous. If it's not dangerous, then stop trying to keep it off airplanes.

... oops, I guess in the time for me to write the reply, re-log in, and re-write, 6 others posted the same thing...

#16 PATRICK

Riiight. Okay, thanks for the math lesson; but I had only failed to read the satire in the article (as a few others, evidently).

If that makes me a complete idiot, sorry for asking.

After catching you with Pasta sauce, don't they check to see if it is explosive?

I would assume if they opened the top and your sauce smelled like chemical explosives they might have put you on the body cavity search list or perhaps questioned you.

All this does is point out how ridiculous airport "security" is, something that I fear most of uys already know. Heck, your chances of having things stolen from you by TSA employees is so much better than the possibility of ever being involved in a terrorist action on an airplane.

Maybe they can start protecting us from the TSA thieves instead?

Taking things in a slightly different direction...

It seems like the majority here, including myself, agree that airport security is invasive to the average citizen just trying to get to grammas for xmas, while also uneffective in its "preventative" policies like this 3oz liquid farce. (BTW I believe the 3oz ban is gone now)

My question being is there a solution?? Has anyone proposed an alternative that would be effective in allowing people to fly without hassle, but also providing security measures to prevent hijackings?

The George Carlin post above says airport security is mearly something to make white people feel safe..sure he's making a joke, but i see the point. On the other end of the joke though, could it be said that the airport security exists to make a terrorist feel nervous and unsure of success?

Sorry Sek - not meaning to imply anything at all about anyone's intelligence...

I don't disagree that the liquid ban is likely counter-productive, but Bruce really shouldn't base his arguments on demonstrably false assertions.

The London liquid bombers did have a workable plot. Even if it wasn't very far along.

There is nothing magic or hard about building a liquid explosive, it's called nitroglycerin, and it's been done before:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojinka_plot

Also, 3.1 ounces of toothpaste would be just fine. The limit is actually 3.4 oz (or 100mL)

@#28, BTB: What's the demonstrably false assertion that Bruce based his argument on?

You know how many grandmas they would have to arrest if they did this? Yeah, that's a great way to inspire confidence in the America people: throw grannie in jail!

"There's no evidence that the London liquid bombers actually had a workable plot"

The fact that it's happened before shows that it is a workable plot.

Kip Hawley announced that the TSA might have technology in place to screen for "threat liquids" that would remove limits on the liquids passengers can bring on board.

http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2008/10/02/tsa-likely-to-relax-restrictions-on-liquids-in-2009/

He also announced that the chocolate ration has been increased to 20 grams a week!

There is no evidence that airport screening has anything to do with security.

Interesting seeing the different readings here. I believe it's been cleared up now.

I think it might relate to people's preferring mode of reasoning.

Schneier is more or less talking about about the logical coherence of the whole scheme in a theoretical way. It's not really satire; he believes what he says, it's just that most of it is hypothetical counterfactuals.

But a lot of people don't tend to think that way, and in the circumstances it's easy to be distracted by the concrete actions he's describing.

(didn't read the article)

back to what I said some time ago: If there were people who wanted to kill a lot of people on airplanes (this IS the object right?, this is what it is ALL about , right?), they would have done so long ago, successfully and unopposed since there are literally hundreds of thousands of widely distributed, cheap, effective, shoulder-launched rocket propelled grenades available to them. Every major airport is a sitting duck. Always has been. Any idiot can learn to shoot down a passenger jet in less than one day.

So why hasn't it happened?

@#31, BTB: That may be, as you aver, a demonstrably false assertion, but Bruce certainly didn't base his argument on it.

Here's that sentence in full:
"There's no evidence that the London liquid bombers actually had a workable plot, but assume for the moment they did."

First of all, BTB: Cite a case where liquid bombs have worked to bring down a plane.

For those who have been asking, Schneier's article is intended to show two things:

1. If the security guys think that [insert quantity] of [insert substance] is explosive (or corrosive or whatever}, then it has to be treated as dangerous. This means - at the very least - that you handle the substance with extreme caution (shut down and evacuate the area, get some sort of analysis, apply appropriate handling, make it safe, etc), and hold the person who brought it to the airport for questioning. You also make this a criminal offence. What you do not do is throw it into a bin with who knows what other contraband substances, and allow the person to go. (Am I the only person who has contemplated how relatively easy it would be to take out airport security by having an unstable substance in a forbidden quantity? Who knows, it is possible ypu could get away to do it again...). It strikes me that there are several reasons why the security bods don't do this:

a) They know there is no real risk;
b) The handling issues would bring airports to a standstill;
c) The effect of criminalising people who made mistakes, which in my experience are disproportionately in the older age-groups, would cause a backlash that makes the current dissatisfaction with the banking industry look like a playground argument!

However, to make it worse, the current situation actually plays into the hands of the airports/airlines (who implement security), by giving them a constant revenue stream from people buying the same fluids they are barred from taking through security, usually at vastly inflated prices!

2. The current means of doing things does nothing to prevent probing of the security - it is possible to keep trying things until you get the information, or the effect, you want. If there is a plausible risk, then EVERYONE that breaches the rules should be questioned, put on watch-lists, prosecuted, or whatever. There must be repercussions from the action, and records kept. If you aren't going to do anything except confiscate the contraband, you might as well do nothing. In Schneier's article, he actually points out that the current situation is the worst of all worlds - whilst an attacker knows that, if he tries and fails to get a gun or "conventional" bomb through customs, he will be held for questioning, etc., and so is unlikely to try. This means that there does not have to be a really high level of success in finding such things. However, the same attacker knows that (and this is where Schneier makes the assumption that liquid explosives can actually work) he can keep trying until he does succeed (or causes an explosion in one of those security bins filled with all sorts of things). This means that the security has to be 100% effective every time - no fluids in the prohibited amounts must ever get through. However, we all know this is not possible, and some examples have been given here.

Here is the point:

War on Terror makes everyone* retarded.

* involved in security or something alike.

I don't buy the premise of the article. Because in order to be effective, the TSA needs to assume that its goal is to catch 100% of the terrorists boarding our planes. Which means that they have to shoot for getting 100% of the 3.5 oz tubes of toothpaste out of our luggage. Even if they don't get 100%, if they behave as if they're getting less than 100%, then they become less efective at the deterrene piece of their job. Also, they know that more than 99% of those substances will be harmless. So they have to assume that they are getting the other fraction of a percent. But to treat every one of those confiscated liquids as a dangerous substance would cause an incredible panic and even more problems at the airport. Where as treating 100% of bombs and guns as dangerous is sort of fairly obvious.

I also think that by arguing that you either have to treat it all as dangerous or let it through, you set up the groundwork for treating it all as dangerous. The TSA is not known for understanding sarcasm or satire. If they think that a terrorist is going to try 100 times to get 4oz of a dangerous chemical on board, they will start doing cavity searches on everyone bringing 3.5oz of toothpaste on board.

So rather than using nonsensical devils-advocate articles to argue an opposite point, why not just state that the policy is crap, and why. Because even if you catch 100% of the 3.5oz bottles of toothpaste, if 4 terrorists get on board the plane with 3oz bottles, then they have 12oz between them.

I'm startled to see the terms "satire," "sarcasm," and "devil's advocate" connected with this extremely clearly and straightforwardly written article. Did you guys read the same article I did? Honestly.

@#35, Takuan.

My guess is that it's because shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles aren't exactly easy to come by for a civilian in the US.
Even military personnel would have problems with it - nearly all training is carried out using props that fire conventional cartridges or blanks.

There's also a great deal of difference between a surface-to-air missile and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. RPGs (which is what we see on TV reports from war zones) are mostly intended to use against small, slow-moving ground targets at relatively short range, it's not at all certain that they would be terribly effective against a jetliner.

Then there's the height/hit tradeoff - the lower the airplane is, the easier it is to hit. Cruising altitude for commercial jetliners is way outside the range of portable SAMs, so they must be hit when they are taking off/landing. The problem with that is that at such a low altitude and close to the airport, it is highly likely that the stricken craft will be able to return safely.

That said, it is far more likely that terrorists will be able to build their own SAM from scratch than to manufacture explosives on the plane from something smuggled in a tube of toothpaste.

@#39, SamF:

But to treat every one of those confiscated liquids as a dangerous substance would cause an incredible panic and even more problems at the airport. Where as treating 100% of bombs and guns as dangerous is sort of fairly obvious.

The reason why those tubes of toothpaste aren't allowed on board is because it's claimed they might be bombs, so it makes no sense to treat them differently to other suspected bombs.

when the liquid ban came in i was working as a flight attendant. i assumed at the time that it was simply brought in as a measure to ease passengers minds until the news or the bomb plot passed. well here we are 2 years later and i still have to shove all my carry on liquids in a plastic bag. this ban is the dumbest rule the TSA and, in Canada, TC have ever implemented. the terrorist acts perpetrated against the U.S., Britain and Spain have resulted in the most ridiculous security measures imaginable when, if you live in some areas of any of these countries, you have a better chance of getting killed when walking to the store.
i just think that in the U.S. in particular these measures are silly because you've got high instances of violent crime there anyway. you know these bans are not about your safety, of course, because the government doesn't give a good goddamn about you, rather it's about reducing liability for the airlines and government in the event of a terrorist act perpetrated on airline pax. anyway, i think the real issue here is that we really need to stand up to our govts against these silly security measures.

http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/business/2008/0809230931.asp?A=DFN&S=Defence%20and%20Aerospace%20Technology&O=FPPN

@btb, synthesising Nitro or TATP (the alleged "liquid bomber" chemical of choice is not something you make by throwing some liquids together. They require care, prescision and most importantly, laboratory conditions, not to mention for the latter, several kilograms of water ice.

Using a failed plot to justify the reactions to an imaginary one is stretching things a little far. The liquid ban isnt there to make you safer from "terrorists", its to make you scared of anyone who could be a "terrorist" (i.e. anyone with skin darker than yours). Don't fall for the hype.

2 words:
Frozen Dynamite

@#45, ACX99: You're over-reaching. Enhancing fear is merely a side-effect of the liquid ban. Its true purpose is as a form of political insurance. When a well-publicized risk exists, governments cannot afford to ignore it, however remote it might be, because of the dire political consequences of being seen to do nothing should the worst happen.

@39 SAMF:

I don't buy the premise of the article. Because in order to be effective, the TSA needs to assume that its goal is to catch 100% of the terrorists boarding our planes. Which means that they have to shoot for getting 100% of the 3.5 oz tubes of toothpaste out of our luggage. Even if they don't get 100%, if they behave as if they're getting less than 100%, then they become less efective at the deterrene piece of their job.

No, that's the opposite of the premise of the article. The point is IF liquids are dangerous, and BECAUSE they can't be sure that they get all 100% of them, then they have to bring the full weight of the law on those who DO get caught with them.

IF liquids are dangerous, and there is no punishment for bringing one on, then there is no incentive to prevent a terrorist trying 100 times to bring liquid on, because he'll finally succeed one day (given, as you say, that TSA can't catch 100% of attempts).

The fact that there is a major deterrence for trying to bring a gun on board (they'd probably ship you off to gitmo) is a preventative measure against people trying to smuggle guns on board, because, with no deterrence, someone might just try to try a hundred times, hoping to succeed just once.

Bruce's point is that IF the TSA believes that liquids are just as much of a threat as guns, THEN they should treat them exactly like guns. Since that would be absurd, the TSA should stop pretending that liquids are as much of a threat as guns.

Using a failed plot to justify the reactions to an imaginary one

How many governments and agencies could use that as their motto? Where's the tee shirt?

I'm not sure why there's confusion- If they truly thought the liquids might be dangerous they should be prosecuting everyone- they don't prosecute so they obviously don't think the liquids are dangerous.

And besides- terrorists have proven time and time again that their goal isn't bringing down planes- it's killing people. You don't need a plane or even an airport to do that, hence why they use car bombs and even pedestrians strapped with explosives in the middle east.

If i wanted to kill a bunch of people I'd just set off a bomb in a security line at whichever big airport I choose.

or any office building, delivered on foot

It's even dumber. You don't need four terrorists or a bunch of attempts to bring on 12 oz. of liquid.

One person carrying toothpaste, shampoo, lens solution, and hair gel can waltz on through security. The notion of a volume limit is in itself absurd.