I've enclosed some more URL's related to the attacks on the east coast. Although I want the attackers caught as much as anyone, I'm concerned by some of the language I'm hearing, including some nearly fascist rhetoric about America being "soft". I was happy to hear George Bush emphasize that civil liberties will be protected. If you understand the attack as an assault on freedom, then it hardly makes sense to diminish freedom as a result. We do need to improve security, but we should not understand the need for heightened security in a broad, vague way as a cultural imperative. We do not need a police state, and we should not militarize our society. Rather, we should view security as a design problem. We have an opening now, a brief window when the airlines cannot undermine improved security in their own commercial interests. Maybe we can also force Microsoft to design its products in a secure way, rather than exposing us to the severe information security problems we've seen in the last few months with its fundamentally shoddy architectures. We should take advantage of this opening to redesign our aircraft, buildings, software, and institutions in a rational way. Consider some examples: * Look at the doors between aircraft cabins and the cockpit. Anyone could knock down those doors. Of course, just fixing the doors isn't enough, but it's an example of the concrete design problems that we can address. We have a chance to completely rethink the interior spaces of aircraft, which could benefit dramatically from the attention of an industrial design firm. * We also have a chance to implement long-delayed proposals for things like fuel tank safety. How well do we understand the entire life cycle of jet fuel, surely one of the most dangerous substances in existence? * Next-generation digital aircraft electronics should be rethought more deeply for their contributions to security, as well as their security vulnerabilities, before their architecture is set in stone. Right now the controllers on the ground have far too tenuous an idea of where the planes are, especially in emergency conditions. It's absurd that an attacker can simply turn the tracking devices off. * Many airports predate modern security procedures, with the result that the security arrangements are crammed into spaces where they don't belong. The physical design of the conveyor belts on the luggage scanners is terrible, and the signs are useless. And have you actually looked at the video display from the X-ray unit? The whole system can be redesigned to be more meaningful, more reliable, and less frustrating -- another job for real industrial designers. * How did the incentives get set up to pay the airport security people minimum wage? Who's allowing the airlines to use security procedures to play out their conflicting agendas about baggage size? The institution of airport security needs to be redesigned. One approach would be to federalize it; those who don't like to federalize things are invited to come up with designs of their own. * Another area that needs to be redesigned is the identification system for airport, airline, security, and law enforcement personnel in airports. As it is, anyone can wave any badge-like object at anyone else and go wherever they want. Identification systems that would be unacceptably invasive for the general public are reasonable for employees in security-sensitive environments. Identification systems in general are a slow-motion catastrophe, and simplistic proposals like a national ID are a poor substitute for fine-grained attention to the details of how identities get administered in practice. Identification also has an information-design angle that is usually neglected, given the small, cryptic, hard-to-read markings on most identity documents. In short, we need an analytical approach and a design approach. Vague abstractions are counterproductive. It is useless to ask "how much of our civil liberties do we need to give up?" or "is our intelligence capacity too constrained?" or "we need more security, but how much is enough?". We should look at problems concretely, in specifics. Seeming tensions between privacy and technology routinely disappear once problems are considered concretely and in detail. So the question is not "can biometrics solve the problem?", since biometrics, as such, in general, can't solve anything. It is entirely conceivable that specific biometric technologies can play a specific role in a systemic redesign of the security systems at airports and elsewhere, including online. Indiscriminate use of biometrics to identify everyone and everything is useless, and it's also dangerous if it's simply pasted on top of dysfunctional institutions, or if it substitutes for concrete, analytical thinking. Wall Street Journal coverage (appears to be available without a subscription) http://interactive.wsj.com/pages/terattack.htm Yahoo links to news stories etc http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Terrorism/ eyewitness accounts http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/newsid_1537000/1537530.stm online mechanisms for donating to the Red Cross http://www.amazon.com/paypage/PKAXFNQH7EKCX http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/relief-outside legal coverage http://www.law.com/ mailing list to connect people who can volunteer or provide resources http://207.22.68.76/911volunteers.html aircraft flight tracks http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/spSec/wtcst.jsp front pages of 50 newspapers' coverage of the attack http://www.poynter.org/terrorism/pdf1.htm Current Awareness via Streaming Audio/Video http://gwu.edu/~gprice/audio.htm Speech/Transcripts/Statements from US and Foreign Leaders http://gwu.edu/~gprice/speech.htm Anonymous Remailer Operators Start to Take Remailers Offline http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/current/msg00272.html Middle East Newswire http://www.middleeastwire.com/newswire/ Two Planes Hit Twin Towers at Exactly the Worst Spot http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000073606sep12.story Security Experts Knew a Major Attack Was Possible http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14031-2001Sep11.html Insurance Cost for Terrorist Attack to Near $1 Billion http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/depth/insure091201.htm Reports: Boston Investigators Find Evidence in Attacks http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010912/ts/attack_suspects_dc_2.html civil engineering aspects of the building collapse http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm online discussion site for pilots http://www.pprune.org/ Rescuers Struggle at Pentagon http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1539000/1539839.stm Why the Killers Threaten World Prosperity http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1538000/1538958.stm In Shock, Teachers Downplay Tragedy http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000073649sep12.story EBay Cancels Auctions of Attack-Related Items (some idiots were actually gathering rubble in order to sell it on eBay) http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000073609sep12.story end
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