Steven P. McNicoll wrote:


"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...

Sigh In you pop up this thread a few messages, you'll see that I wrote:

Yes. They'd also need to identify the marshal amongst the passengers, as
you noted. However, relying upon these "secrets" is relying upon
something
called "security through obscurity". It doesn't work in the long term.


So what? You never did explain how the terrorists identify the marshals.

Yes, I did. I provided a few common examples of how a secret can be exposed
which would work in this case. I also pointed out that my ability to
explain this has no bearing on whether or not they can do this.

You can ask questions about what I've written, or even disagree. But you
look silly claiming I never wrote it.



If nothing else, it's yet another "weak point" against which an "attack"
can
be attempted. It means that the terrorist doesn't need to get a weapon
on board, but just get access to the marshal's identity on a flight.


But how does the terrorist get access to the marshal's identity on a
flight? It's not enough to just state that's all he has to do, you have to
explain how he does it.

I don't have to do this any more than I have to explain how a weapon would
be smuggled on board. The TSA doesn't wait for someone to demonstrate that
it is possible. They assume it is possible, and try to counter that
failure mode.

[Well...in fact I don't think the TSA is actually working this well. The
above is what they should do. It occurs to me to wonder why the TSA is run
by a politician as opposed to (for example) an intelligence specialist (or
some other person with a security background).]

Knowing the details of how a layer will fail is remarkably unimportant when
determining how to deal with that failure.




That is,
there are now two different ways to acquire a weapon on board, whereas
before there was just one.


How does the terrorist get the gun from the marshal?

Exactly as I described before, or in some other way.



So you're depending upon the terrorists not learning a secret.


How would they learn it?

Exactly as secrets are always broken, or in some other way.


That's fine...until/unless they do learn the secret.


How would they learn it?

You sound remarkably like a toddler.


In that
case, security is actually *reduced* as they now have access to
a weapon on board (assuming, again, that it's not easier to simply
smuggle something on board than it is to discern this secret).


But if they don't know who the marshal is security is *increased*.

As long as the secret is safe, you're right. Nobody would ever assume so,
however, any more than they'd assume no weapon could be smuggled on board.
Instead, they assume that the secret will be broken, and create yet another
layer.

- Andrew