OK, what the hell has happened to the Brits?

Wdtabor wrote:


Picture two terrorists, one walking to the restroom and one walking back
from. They meet where the marshal is seated. One grabs the guy around
the throat while the other goes for the weapon.

Uh, there are between 90 and 400 passengers on that plane. How do your two
terrorists know which one to grab, or that there aren't two of them? The
penalty for guessing wrong is death.

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.

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

So you're depending upon the terrorists not learning a secret.
That's fine...until/unless they do learn the secret. 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).

Of course, if my plan were adopted, allow all Concealed Weapons Permit
holders to carry at will on any flight, there might be anywhere from zero
to dozens.

Your plan has a couple of advantages: the secret changes, making
(1) it tougher to discern for a given case (ie. flight) and (2)
making the cost of a "lost" secret lower, as it would impact only
a single flight.

However, it also has a major weakness: the assumption that all the
carriers are "safe". As you widen the population of people permitted
to carry weapons on board, you make it more likely that this population
includes your attackers (either as actual members or through impersonation).

Finally, your personal values are reflected in your comment "the penalty
for guessing wrong is death". That matters to you. That might even matter
to at least some of the actual attackers (I seem to recall reading that some
of the 2001/9/11 attackers didn't know it was a suicide mission). But
it doesn't need to matter to the attack planners.

I've no doubt that those planners - sitting safely on the side - would be
perfectly willing to send attackers into battle with falsified information.
The likelyhood of success drops, of course. But then they've plenty of
victims waiting for martyrdom.

- Andrew

"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.



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.



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?



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


How would they learn it?



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


How would they learn it?



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*.

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

Lol - they train for the job!

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

In article t, Steven P.
McNicoll wrote:
So you're depending upon the terrorists not learning a secret.

How would they learn it?

There are dozens of ways. It's sort of like solving an equation - from
the knowns you can derive the value of x. The IRA (nothing to do with
pensions, but republican terrorists in Northern Ireland used to spy
quite frequently to find the identity of their enemies and kill them),
and the IRA weren't on suicide missions. Someone determined enough to
face the certainty of death will probably be even more determined.

A brute-force way of doing it would be to have two terrorist cells on
board. The first one begins the hijack. The sky marshall takes charge
and does his job *instantly identifying himself and where he keeps his
gun* to the second cell. The second cell then swing into action some
time later, first seizing control of the sky marshal and his weapon, and
then continuing with their plan. And now they are armed with a gun.

Since flight attendants are allowed on the flight deck, where there is a
crash axe available, what security vetting are we doing of flight
attendants? What does the sky marshal do when an FA incapacitates the
crew with a crash axe and locks the reinforced cockpit door behind him?

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Dylan Smith" wrote

There are dozens of ways. It's sort of like solving an equation
--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man

The bottom line is, no terrorist will ever again take over a passenger
flight. The crowd will overcome them, or crash the plane, well short of its
objective.
--
Jim in NC

Morgans wrote:

The bottom line is, no terrorist will ever again take over a passenger
flight. The crowd will overcome them, or crash the plane, well short of
its objective.

I tend to agree with you, assuming insufficient weapons in the hands of the
terrorists, but then this doesn't explain the efforts towards which the TSA
is going in that regard.

However, it does explain why the TSA has expressed concern about cargo
flights. After all, these are just as large and fueled as passenger craft
but w/o a cargo that fights back.

Thinking along those lines: how long from first lesson to "freight dog"?
What's done to secure the cargo handlers? The cargo? I seem to recall
reading that certain shippers could bypass security, and that the threshold
for being one of those shippers wasn't terribly high.

- Andrew

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Dylan Smith" wrote

There are dozens of ways. It's sort of like solving an equation

The bottom line is, no terrorist will ever again take over a passenger
flight. The crowd will overcome them, or crash the plane, well short of
its
objective.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/1936942.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2035546.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2228720.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2330021.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2374061.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2486935.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2502033.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2520069.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2676081.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2738993.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2897727.stm

Some hijackers taken by crew, some by air marshals, some
were landed safely under orders of the hijackers. Not sure
about any hijackers taken by passengers, I think I saw that
it happened in one of them.

All since 11/9/2001. So you can't say the crowd would
overcome them all the time and none would be successful.
You also can't say no one would try to hijack a plane in
the old sense any more.

Another take on sky marshals:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2144133.stm

Paul

"Paul Sengupta" wrote in message
...
"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Dylan Smith" wrote

There are dozens of ways. It's sort of like solving an equation

The bottom line is, no terrorist will ever again take over a passenger
flight. The crowd will overcome them, or crash the plane, well short of
its
objective.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/1936942.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2035546.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2228720.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2330021.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2374061.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2486935.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2502033.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2520069.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2676081.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2738993.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2897727.stm

Some hijackers taken by crew, some by air marshals, some
were landed safely under orders of the hijackers. Not sure
about any hijackers taken by passengers, I think I saw that
it happened in one of them.

If they were American planes then it is more likely that SLF would get
involved

besides which none of these hijackings were Al Quaida




All since 11/9/2001. So you can't say the crowd would
overcome them all the time and none would be successful.
You also can't say no one would try to hijack a plane in
the old sense any more.

Another take on sky marshals:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2144133.stm

Paul

If they were American planes then it is more likely that SLF would get
involved

What the devil is SLF?