Crypto Blamed for US terrorist attack - World Exclusive

[Ian G Batten]

On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, Ken Brown wrote:
> The obvious, inevitable, clampdown will be on air travel in the USA.
> From, I guess, the next commercial plane to take off in   the contiguous
> US, whenever that is, you will be searched and required to show id. To
> accommodate those who have neither a photo driving licence or a
> passport, they will probably introduce a "voluntary" id card scheme. The

This will hardly be new or interesting as a matter of principle.
America functions on photo id (and social security numbers) so heavily
that many states have their DMV or equivalent issue non-driving driving
licenses.  Many of which have an SSN on the front.  My recent coining
was ``In the UK we have liberty in practice, but not in theory; in the
US they have it in theory, but not in practice''.  I now carry my
passport whenever I'm out and about in the US, because I need it so
often (sadly, I'm now too old to get carded to buy booze).

My parents flew JFK--LHR on Sunday morning, having used a succession of
internal flights over the previous week, and had phoned me on Monday
night and amongst other things expressed their horror over internal
flight security.  But then how much better is it in Europe?  I fly
BHX--BHD (Belfast City) fairly regularly, and there's no photo id
required on that.  The special branch occasionally demand id on entry to
Birmingham on the way back, but that's only happened to me once in
dozens of flights.

A key difference is that US metal detectors, even on international
flights, are very insensitive.  My belt buckle (a simple brass loop)
always triggers UK and European detectors, to the point that now I
either wear a climbing tape and fastex belt or take my belt off and put
it in my bag.  My watch (a NATO-issue GS10, so not even with a metal
band) has been known to set the Birmingham detector off.  I never set US
detectors off.  Mum reports likewise for a silver bracelet she often
wears, and for the titanium pin in her leg before it was removed.  Any
of these things have more metal than my little Spyderco 3" knife, so no
wonder the hi-jackers could get knifes on board.  Indeed, I've shot a
Glock 35 recently, a concealed-carry 5 shot .45" with a polycarbonate
frame, and I doubt that there's much more metal in that if it only had a
couple of rounds in it.

This is just a risk/reward trade off: are sensitive metal detectors
worth the anguish, when internal hi-jackings are unheard of?  As of
yesterday morning, you might say ``no''.

Conversely, I've had my briefcase wiped for explosive residues at SFO
two or three times, but only handsearched once or twice at BHD or BHX,
never at LHR.


> Lots of places will ban commercial flights over city centres. Expect

Although there are other reasons to do that: there's a AIIB report only
this month complaining that a DC10 which had lost an engine to a bird
strike was allowed to fly into Heathrow via a cross-London route, and
the implication is that it had suffered enough pylon damage to make
engine separation possible.

> London skies to be quieter and flights to take 10-30 minutes longer.  If
> you are a US shareholder, sell construction and buy rail. (Don't buy
> rail shares in the UK - sooner or later the government will take it all
> back again)
> 
> The Son of Star Wars gung-ho techies in the US military have egg on
> their faces. Expect less money to go to them & more to the FBI &
> immigration control.

Maybe.

> Nobody will even pay attention to crypto.

It's been mentioned already, but in terms of stego concealment in
jpegs.  Impossible to guard or legislate against, I'd suggest.

> Of course the rumour that it was all got up by Mossad to persuade the
> USA to ignore Israeli repression in Palestine is already doing the
> rounds, no doubt helped along by the residual anti-semite factions in
> the US right.

Or got up by the US themselves to justify (fill in paranoia here).

ian