Core Dump

This article, Terrorism Derangement Syndrome, hits a lot of good points. In particular, it talks about how what we once saw as a “reasonable response” to terrorism right after 9/11 is now seen as “too weak.” It seems like we just keep getting more and more afraid:

It’s hard to explain why this keeps happening. There hasn’t been a successful terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. The terrorists who were tried in criminal proceedings since 9/11 are rotting in jail. The Christmas Day terror attack was both amateurish and unsuccessful. The Christmas bomber is evidently cooperating with intelligence officials without the need to resort to thumbscrews. In a rational universe, one might conclude that all this is actually good news. But in the Republican crazy-place, there is no good news. There’s only good luck. Tick tock. And the longer they are lucky, the more terrified Americans have become.

Some of this can be explained as simple one-upmanship; when your political platform is “fighting terrorism,” each time you run for re-election you kind of have to vow to “do more” than you did last time (or more than your opponent did), which leads to “more security” and “tougher stances” and so forth.

The problem is that the American public is going along with this. That’s what really worries me. It’s like the whole country is infected with some sort of “fear disease:”

We’re terrified when a terror attack happens, and we’re also terrified when it’s thwarted. We’re terrified when we give terrorists trials, and we’re terrified when we warehouse them at Guantanamo without trials. If a terrorist cooperates without being tortured we complain about how much more he would have cooperated if he hadn’t been read his rights. No matter how tough we’ve been on terror, we will never feel safe enough to ask for fewer safeguards.

You may agree or disagree with his policies, but you can’t argue with the truth in what Franklin D. Roosevelt said during his inaugural speech: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

I think it’s time and past time we all remembered that.

RE: Full Body Scanners

Dear TSA:

I can’t help but notice that you’ve somehow got it into your head that we need full-body scanners now at every US airport. Well, I have a suggestion for you while you’re at it: instead of adding full-body scanners on top of everything else you’ve got to delay me while trying to get to my plane, why don’t you replace all the x-ray machines and other nonsense with just the one single (and hopefully, quick!) full-body scanner?

Think about it: you wouldn’t have to ask people to take off their shoes, unpack laptops from their bags, empty spare change from their pockets, remove belts, take of scarves, and so forth. Just the one scanner could scan EVERYTHING on the person. Just a few seconds, and BAM! you’re done. How nice would that be?

Of course, this idea hinges on the full-body scanner actually being useful for scanning people. If, on the other hand, it is just a huge, expensive, time-wasting machine to check for explosives in people’s underwear, then I have to tell you, respectfully, that this is a complete waste of time, money, and effort. So just knock it off already.

But if it works, and if you could replace all the other nonsense at security checkpoints in airports with one quick, fast, non-invasive scan, then by all means, go ahead!

Just a thought – but one I hope you guys take seriously!

Dear TSA:

It’s time and past time for you guys to stop “declining to say” when asked anything about the insane so-called “security” procedures or tools you’ve put into place.

I know most of your top brass are probably still in the mentality of the cold war, but trust me guys – it doesn’t matter whether you keep the design of your x-ray machines or body scanners or neutron detectors or whatever secret, or whether you put up huge billboards of their internal schematics in Afghanistan.

I’m not being facetious here either – it really doesn’t matter. If the security systems you have put in place are truly well-designed and well-thought-out, then they will work regardless of whether their internal workings is common knowledge or not.

And, since we are still (the last time I checked) a free country (as we like to proclaim ever more loudly, while at the same time we become less and less free), your default reply should ALWAYS be to be totally up-front about security and to provide any details that anyone asks about the internal workings of things.

If you were SERIOUS about security – real security, not just “pretend” security that only serves to “cover your ass” in case something bad happens – you’d welcome the feedback and massive talent pool that being in the public eye could give.

Just a thought, from a concerned citizen.

A serious security flaw has been found in Internet Explorer – no big surprise there. But this one really IS serious – it was found by attackers before it was found by Microsoft. So exploits are already out there “in the wild.” (This BBC News story has more details.)

The worst part of it is that you could be hit by this exploit just by visiting a “normal” site that’s been infected – being vigilant isn’t enough anymore.

“In this case, hackers found the hole before Microsoft did,” said Rick Ferguson, senior security advisor at Trend Micro. “This is never a good thing.”

As many as 10,000 websites have been compromised since the vulnerability was discovered, he said.

“What we’ve seen from the exploit so far is it stealing game passwords, but it’s inevitable that it will be adapted by criminals,” he said. “It’s just a question of modifying the payload the trojan installs.”

Said Mr Ferguson: “If users can find an alternative browser, then that’s good mitigation against the threat.”

The flaw affects even IE7, the latest (released) version of Internet Explorer – so this isn’t just a flaw in older versions of the program.

So if you’ve been dragging your feet over changing to a different browser, now’s a better time than ever to switch! I’d recommend Firefox, but any alternate browser (such as Opera, Apple’s Safari, or Google’s Chrome) would do to keep you safe.

UPDATE (12/18/2008): Microsoft released a fix for this yesterday – it’s available through the normal Windows Update. Just be aware that you’ll have to reboot your computer (which seems silly for a fix to your browser, but that’s an argument for another day).

I found this over at Miscellanea:

Sad, but true. Think about THAT the next time someone start spouting nonsense about “needing more protection for copyright holders.”