What Examples of Security Theater Have You Encountered? 1114
swillden writes "Everyone who pays any attention at all to security, both computer security and 'meatspace' security, has heard the phrase Security Theater. For years I've paid close attention to security setups that I come in contact with, and tried to evaluate their real effectiveness vs their theatrical aspects. In the process I've found many examples of pure theater, but even more cases where the security was really a cover for another motive." swillden would like to know what you've encountered along these lines; read on for the rest of his question below.
swillden continues: "Recently, a neighbor uncovered a good example. He and his wife attended a local semi-pro baseball game where security guards were checking all bags for weapons. Since his wife carries a small pistol in her purse, they were concerned that there would be a problem. They decided to try anyway, and see if her concealed weapon permit satisfied the policy. The guard looked at her gun, said nothing and passed them in, then stopped the man behind them because he had beer and snacks in his bag. Park rules prohibit outside food. It's clear what the 'security' check was really about: improving park food vending revenues.
So, what examples of pure security theater have you noticed? Even more interesting, what examples of security-as-excuse have you seen?"
Frist Posty? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
Exteneded Validation Certificates (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I forgot, they are in collusion with Microsoft and other CA's to inflate the cost of digital certificates they already issue.
Apartment Accepting Packages (Score:5, Insightful)
After September 11th, the apartment management sent out a memo to all residents that because of the heightened state of terrorism awareness the office would no longer allow packages to be held there for the residents.
Of course my first thought was they were just tired of dealing with the packages and saw this as a convenient excuse to stop holding packages for people.
Windows Vista? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, that will help (actually, it does. It helps because it drastically reduces the number of willing visitors to the US)..
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
In my opinion almost all forms of random searches are security theater.
People putting loaded handguns in their homes in the case of a wood-be assailant or robber breaking in. This is not only security theater, it increases the risk you are putting yourself and your family in. Not to mention that in most instances of murder the victim knew the assailant. You're more likely to die of suicide than a robber killing you.
I don't know if these are examples where the security theater is a cover for another reason--unlikely. But there's clearly examples where it just makes your life worse more often than better.
Vista UAC (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
MIT ITS passwords, and Microsoft File Servers (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in ArpaNet days, MIT had machines running an OS called ITS. It was a friendly and happy world and there were user accounts but no passwords. But networking means that strangers can connect and so Arpa insisted that passwords be added. So the ITS developers added a password prompt that ignored the password, and this made the Arpa people happy for a while until they figured it out and made them actually check the password.
In a similar vein, Microsoft file server passwords were originally checked only on the client, a fact which went undiscovered until Samba came along.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:4, Insightful)
An even better plan: stop killing people and *MAKING* insurgents, take some personal responsibility in securing yourself and your surroundings and then see to getting back our rights.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
Insurging against you in their own backyard?
You're not strange, your colonialism is of all ages.
Nice Article (Score:5, Insightful)
The RFID bracelets on an infant can give comfort to the parents but its more of a deterrent then anything. Sure the hospital can tell the parents that their child is protected. But the hospital is not protecting the child as much as its protecting itself. For example:
A guard that is in the bank is not there to stop a bank from being robbed. He deters people from committing the crime itself. In a robbery situation the guard himself is useless because the individual or individuals robbing a bank would take him out first. But in most bank robberies, the criminals are going to go after a bank without a guard anyway.
A mall guard doesn't stop people from stealing, he creates the presence of being watched, therefor deterring people from stealing.
Same goes with cameras in stores. Most of the time no one is monitoring the cameras and if anything their used to watch employees over customers. But their deterring employees from doing anything unethical or illegal and they deter people from stealing.
In my opinion the idea of security theater and feeling safe is crap. You might as well spend the time and effort to know your safe then make it seem like you feel like your safe.
Completely off-topic... (Score:3, Insightful)
The entire war on drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
What's worst is that we've been fighting this war for decades, no end is in sight, we've spent more money and lost more freedoms fighting it than we have in Iraq. And still, no one in power has the balls to speak out against this.
We live in a sick, sad world. People who would meet the non-violent act of drug use with the violent acts of arrest and imprisonment are themselves violent criminals. Yet in this society they are deemed good citizens.
My fave (Score:5, Insightful)
rj
The whole shebang (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, you are strange that way.
You prefer, it seems, to create a huge number of insurgents, just for the purpose of fighting them?
Here's a little knowledge bomb I'm going to drop your way... They weren't there until you invaded. At least they weren't insurgents then.
"Fight them over there so we don't have to at home" is such an odious and incredibly false catch phrase. Really it disappoints me that so many Americans swallow it. How about, don't fight them over there or at home?
Re:Oh Sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, what is your point on dying of suicide vs a robbery or home invasion? What are your chances of running a flat tire? Why carry a spare?
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like a sick joke but it's true. Until people are dying by
the hundreds of thousands, the people trying to treat the US
as a paper tiger won't really understand what they're fooling
around with.
Re:Nom nom nom (Score:3, Insightful)
And would lose all its funny if someone decided to point out that it's not a "hard drive" but in fact has some other arcane name, which really doesn't matter in the context of the joke.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason that America hasn't been subsequently attacked had nothing to do with punishing the silly, stupid Taleban in Afghanistan, or fomenting a war in Iraq. The perps were a group calling themselves Al Qaeda, and they haven't been touched. They were weak, tiny, and extremely clever; they got past security in NE airports, then were successful in three crashes, while the fourth dive bombed in Pennsylvania. This was not a million man army with nukes, just some very clever people. They subsequently disrupted transportation in Spain, where people were murdered, and also in the UK, where others were murdered.
No subsequent acts have occurred for any number of reasons, almost none of which have to do with the wars, as the wars were about pride and oil. This has nothing to do with US Dept of Homeland Security, which is an oxymoron.
Fight the bastards when they try to impinge on your privacy and your liberty. Question authority. Do so politely. Then let the judges kick them in the tender parts. That's their job. Do it again, repeat until you're free, because today, you're not.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet you are here? Why aren't you killing insurgents in their backyard? Maybe because it does not feel all that safe after all...
Re:On the web side of things (Score:5, Insightful)
We created a delete function, and kept getting reports that the customer accidentally deleted records. (And we had no undelete function.) So we added a "Are you sure?" dialog.
The incidents of accidental deletion did not go down.
So we added text "This cannot be undone. Continue?" and still the incidents did not go down (People just randomly click OK.)
Finally we changed it to "Please key in 'irreversible' to continue with the deletion." This solved the problem.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:2, Insightful)
WOD == price support (Score:5, Insightful)
It also helps politicians pander to ignorant members of the right.
Find out what they need but do what they want. (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Find out what they want. (They will ask for bells and whistles and not tell you core process basics.)
2) Figure out what they actually need. (Research their actual process and design improvements.)
3) Try to convince them to want what they actually need and change the spec go with that.
4) After step 3), give them what they now want, whether it's what they need or not. (Provided it's legal and ethical.)
And of course:
5) Profit!
They are the bosses / customers. They decide what to spend money on. You are the hireling. You agree to do what they want in trade for the fee they pay. After step 3) your moral and ethical obligations are discharged - and if your suggestions are good you've proved your worth. If they're smart they go with what you suggested - or know something about their business that you didn't and reject your suggestion on that basis. But if they decide to do something you think is stupid once they've been informed, it's their business, so it's their call.
Re:My fave (Score:5, Insightful)
Firearms and security (Score:2, Insightful)
It's rather hard to believe that authorizing everyone to carry firearms can in any way make the society safer... Here, in Europe, if I met a girl who carries a pistol in her purse, I would immediately freak out and run away!
Re:Nom nom nom (Score:0, Insightful)
I think I speak for everyone here at the slashdot community when I say:
Shut the fuck up.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
During my time spent in the middle east (all of which took place before 9/11) I saw... drumroll please... people who wanted to kill Americans. WHAT? DURING CLINTON?? Yes. We are not the 'cause' of these insurgents, and no matter how much you hate Bush for whatever you think it is he has done, or how much you want to blame him for the problems he inherited (from, IMO, the dem president that preceded him), he didn't make them either.
The very boring and undramatic truth of the matter is, there are always people who will capitalize on the loss or misgivings of a group of people, and people of the Middle East happen to be the latest target. Arafat did it with the PLO (which has NOTHING to do with liberating Palestinians, and has everything with creating a power base), and the same thing is happening now around Iraq.
So about "the sure thing is, there weren't insurgents": this rhetoric may work on your bleeding heart girlfriend, and probably works on many here on Slashdot, but don't try flinging that nonsense around vets, govt employees, or anyone else who has actually tried to DO something about these issues. It may sell books or commercial time on news channels, but it doesn't make any sense.
Just my 2c
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:1, Insightful)
Your parent's post was insightful because it is true. Your post is flamebait because it is not true.
In Christendom, if Christ is portrayed in a blatantly derogatory way (i.e the infamous Piss Christ), what happens? Christians write letters to the editor and threaten to boycott sponsors of the offender. In the Muslim world, draw a simple cartoon of the prophet Mohammed or write a book critical of the Islamic faith, and what happens? Muslims riot, destroy property, make death threats made (and sometimes carry them out).
There is a vast difference between Christianity and Islam, friend. It's true that both have been spread by force, but with Christianity that is the (exceedingly rare) exception, with Islam it is far more common.
Security as an excuse (Score:1, Insightful)
The TSA exists only to make sure you get good and used to being bullied by thugs with guns while having your rights violated.
No other reason.
Re:The question begs (Score:2, Insightful)
That'd never happen because everyone lives in perfect happy little suburban utopias where everything is a five minute walk away.
Sad thing is I predict you'll get insightful and this will get flamebait.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
So, using that accepted common concept, there are only insurgents if they are rebelling VS the government. So of course when the government is corrupt those that are corrupt aren't the insurgents. Hussein was a bad man, Hitler was a bad man, the funny thing is though, the same people who lament that our government didn't do anything about Hitler until it involved the US (who killed his own people and invaded other countries) are the same people who think that we shouldn't go after Hussein (who killed his own people and invaded other countries).
Fingerprint scanners (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:2, Insightful)
Were they even there before?
Not sure who you are referring to as the 'hijackers of our government'. Nixon? Carter? We are not newcomers to the middle east, and even under the benevolent leadership of Clinton, the U.S. undertook several missions designed to counteract the terrorist threat.
Just a curiosity, but did where did you get these ideas? Your service time in middle east? MTV? CNN? Just wondering what inspired such strong language (murderous criminals?). I spent years of my life over there, and the only thing that gets me emotionally fired up is the lack of reason on this side of the pond. Would it kill you to perhaps form your opinion based off of experience, rather than from TV?
Mark this as a troll, but there HAS to be more than a handful of vets that read Slashdot and agree with this - am I the only one, and do I have to bite my tongue for EVERY post like this?
Re:Firearms and security (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? I mean REALLY? The 2nd amendment was written with the pre-NRA NRA in mind? I've heard some pretty far out things on this site but wow, that just takes the cake.
Re:Nom nom nom (Score:3, Insightful)
The Retail Scare... (Score:4, Insightful)
Working as a contractor for a giant Electronics retailer that shall remain nameless, I saw a memo regarding their policy of searching people's bags as they left, and sometimes entered, the stores.
The public reason given for searching those who left the store was, of course, loss of merchandise. The public reason given for searching those entering was safety...
However the REAL reason for both of these, was to (paraphrasing from memory) 'Establish [company name] as the authority figure in the sales transaction and subsequent customer service encounters...'
Yikes! 'We're in charge here, we've got big scary minimum-wage thugs, You'd better Buy as we say!'
Now if that's not 'Security Theatre' at it's worst, I don't know what is....
=R
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
Here were people that hated a country, and wanted it to die and suffer, but they just said that all the time. One wrong action, and those people actually started taking up arms, bombings, etc. There is a big difference between wanting American's killed, and actually trying to kill Americans. He wondered how many people we moved from Haters to Terrorists in Iraq.
Think about it for a minute. You may hate a person you don't like, and wish that they were dead. How much would it take to push you to the point that you actually murder them?
Re:My fave (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:2, Insightful)
Why did we start killing Hitler and the Nazis?
Were they a threat to us?
Were they even there before the US was in Europe politically?
Answer those questions yourself, using the same reasoning tactics the USA should have never been involved in WWII (at least in Europe). Your reasoning seems to suggest that we should have let Hitler take over all of Europe because he didn't attack America directly.
Re:On the web side of things (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
There were, in fact, people in the Middle East who really dislike America. Heck, 9/11 wouldn't have happened if that weren't the case.
However, you have to understand that this is at least in part due to American action. Our most egregious action was probably propping up the Shah in Iran. America has a history of using both deceit and pure muscle to get its way in the Middle East, and that has created a lot of enemies. Enemies that were there prior to Iraq.
Our invasion in Iraq certainly didn't help things. It flared up old angers that had, in some areas, begun to die out. It brought our men within striking range. It shouldn't be any kind of surprise that this situation creates insurgents. Our invasion of Iraq strengthens the political position of our enemies; their claims about America seem to be confirmed, and it helps stokes the fears that cause people to flock to such causes.
You have to look at this historically. People in the ME don't hate the US because of our freedom. They hate the US because of how we've treated them in the past.
(It is, of course, more complicated than that, but this is a Slashdot comment.)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh Sure (Score:1, Insightful)
Air travel... but not what you think (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Random searches provide excellent security, provided the punishment for getting caught exceeds the benefits multiplied by the risk. Let's say I'm asked to smuggle weapons onto a plane. Not for a hijackings or anything, just as a black market delivery. I'm offered $10,000 to do it. I've got a great plan; assuming the security screeners don't hand search my bags, there is basically zero risk of getting caught. So now it's down to the random searches. If the punishment is 1 year in prison, and they only screen 1 in 10 people, the odds are pretty good; assuming that I value my freedom at less than $100,000 per year. Now if the punishment is 20 years in prison, now my freedom is worth less than $5,000 per year.
Let's hypothetically try to redo 9-11. (Yes, only a stupid terrorist would try that exact same attack again, but it's a good example with concrete numbers.) We're all expecting to die, so the threat of jail is irrelevant. However, if a single one of us gets caught with weapons, there is a good chance security will be stepped up and my 19 accomplices will be caught as well. That's very bad, from my terrorist point of view. Since 20 of us need to get past security, even if they only randomly screen 1 in 20 people, there is a 64% chance of at least one person getting searched and busted. 1 in 10? 87% chance of getting busted. Very bad odds.
Now obviously it's better to only search people who are bad guys. Unfortunately the entire point of searching people is to identify the bad guys, so that's unhelpful. We can try to be clever and profile people based on, say, their ethnicity. After all, statistically aren't Arab men more likely to hijack planes and crash them? Oddly, this makes the attack easier for the bad guys. Just start flying people around without weapons. See who gets searched. The people who run several flights without getting searched are ideal for your next attack. (A good article with further links on the complexities with profiling. [schneier.com] As he points out, profiling based on suspicious behavior is good, although hard.)
Of course, I'm glossing over lots of details. We need to balance many other things, including civil rights. Random searches of homes would likely be a very effective way to stop many crimes. It's also a violation of the US constitution and the principles our country was founded on. Many relatively minor crimes would necessitate punishments that many people would describe as cruel and unusual to compensate for the low risk of getting caught. The benefit of stopping the bad thing may be very minor compared to the cost of the searches. (For example, random drug tests for most jobs hurts moral and costs money, with little benefit.) But fundamentally random searches do work.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not religion. It's human nature.
Re:Exteneded Validation Certificates (Score:3, Insightful)
Extended Validation certs ostensibly try to verify that the person requesting the cert is the who they claim to be. Whether this is what happens in practice, I really couldn't say, but to suggest that the information is black-and-white is disingenuous. You might as well suggest that only one level of security clearance is needed--that either the person is trusted or they are not.
Of course, in the real world, people may not differentiate between EV and standard SSL certs. Hell, plenty of people are fooled into providing their information to phishers. But that doesn't mean that it's security theater--it means that those people are easily fooled. EV could, in theory, benefit people who are willing to pay attention.
Re:The entire war on drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
The 800 computers of my bureaucratic overlords (Score:3, Insightful)
All computers are required to have only Internet Explorer 6. Reason given: security.
All computers have their CD-Rom drive disabled. Reason given: security.
All computers allow USB flash drives. Reason given: security.
Re:Can't get shot by beer and snacks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've been a part of the theatre. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd imagine that after 20 something years, I'd be pissed enough to take hostages too.
Many people don't want to or can't see the bigger picture.
Look at the small town hate that comes from a Wal*Mart installation.
I'm not saying that Wal*Mart = China (but in a way it is) but imagine Wal*Mart being a Chinese military installation with Chinese soldiers in all it's installations.
Would you not be upset as an American?
Re:FAA pilot on the do not fly list. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Firearms and security (Score:3, Insightful)
how smart is this? (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason that America hasn't been subsequently attacked had nothing to do with punishing the silly, stupid Taleban in Afghanistan, or fomenting a war in Iraq.
No subsequent acts have occurred for any number of reasons, almost none of which have to do with the wars, as the wars were about pride and oil.
And you know this because....? Because you're tight with the top thinkers inside al Qaeda? You've got good contacts in the backcountry of Pakistan? You speak all the relevant languages and have access to intelligence intercepts of the phone conversations? You've spent two decades studying the history of terrorism from original sources, interviewing suspects and counter-terrorism agents?
Or is it just that these conclusions seems reasonable to you, based on your average-Joe reading of the news and your common sense (supplemented of course by your ideology)?
I'm not saying you're wrong, because I don't have access to all the information necessary to make a judgment one way or the other, and I know that.
But I daresay if some politician made some equally sweeping general statement about why Microsoft is despised by Linux groupies, or whether or not the GNU license model made sense or not, based on a similar combination of what's in the nightly TV news plus his own "gut instinct," you'd jump all over him for being an arrogant ass and speaking far more assuredly than he should about stuff that is for the most part completely outside of his experience.
I realize this is
Re:Oh Sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can't get shot by beer and snacks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:4, Insightful)
While I agree that Hussein was a tyrant that was best deposed (the exact details being full of devils), I'm also inclined to keep it straight with who did exactly what and not confusing any of the players. Osama had nothing to do with all this.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
That is the thing, it doesn't matter if the PLO is Arafat's power base, he isn't a US citizen so the US gov should stay out of his business. If we stop giving them a reason to hate us( such as randomly showing up with guns and shooting at them with out provocation, as we are doing now) then that power base will fall apart. He can't goad people forever with the old evil american line if the evil americans never manifest themselves.
Re:Credit cards. (Score:2, Insightful)
Using the card at an ATM requires a PIN number. They aren't going to know your PIN number. There are special credit-to-cash machines in some casinos which process a credit card charge and then give you 95% of the money, but those are not very common outside of casinos, so for those of us who don't live near a casino, it imposes an additional delay.
Using it over the internet usually (although not always) requires the billing address associated with the card. The reason they require this is because it is something that the cardholder knows that someone who stole the card or found a lost card probably doesn't know.
Admittedly, writing "Please Ask to see ID" doesn't offer any improvement over signing the card in the later two scenarios, but just because a security measure doesn't help in all possible situations doesn't mean that it isn't an improvement, especially when those situations are less common anyway.
In the end, what it comes down to is:
1) Signatures are easier to fake than IDs are, especially when you have an example of the signature to work with. Most store clerks, even if they check, are not knowledgeable enough to recognize the difference between someone's real signature and a copy. Making it worse is the fact that the signature field on a credit card is only about half the height of most people's normal signatures, so the signature in the field often doesn't really resemble the person's signature.
2) Even people who don't check the signatures sometimes notice the "Please Ask to See ID" written in the signature line. Several times I've seen clerks not check signatures for people in front of me, but then, when I hand them my card to swipe, they notice what's been written in the field and ask to see my ID.
3) In most states, the driver's licenses have the signature on them, so they can still check the signature even if the card doesn't have one on it.
So, sorry, but this legitimately does make it tougher to use a stolen credit card, whether or not it's inconvenient to you.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:4, Insightful)
Now things have changed. The foreign fighters have mostly left. Al Quaida delared defeat, made it their official policy not to piss of US Marines, and went off to Africa where they could have more fun. What's left now is a genuine insurgency, mostly led by Al Sadr. However, he's lost most of his popular support (at least, for violent methods), so the whole local insurgency thing is finally winding down. The local insurgency was never the big threat that the foreign fighters were, but it's been there all along.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
Saddam Hussein had American support when he killed his own people and invaded Iran, because America's policy was to maintain the balance of power between Iraq and Iran. He retained American support until he invaded Kuwait, which would have upset the balance of power. All that stuff about Iraqi troops unplugging Kuwaiti baby incubators was just propaganda - it might have been true or it might not, but it certainly wasn't the cause of the Gulf War.
America has been quite happy to support dictatorships (Iraq and Chile in the 1980s; Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Egypt and many others in the present), to overthrow democratic governments (Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973, Nicaragua in the 1980s), to look the other way when its allies invaded other countries (Israel in 1967, Indonesia in 1975, Iraq in 1980), and even to invade other countries itself (Cuba in 1961, Cambodia in 1970, Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, Haiti in 1994, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003). To pretend that American foreign policy is based on how well other governments treat their neighbours and citizens is naive at best and dishonest at worst.
No deception about NFS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MIT ITS passwords, and Microsoft File Servers (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not a case of security theater, that is just a case of someone using the wrong tool for the job.
If you want authentication on top of sharing files over a network, there are other options for that, none of which is NFS alone.
Granted today NFS tries to take authentication into the picture as well, but originally that was not its intent.
There are now addons to it (such as keylogin) which can be used, and of course one can run NFS over a VPN which handles the authentication and possibly even encryption if you wish.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, okay. Not sure why, but okay.
Because they were conquering nations left and right, killing tens of millions of people, working with and militarily supporting Japan, which was regularly attacking the US, and possessed huge military power with the stated and plausible aim of conquering the world.
Given that they were part of an active military alliance that was attacking the US and killing Americans by the thousands, yes.
Yes, the Nazis were out doing all of the things described above well before the US went to war. I suppose you could make an argument that the National Socialist movement was engendered by the Treaty of Versailles, and thus partially the creation of the US. But in that case, you'd need to be evaluating both wars as one, in which case Germany had once again been actively conquering for years before the US became involved.
It may have come to your attention that every one of these answers is different than the ones regarding Iraq (which, I can't help but notice, you've still dodged answering). So tell me again why you're engaging in this silly exercise of equivocating two completely dissimilar situations?
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:4, Insightful)
Where did you get the idea that most of the insurgents are not Iraqis?
Here's a thought experiment: imagine that in the future the US becomes a dictatorship. Life under the dictator is hard and you long for democracy to be restored, but the regime has spies everywhere and revolution seems impossible. Then the German army invades the US. German planes destroy most of the country's infrastructure and tens of thousands of civilians are killed. Everyone you know has lost a friend or relative. The Germans fire everyone with a government job, from the police to the postal service, and try to run the country with soldiers. But their soldiers aren't trained for civilian work - they don't even speak English. Misunderstandings often lead to shootings, and the soldiers are rarely punished. Resentment grows. Many of your friends join local militias. Some are killed, others tortured - some just disappear without a trace.
Eventually the Germans set up a new government and hold elections, but many people refuse to vote because they don't consider the new government to be legitimate. The killings and disappearances continue. Then, after five years of occupation and with no end in sight, a German tells you that you have no reason to be angry - in fact you should be grateful. What's your reaction?
Time to check the disctionary ... again (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you. There seem to be so many people who have bought the propaganda to the point that they no longer understand what some words mean, or perhaps they never knew so the definitions have been defined by propaganda.
Insurgents [reference.com] rebel against legal authority, they are individuals within a group that rebel against the group. People from one country who attack another are generally invaders, aggressors or terrorists depending on the scale, government involvement and nature of the attacks.
The US has not experienced an insurgency in Iraq. The Iraqi government has, but that government is of dubious standing in Iraq given that it has been installed by an illegal invader. Hypothetically reverse the conflict and ask yourself if someone invaded the US and installed the government they wanted, would you fight against it or simply accept it? If you would answer the former, you could well be labelled a "terrorist insurgent", or "resistance fighter" depending on the political standpoint of the labeler.
Not many monitors or practitioners of international law consider the invasion of Iraq legal, close to zero. There was no UN mandate to support it, there were mandates supporting the use of force but they were irrelevant to the situation at the time. The only people who argue that it was legal are American neo-cons, hardly known for their understanding or respect of international law, their cronies and idiots who buy the propaganda.
Please re-read the dictionary because while the definition of terrorist has changed recently, the definition of insurgent has not yet been corrupted in the good book.
Re:Airport Security & Mystery Liquids (Score:4, Insightful)
I was flying internationally (Wellington to Sydney) recently. The security guards stopped me after x-raying my bag --- turned out that I had some roll-on deoderant in there that I had forgotten about. Oops.
So I apologise and hand it over. The security officer places the deoderant in a plastic bag, hands it back to me, and sends me on my way.
Clearly the bag was made of some kind of special anti-explosive plastic...
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Frist Posty? (Score:2, Insightful)
The theatre, orchestration, acting, drama, tragedy, comedy (though sick/dark) for the past five-plus years has been pure theatre with little or no security.
Patriotic Treason Theatre by politicians, dogmatist, and fools.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:4, Insightful)
No, still zero.
Here "they" was referring to Iraqis. None of your examples involved Iraq.
Re:The blinking red light (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically what I'm saying is that what you're saying is flat-out untrue.
And Pearl Harbor was an attack by a nation on another nation, not a criminal act commited by a bunch of thugs with flight training. There's a difference that a lot of people miss. Terrorists are not military, they are criminals. If you lump them in with military fighters then you are essentially granting their actions legitimacy as acts of war. We should not be making war on terrorists, we should be assisting soverign nations in arresting and prosecuting criminals. The second we started doing the former we granted our enemies legitimacy by accepting that we and they were equals internationally.
Re:Can't get shot by beer and snacks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The blinking red light (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The entire war on drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything pleasurable, be it sex, masturbation, alcohol or pleasure drugs that only depends on the enjoyer's will is bad, because it cannot be used in a carrot/stick situation.
This is why many societies rely on religion (no sex if you don't support a bitchy whiny wife that will pump out kids to perpetuate the tribe) or commerce (no money? You dont watch that movie/hear that song/enjoy yourself in the amusement park/drink that hooch) to provide pleasure.
God may have mercy on the poor soul who brews his own moonshine or grow his own weed. Because those people are dangerous individuals that cannot be controlled.
Re:On the web side of things (Score:1, Insightful)
No it is not. The GP is correct. From a UI perspective, a button does something, i.e. it is an action item, and as such it should be an action word: a verb.
Just because Windows does it wrong so much of the time, does not make it right. "OK" is so vague as to be almost meaningless. One can even argue that Windows doing it wrong so often is why so many users hit "OK" without thinking, just like the OP was complaining of.
In the example given, it was not the only button.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:5, Insightful)
Hitler was in charge of a major European power. By the time he started taking over other countries, he had amassed a fairly powerful, modern army, which was able to rival the best his opponents could muster.
Hussein was in charge of a crappy piece of desert in a place where all the good weapons are imported from other countries. Even at the height of its power in 1991, the Iraqi Army was powerless to even slow down the US Army and its friends. The kill ratio was something like a thousand to one. After the army was essentially destroyed in 1991, the sanctions imposed on the country never let it recover. The Iraqi Army in 2003 was but a shadow of its former self, and the US Army smashed it flat in about three weeks.
The best time to have stopped Hitler was Czechoslovakia. He took over that country, not by force of arms, but by diplomacy. The Allied powers were so afraid of war that they just let him have it. Czechoslovakia had a good, modern army and had excellent defenses prepared against Germany, but their political will to resist collapsed after France and the UK abandoned them and basically threw them to the wolves. If they had simply not abandoned Czechoslovakia, much would have turned out differently.
The best time to stop Hussein was... well, by the time we invaded, he was not a credible threat against any of his neighbors, and the invasion didn't stop him from taking any of them over because he wasn't going to anyway.
Hussein was no threat. It was known that he was no threat before the invasion. He may well have been as evil as Hitler, but he was never going to command anything remotely close to the military power possessed by Nazi Germany.
Given the above, I see absolutely no inconsistency in a position which holds that Hitler should have been stopped much earlier and Iraq should have been left alone.
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The blinking red light (Score:3, Insightful)
There are legitimate reasons you might not want an automatic transmission -- you might like the additional control, better fuel economy, improved failure modes, etc. -- but dismissing it as "frivolous" just makes you sound envious of people who can afford a lifestyle you'd like for yourself.
Post 9/11 security freak-out (Score:3, Insightful)
When a support admin threatened to permanently kick him off of the system, he replied "That's OK. I won't be alive tomorrow."
Hmm... Elevated threat level, warnings of possible suicide attacks in the next day or so, and a fundamentalist muslim kid warning that he intends to die roughly in that time frame.... Sounds like something worth investigating (if only because we've got a kid that seems to be threatening to kill himeslf ... terrorism or no).
Being a Canadian, I call the Canadian 1-800 terrorism tip line (remember ... less than 6 months since 9/11) and find that it's been disconnected.
I then turn to US sources, and try to leave information in various places. Then I turn to the local US Consulate and leave an urgent message. After about 24 hours of trying various routes (both Canadian and US), I finally get a callback from a completely disinterested consular official who pretty much has the attitude of "explain to me why I shouldn't hang up on you".
Less than 6 months after 9/11, an orange threat level, and a suicidal fanatic on my site, and I'm fighting to explain why a US official should even take a report from me. "call us with any tips you might have" ... Yea, right!
That was the last time I took post 9/11 security fanaticism seriously. (other than as a threat to my civil rights).
Re:The entire war on drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of the problems with drugs are due to illegality:
- A rather large number of people die every year because they get drugs that are either higher concentration than they're expecting or have been cut with something else that is harmful. In a regulated industry, this would not happen.
- People with drug habits are often reluctant to seek treatment for fear of prosecution.
- The difficulty of acquiring drugs causes a form of vendor lock-in which allows dealers to raise prices after their customer is hooked; this escalation of prices often forces the addict to turn to crime and/or prostitution to fund their habit.
Re:Frist Posty? (Score:5, Insightful)
Went through all the security theatre no problem - along with all the warnings about knives, blades, shampoo, etc. etc.
Had something to eat - and what was on the table? A steak knife.
So I've gone through all the security where I can't take knives etc., then as soon as I'm through security I'm trusted with a proper knife, and that I *won't* take that on to the plane?
Pure theatre.
Re:The blinking red light (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The blinking red light (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:3, Insightful)
The big one, though, is Iraq weapons of mass destruction [wikipedia.org]. Although no Americans died from these, 5,000 people died from the Chemical Warfare attack on Halabja [wikipedia.org]. Throughout the 1990s, the UN found and destroyed large quantities of WMD in Iraq. Everyone certainly thought they had even more, but this turned out not to be the case.
I remember the time immediately before the current war very well. The 9/11 attack had put everyone on edge. No one knew for sure what the Iraqis did or didn't have because Saddam was not letting the inspectors do their jobs fully. Lots of people believed that the Iraqis must have these weapons because they've used them before, they're hiding everything, and no one can find any evidence of their destruction.
Personally, I believe that Saddam was the primary reason for the unrest in Iraq (both inside Iraq and with its neighbors). He never believed the US would ever truly invade (in spite of the Gulf War -- go figure!), and decided to play a game of cat and mouse with the whole international community over WMDs. He failed to take into account the effect that 9/11 would have on public opinion in the US, and lost.
Re:Frist Posty? (Score:5, Insightful)
I went through Gatwick in February, and there's big signs and bins to get people to leave any liquids and bottles. I proceeded to down a 500ml bottle or sprite, leading to only a few very load belches, and oh-so accidentally spilt the contents of the other bottle on the floor and down the bin so I could keep the empty bottle (that didn't look against the rules).
Once we were though the scanners and shit, we had the wait by the duty free.... where they sell bottles of water and fizzy drinks along with the rest of the crap they pedal.
It was obvious that BAA (the major airport operator in the UK) are using security as an excuse to increase profits. Take people's drinks away under some jumped-up pretext, and then have the punters pay for drinks from BAA controlled shops. I had spotted the scheme when I heard about the liquid ban, so thats why I made a mess and kept a plastic bottle: they waste money paying someone to clean it up, and I have a bottle I can fill with tap water rather than have my wallet taken advantage of.
On the way home from Bulgaria, my friend had his bag searched.... they didn't like the bottle of aftershave in the bag that he'd bought on the way out. Nor did they like his 2 litre water bottle. But they checked the volumes, and the flamable aftershave was allowed but the water wasn't!!
And that's the worst thing I think about the fucking joke security in airports: they sell bottles of nearly pure ethanol just before you can get on a plane, but take away bottles of water, toothpaste, creams....
Hell, if a crackpot wanted to take down an aircraft they could start some very nasty fires in a plane with aftershaves and perfumes or bottles of very strong booze they bought in duty-free.
Oh yeah, if bottles of water, scissors, aerosols etc. are so dangerous, then why in airports do they insist on showing us big bins of what has been confiscated? The contents of some of those bins would burn rather dangerously, and I'm surprised I haven't heard of a case of someone dropping a burning book of matches into one of them.
Re:Can't get shot by beer and snacks (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at the situation holistically, it's not clear that guns are a primary cause of the violence. Gun ownership rates are highest in the rural areas, while gun violence rates are highest in the urban areas. This book [amazon.com], has some very interesting, and fairly rigorous statistical analysis.
Many students of the situation note that the gun violence didn't rise in the US, until the war on drugs ramped up. A large amount of gun violence is directly related to drug commerce.
Re:The blinking red light (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Iraq theater (Score:3, Insightful)