Information is dangerous

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tim Onosko <onosko () gmail com>
Date: August 11, 2006 2:00:39 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Information is dangerous

Dave Farber, for IP if you see fit.

RE: "liquid explosive" bombs triggered by electronic devices:

I wondered how long it would take after 9/11 (2001) to ban laptops,  
cell phones and other digital and radio-frequency-based hardware from  
airplanes.  Instead, the focus was on metal dinnerware in First Class  
and pocket knives.  The  answer came this week, after the suspected  
"Gatorade" airline bomb plot in the UK.  Remember, you have been able  
to pack a GPS in your carry-on luggage since 9/11, and if the  
paranoid souls who came up with pat-downs, profiling and airport  
sniffers couldn't think of the ultimate utility of simply being able  
to pinpoint your location while on a flight, how deep or complete is  
their real paranoia?

Don't get me wrong.  I have never been afraid since 9/11, and once  
commuted between my home and Los Angeles for a living.  (Since  
changed.)  I figured that, if anyone ever tried it again, passengers  
would shut down the hijackers, as they did with the famous "shoe  
bomber" caught on that London flight, whatever the hell his name  
was.  I don't have nightmares about Islamic militants, other than  
that we are probably minting more of them with a slow-witted,  
unintelligent foreign policy that convinces few (if any) that we are  
right.

But, from the beginning of all this -- 9/12, if you will -- the one  
thing that I was convinced of was that the progress of information  
and knowledge will lead to something.  Not necessarily enlightenment,  
but something.  Maybe that "other" 9/11 that has been spoken of since  
the first one.  Maybe not, maybe a solution.  I'd prefer to hope for  
the latter.

But 9/11 was, at least in part, the result of new methods of  
communication, information and knowledge.  The hijackers were able to  
coordinate by international telephone, the Internet and cell phones.   
Today, inexpensive and plentiful technology give any individual the  
edge that was once exclusive to the military.  Digital photography,  
the Internet, encrypted data?  Now you're ahead of the game.  Google  
Earth.  Can you just imagine?  And there is no way to shut down the  
threat without shutting down the progress of human knowledge and the  
march of information.  So laptops, iPods, cell phones, garage door  
openers and anything that connects to another device or human being  
might as well be banned from all flights.  They are the real danger,  
as is every idea and fact that can be conveyed by them, from the  
secrets of the atomic bomb to the time that a train passes an  
roadside intersection every day.

But, of course, there's a slight problem. If you ban these (as, of  
this writing, the British are doing at airports) you also stop human  
progress, industry and the global economy.

I am not one who has a solution to this, or frankly any other  
problem, but it is something to think about.

- Tim Onosko




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