Re: Cyberattack FUD

[David Schwartz <davids () webmaster com>]

On Thu, 21 Nov 2002 20:12:20 -0800 (PST), Vadim Antonov wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, Barry Shein wrote:

> > The attack on the WTC not only took out the WTC, it essentially has
> > taken out our airline industry.

> It may be argued that airline industry has taken out itself by first not
> having elementary precautions (like closed cockpit doors and having pilots
> to carry guns, with adequate training) which are standard in less
> complacent parts of the world,

        I've heard this argument many times, but it's just plain false. And so
obviously false that I always look for an ulterior motive when I hear it.

        Suppose, for example, we'd had closed cockpit doors. The 9/11 terrorists
would have threatened the lives of the passengers and crew to induce the
pilots to open the doors. The pilots would have opened the doors because the
reasoning until that time was that you did whatever the hostages told you to
do until you could get the plane on the ground.

        It was the rules of engagement that failed. Nothing more, nothing less.

> and then by making life truly miserable for
> those who wish or have to travel, in a fit of post-disaster paranoia.

        The airline industry did that?

> It is not enemies who are savvy, it is managers who are stupid.  Like, the
> "crash airplane into some high-value target" scenario was well-aired more
> than decade ago

        Not the "crash jetliner full of passengers into high-value target" scenario.
If you were able to make the decision to shoot down or not shoot down the two
jetliners before either struck a building, knowing only that they were not
responding and probably hijaacked, what would you have done?

        Imagine if the U.S. had shot down all the planes. What would people be
saying about all the innocent people the military had murdered?

        Again, it's the rules of engagement that failed.

> - and it is only due to total incompetence of airline
> security people that this was allowed to happen.

        So tell me what they should have done differently. Not allowed knives on the
plane? The terrorists would have used their bare hands. Strip searched every
passenger? Arm their pilots -- they weren't allowed to.

> I hope that US airlines
> go out of business and El Al moves in; isn't that what competition is
> supposed to be about?

        Except that there is no competition. Airlines don't get to make their own
security rules, they're largely preempted by the government ownership and
control of airports and the FARs.

> The same holds for the Internet (with special thanks to the toothless
> antimonopoly enforcement which allowed operating systems to become a
> monoculture).

        This is a great bit of double-think. It has nothing to do with the fact that
people overwhelmingly prefer to have compatible operating systems, it's the
fact that nobody forced them to diversify against their will.

        DS