[IP] Information is dangerous
Begin forwarded message:
From: Tim Onosko <onosko@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: August 11, 2006 2:00:39 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
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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