[FYI] Commonsense in the Crisis

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/wtc.html

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Commonsense in the Crisis

Since the dreadful attacks on the World Trade Center and the 
Pentagon, many companies and government agencies have been
pushing security technologies that could cost a lot of money and, in 
some cases, seriously erode our liberties. Many of them won't
do much, if anything, to make bin Laden's job harder; some of them he 
might even welcome. 

We've been subjected to sales pitches for smart ID cards containing 
encoded fingerprints or iris scans, universal CCTV
surveillance, government management of airport security, knowledge-
based data mining of passenger lists, and significantly
increased police control of Internet service providers. Some of the 
salesmen help propagate juicy urban myths, such as the claim
that al-Qaida hides its electronic communications in pictures on 
pornographic web sites. The image of the mad mullah as
cryptopornographer may be irresistible to a certain type of newspaper 
- but what's the truth? 

I've been asked for comments on security engineering questions by 
quite a few journalists. Here, I gather together some of the
points that I've made, and offer a few observations on why some of 
the common reactions to the attacks are not appropriate. 

     Introduction 
     Historical Precedents 
     Biometrics 
     False Alarms versus Missed Alarms 
     ID Cards 
     Control of Cryptography 
     Airport Security 
     Economics and Security 
     My book 

[...]

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