Hacker News Reader

Comment by salesguy222 | Hacker News Reader

You look at this and say to yourself, "this doesn't make any sense! i don't get how allowing cell phones and 'medical devices' (nebulous term) into carry ons, but demanding that laptops go into checked baggage is keeping us safe!"

And you're right! It isn't.

But then you realize that the special interests that came up with this policy were paid LARGE SUMS OF MONEY to impress Trump and all of his supporters and career politician allies. And then you once more realize how incredibly stupid this policy is in reality.

But then it dawns on you that Trump and his allies are either criminally idiotic, or criminally wasteful in their policy pursuits.

Or both!

View on HN

Look, I hate Trump. But air security policy hasn't been rational for a long time. Don't tie every government dysfunction to Trump.

Just because it's always been irrational doesn't mean it isn't especially irrational now.

They may not be responsible for past policy, but I don't think it unreasonable to blame successive executive branches if they make the policy even more irrational.

ill never forget the time when a national gaurd(?) member pointed (but not aimed) a military assat rifle at my little sister and seperated her from my family while they looked through her backpack for the electronics she forgot to empty. it was a scientific calculator, and she was 13 i think? so yeah, agreed. Airtravel hasn't been rational in a long time.

this was sometime in the months following 9/11.

I can see where you are coming from. But isn't this a policy directly from the administration?

It seems they've taken a keen interest in making travel very painful for select foreigners. I don't think this is a policy from anyone other than the new government?

Does it make more sense than the previous security procedure that everyone passengers had to take off their shoes and have them scanned?

Or the current ban on liquids?

Or the even better idea I saw in Brussels airport of two semi-identical security checks; one to get into the airport and then the "regular" second one. I can only wait for the next improved version of three security checkpoints, which will add 50% more secure then the current two.

After 9/11, sensibility went out the window. This new move is quite far from the stupidest I have seen.

Multiple checks are not stupid at all. The screening is not 100% reliable and an independent repeat is a reasonable way to improve detections of weapons, which have been shown to get through sometimes in TSA and third-party experiments.

I recall reading that TSA has never actually stopped a real threat to a airplane. The screening is one of the least cost-effective security mechanism in use, so are we suggestion that doubling it and the costs is a reasonable way to improve detections?

A reasonable way to detect threats would be to hire more investigators and bomb dogs patrols. Both has shown to be cost-effective and to produce results, in direct contrast to the TSA screening method.

I'm not a fan of security theatre. But the TSA does not have to catch anyone to be very effective. In fact it its intended deterrence effect was effective it would never catch anyone at all.

So does the deterrence effect increase by the number of screenings? The physiological effect is not measurable in this case, and if we compare it to the placebo effect which is measurable, there is little proof that eating two fake pills has any benefit over eating one.

How big portion of terrorists is likely to completely ignore the fact of one screening but be deterred by the existence of a second one?

Rationally, the deterrence should increase monotonically with the chance of being caught.

With two serial 90% effective checks, you have a 99% effective system. Such a low chance of success means attackers should try something else instead.

Now, with probably not even close to 99% screening, along with cockpit doors and fight-motivated passengers, the deterrence seems powerful enough that we are seeing other kinds of attacks.

Where did you pull that 90% effectiveness from?

People don't believe 90% in a fake pill, and by eating two get to 99% belief. Either you believe the fake pill will work or you don't. The number of pills don't multiply the placebo effect.

Why believe that security theater, ie fake security, increase the physiological effect in multiplicate way based on the number of identical copies?

If the placebo effect could be multiplied in such a way, every sickness could be cured by just eating more and more sugar. If a fake pill had 1% placebo effect, eating ~500 fake pills would reach 99% effectiveness. That is obviously not how the placebo effect works.

X-ray machine screenings are not placebo. They aren't perfect, but if you put a handgun in your carry on, there's a pretty good chance they'll find it.

And yes I know there are failures. But it's not reasonable to say that the current security check is placebo only. Ask yourself: would you put a gun or knife in your carry on to prove the point?

The 90% figure I made up as an example. I don't know the real figure. But I don't fancy my chances getting a weapon through security.

Even yourself called it security theater because people have looked at TSA security and never found a single case where it prevented a threat to a airplane.

To quote: "Security theater is the practice of investing in countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to actually achieve it"

Security theater do not cause 90% prevention. And to be clear, I know several personal cases where a knife has gone through the security check because the person carrying it had forgotten that it was even there. Its not effective, no research say its effective, and all benefits that security checks provide against threat to airplanes are the placebo effect.

Strong doors, investigators, and bomb sniffing dogs. Those are some real security measures found to be effective on airports, airplanes, as well as other places where dangerous people need to be stopped. They are used by both police and the military, and shown to be cost effective. The methods used by airport screening is used by airports, not by the police or the military, and the results are clear.

Such strong assertions! Would you take a handgun through airport security?

If you were in charge of a plot, would you base your plan around getting a gun through airport security?

Nope. You'd do something else where you are more likely to succeed.

A attacker would be more likely to attack the points in society with lowest perceived security and highest value. As such, if they had a single security check at entering the airport, then the train station before the airport would be the target. If they extended the check to the train station, the highest density area outside the train station. and so on, and so on. Thus the assertion that multiple checks don't help when dealing with perceived security, as long there is a easier target somewhere else.

And the assertions are not mine. Security researchers has published multiple articles on it, and finding commonalities between police and military is just public data. There is not a single security expect that claim that airport screening is cost effective form of security. Feel free to prove me wrong.

Vacuuming the living room rug with a broken vacuum twice isn't going to make it significantly cleaner.

The security check to get into the airport makes sense if you want to avoid terrorist attacks at the airport.

But why not just move the original check then to the edge of the airport, expanding the "safe zone".

The second check to get into a plane is more exhaustive. They let you introduce liquids into the airport!

Istanbul Atatürk has a security check to get into the airport. Guess what, the terrorists simply attacked the people in line at the first security check!

The third screening should naturally be moved to the train station before the airport. That will solve it.

Spare (laptop) batteries are not allowed as checked luggage [1] (presumably the danger of a shorted battery causing a hull fire or explosion).

Why would a laptop go into checked when an equivalently sized battery not be allowed?

Further discrepancies that show we don't have a rational executive branch.

[1] https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...

Laptops don't have exposed terminals.

Neither do the external power packs that are currently banned in checked luggage

If you buy one with a flashlight function, you could argue that it's a "device" and not a "battery".

This is actually fairly rational. I mean, all this airport security stuff is stupid security theater. However, if you're going to do it, you should absolutely ban laptops.

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/651/

The TSA wasnt any better under Obama... Don't spin this into a Trump issue

Well, both Obama and Trump inherited a pretty broken TSA. That doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to whether the organization is improving or getting worse.

Generally I doubt that a president deserves credit, positive or negative, for changes in random agencies like the TSA. Like, does Obama really deserve bonus points for us being able to use cell phones during takeoff+landing? But you have to admit that a country-specific ban has Trump written all over it. People are rightly pointing out why it's a misguided policy.

I agree with you, but isn't this directly from the administration? Surely a rogue bureaucrat wouldn't do this on their own.

And if Trump admin disagreed with it, they wouldn't implement it.

The TSA was an Obama issue when Obama was President. The TSA was a Bush issue when Bush was President. The TSA is a Trump issue because Trump is President.

The idea that we can't criticize someone because of X, Y, and Z is ridiculous. Trump is now President. It is now his problem to solve.

Dude, it's a 96 hour ban, all signs point to this being a targeted response to a specific credible threat.

Chill.

I'm chilled, but what do you mean? Can you link me to the chatter about the credible threat?

What if they wait more than 96 hours? What does checking electronics into bags do to keep us safer?

http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/324846-feds-tempora...

The subtle arrogance in you asking for the threat Intel is utterly astonishing.

I appreciate the link, because the one I read said that the ban was indefinite, but that the airlines had 96 hours to implement.

I also respectfully need to say that any arrogance you perceived from me was something you were reading into in my opinion, rather than something in my words that directly showed arrogance.

I exist to provide logic based and relatively emotionless arguments, not too much cynicism or ill will to fellow commenters.

> I exist to provide logic based and relatively emotionless arguments

Bullshit.

because the miscreants are too stupid to wait 96 hours.

If you're executing an attack in the next 4 days, you now can't.

Why do you think you know more about international counterterrorism than... Well, anyone?

It's a little ironic how contentious your tone is in this thread, considering that there were many outlets that didn't follow along with the mischaracterization of the ban that you have based your commenting on.

(I understand that you did see the 96 hour temporary ban in some reports; but even 14 hours ago there were reports not saying that, reports you accused other people of not reading, apparently without reading them yourself (the Bloomberg article didn't contain a time frame when I read it last night, nor the Reuters article I linked in my other reply))

Reply on news.ycombinator.com