Schneier on Security: Cargo Security
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As an aside, try to look at the history of the definition of terrorism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_terrorism . It's quite difficult to find an all-encompasing term that does not include the US or her allies.
"If a passenger plane blows up, it affects a couple of hundred people"
What about the scenario where a cargo plane is blown up over a highly populated area or the centre of a major city? I think he is forgetting that on 9-11 the planes were used as weapons, and the lives lost on the planes were a fraction of the overall total on that tragic day.
As to 9/11, that was a hijacking rather than a bomb and an entirely different attack vector.
You can use GPS tracking and a program running on the phone. With this setup, you can guess when the plane will pass over a major city and blow it up according to population density.
I would assume someone would already have sent the phones with their programs to acquire more information on signal strength, cell towers and all the data to make something like this work before attaching explosives to the devices.
Someone probably is right now going over other packages sent by similar routes, possibly by associates of this guy and those who picked them up at the destination. I am quite sure this was not his first attempt.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XMBDcG2dmr-Z1QoGBdXu2g
If all else fails, some phones are coming with gyroscopes...
This response says, "See, we do need them! And we probably should add a few more measures too!"
The British airport guy complained about shoe checks and laptop scans. This threat was about cargo shipped bombs. They are two entirely different things with an minuscule Venn overlap ("having something to do with some sort of transportation device...").
The "cargo shipped terrorism" was all the focus during the anthrax worries. It isn't new.
The only way to end terrorism is to bring education and prosperity to the middle east, to all of them, not just the few already rich from oil money. To give them something to do other than blow themselves up.
If they succeed blowing up enough cargo planes, this would create a non-trivial economic pressure to deal with whatever demands they have. If they manage to blow up one with debris falling on a big city, more points to them.
From what I've read, the devices were wired to detonate via cell phone, and some speculated that the devices were to be triggered when the flights were over major cities. This raises three questions in my mind:
1. Did the flight paths of these planes actually go over major cities? Or just on the periphery?
2. Will cell phone signals reach flight altitude?
3. (Although Bruce advocates doing nothing) Would cell phone signal jammers on cargo planes be a cheap deterrent in this case?
Not sure. Do you know how much money would it cost to replace the plane and shut down the airport until officials make sure that was the only bomb?
Besides that, the loss of signal could start a countdown.
2. Yes
3. No, cargo planes are metal boxes and cell phone signals can't make it in, so jammers would be superfluous.
It should be more. It's more costly for a terrorist organization to put a bomb on a plane they also have to ride on. You have to find, train and forfeit one "martyr" per bomb.
After 9/11 I seem to remember something about not allowing people to put luggage on a flight they weren't going to be on. As in, if you didn't show up at the gate to get on, they would remove your luggage too. What happened to that?