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Comment by A4ET8a8uTh0 | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, I am genuinely surprised an attack never materialized. But then I also remember mentioning my thoughts on the matter to my wife, who was aghast that I would even consider such a scenario. Maybe, on average, people are actually decent and it is people like me, who come up with weird hypotheticals.

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>To be honest, I am genuinely surprised an attack never materialized.

I'm not. The TSA is hated by the populace the way the population hates every wasteful boondoggle jobs program. Foreigners hate them for profiling but that's pretty far down the list of grievances. Foreigners looking to strike at America and Americans looking to get off the porch likely have dozens of more preferable targets.

I doubt the TSA makes any would be attackers list of top five most deserving agencies.

Edit: A fed sponsored false flag attack on the TSA could make a good comedy plot. It might need to be a TV series in order to have time to fit in all the jokes, references, tropes and wise cracks you'd be obligated to make when covering such subject matter.

You mean I’m not the only one who has wondered if you could etch a knife shape onto the back of an acrylic clipboard? Something that wouldn’t show up on X-ray, but could be punched out with little effort on the plane?

My wife says it’s a wonder I’m not on the no fly list.

Oh, I never considered that:D It is an interesting use of materials, but seems unnecessary. I was thinking about a scenario in which an assailant would attack an actual soft spot in an airport. That did not happen. That is the part that surprises me ( and I am glad I remain surprised ). Then again, you start reading about new and exciting ways of detecting guns and you start wondering if that is basically trying to fight an old war.

<< My wife says it’s a wonder I’m not on the no fly list.

For better or worse, my work almost guarantees that I will be looking for mildly interesting subjects so I am likely on some sort of grey list ( no idea what IC would call it internally ). No 'no fly' list yet, but these days it only takes being extra rude it seems[1] so these days that list is a major inconvenience, but the signal it generates is less useful:D

[1]https://www.paddleyourownkanoo.com/2021/01/15/delta-air-line...

~60 airplane hijackings per year in the 70s.

We’ve significantly reduced it down to <4 per year.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/airliner-hijackings-and-f...

Hijacking an airplane isn’t an attack on the TSA specifically though. We were talking about the security of the TSA building itself.

Yes, but the TSA wasn't created in the 1980s, when most of the decrease happened. The TSA wasn't invented until after 9/11.

Who's we? Al Qaeda reduced it down to ~4 per year because now passengers no longer assume to survive and act accordingly. Locked doors and plain clothes security are just icing on the cake.

> Who's we? Al Qaeda reduced it down to ~4 per year because now passengers no longer assume to survive and act accordingly.

You think hijackings decreased because the passengers are more likely to attack the hijackers now?

I think it’s more likely that surveillance and intelligence is better now and most hijacking attempts get discovered before they are executed.

Airline and security protocols are no longer "comply with everything so that nobody gets killed". Doors are locked. Passengers will likely bum rush you. There might be armed security on any given flight. The odds of success are unbelievably long compared to what they were in the 80s. Just not worth it vs a "boring" bombing or whatever.

Not parent poster, but absolutely.

Look at all those other pre-2001 hijackings, and ask yourself what would have happened if most of the passengers were terrified that the hijackers were preparing to destroy the entire plane and everyone on it, regardless of any demands being made or met.

Would-be hostage-taking hijackers know it too: Their business plan, as it were, has been ruined for a generation by their suicidal colleagues.

Reinforced doors and a belief among everyone from passengers to pilots that a successful hijacking is likely to lead to death rather than inconvenience reduced hijacking after 2001. I would be surprised if searching passengers more aggressively or requiring people to prove their address to get a driver's license had much to do with it.

Yeah, I think passenger game-theory is the number one reason, and that was already in place on September 12th, 2001.

Passengers are now aware that hijackers might actually just buying time until they can trigger a murder-suicide attempt, and many will believe it is likely enough that they need to fight for their own lives. The old assumptions that "almost everyone gets out alive by passively cooperating" no longer hold.

This happened on the 11th. See United 93.

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