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Why Aren't There More Terrorist Attacks?

215 points by billpg 17y ago

jacquesm 17y ago
Because they wouldn't be 'sexy', a good terrorist attack plays the media as much as any other factor (number of people wounded/killed, timing and so on). Killing people, especially in batches of 50 or so (sorry, that's not meant rude, just being analytical) is easy. Doing it in a spectacular way ready for media consumption is very hard. Terrorists have a real problem here. If they decided to simply butcher their way through humanity we'd have a much bigger problem. See Algeria for what that world could look like.
- jfager 17y ago
  I have a hard time believing that the same country that spent an entire day watching a tin-foil balloon float around because it thought a boy was inside wouldn't have a total media freak out over a 'terrist'-linked mall shooting.
  - ojbyrne 17y ago
    An entire day yes, but it very rapidly disappeared from the public consciousness. And it didn't change the behavior of government in the slightest (no anti-balloon legislation passed that I know of).
  - archon 17y ago
    I'm not sure that the country spent the entire day watching that particular event. The cable news stations did.
  - flatline 17y ago
    Same here, the media in this country is nuts. CNN droned on for hours about the truck in Times Square - with no new information! Isn't it supposed to be news? Wouldn't a scrolling update or a blurb at the top of each hour suffice? It actually makes it hard to find out if the situation has changed when the reporting never does. All the major news broadcasts are primarily there for the purpose of entertainment.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      When you really think about it, nothing happened. There was a failed attempt, case closed. A stickup of a convenience store 500 yards away killing two would have never gotten that kind of coverage.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Good point. I think part of the fascination with the balloon incident was that it was about a child, and that there was speculation that it was a hoax and people tried to figure out on which side they came down. The parents did a pretty good job of predicting the public response, I'm surprised they didn't end up in jail for that trick. Let's hope none of their kids ever really gets lost because I'm sure the authorities will assume that it is just another grab for attention with possibly disastrous results. Don't cry 'wolf' when there is no wolf... The media would most definitely freak out over a mall shooting, but mall shootings are not that rare today (right now google news has 650 items linked to that theme), especially if it involved guys in non western clothing. But it would not be on the same level as 'shoe bomber tries to blow up airliner', at least I would think it wouldn't be. If the terrorists really were simply out to kill you, which route would be more effective do you think? Blow up an airliner with a relatively small chance of success with a bomb straight out of some spy novel or to smuggle an armalite in to the local mall and let loose? Can you see malls with body scanners in your future? Schools with body scanners? I'm sure the people selling that stuff would have their wet dreams come true if someone tried that. In NL here we had a craze some years ago where some crazy injected a few oranges in a supermarket with mercury. The media took it and ran with it, causing all kinds of copycat incidents. The funny thing is that mercury is relatively safe as a fluid, it is when it is in vapour form or when it is part of a reactive compound that the trouble begins. That didn't stop an all out panic though, fueled by an uninformed media milking it for all it was worth.
- brandong 17y ago
  The DC sniper would be a good counterpoint to this. Single kills over a moderate period of time and it generated intense amounts of media coverage.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Yes, it was pretty 'sexy' media wise. Built in sequels. As I said, Algeria is a good example of what happens when that sort of thing goes on all the time. People lose interest, try to ignore it. If terrorism really becomes an every day occurrence it would stop to be news. Look at Iraq, when stuff was blowing up all over the place people simply looked at the totals, the 'bodycounts', not the individual events. It became a statistics issue, but no longer a prime time news issue.
- tjmc 17y ago
  > Killing people, especially in batches of 50 or so ...is easy. Doing it in a spectacular way ready for media consumption is very hard Depends on who those 50 people (or less) are. The attack on the Sri Lankan national cricket team bus in Pakistan was a type of terrorist escalation that Schneier didn't account for - celebrity. Red carpets aren't guarded to the extent of presidents. Nor are most national sports teams (think Munich 1972) or Fortune 100 CEOs. Not a nice thought - but as you say, just being analytical.
tokenadult 17y ago
The best way for people in civilized societies to defeat terrorism is not to live in fear, and to keep on advancing rationality and freedom.
- drunkpotato 17y ago
  In order to "keep on" advancing rationality and freedom we would first have to start advancing rationality and freedom. Both are in short supply.
  - DrSprout 17y ago
    You could start by making a rational argument instead of appealing to a cynical belief that everyone is irrational and intent on restricting freedom. The essence of the irrationality that pervades American political discourse is exactly that sort of "everyone is crazy" mentality. There are plenty of people advancing rationality and freedom. You aren't one of them.
    - CWuestefeld 17y ago
      appealing to a cynical belief that everyone is irrational and intent on restricting freedom I don't see that in the GP. It looks to me that he's working from the observation that personal liberty is decreasing, presumably revealing that the decisions being made are not rational. In particular, there's no reason to read into this anything about scope ("everyone"), nor their intent (to restrict freedom). Clearly it would be incorrect to impute this to everyone when the restricted liberty can only be caused by the few in power. Also, it may not be their intent to restrict freedom. Indeed, their intent may be to save our freedom, but due to the observed lack of rationality, their efforts carry the (assumedly unintended) side effect of restricting freedom.
      - drunkpotato 17y ago
        Thank you, that was a very clear and succinct rebuttal. I would add to it, that "advancing freedom" is one of those phrases that is, when you examine it, quite poorly defined. Freedom is more a set of associations than a strict definition, though I'm sure one can find philosophers who have attempted to strictly define it, so you get "freedom sub Professor X". Freedom is much easier to talk about in the abstract than to define, and lends itself to pithy (or, less charitably, glib) phrases that can be twisted to whatever one's own definition of freedom is. My original post was flippant and lacking in nuance, to be sure (still not warranting the personal attack; I do, in fact, attempt to point out logical fallacies and bring about reasonable discourse). I am not immune to making the odd sound-bite myself, though calling my post cynical and then making a strawman attack also does not advance the cause of rationality.
ja30278 17y ago
I've been increasingly wondering about this, and I'm not sure I agree with the article. Schneier asserts that "It's hard to sneak terrorists into the U.S.", which is hard to swallow given the essentially unchecked flow of immigrants coming across the Mexican border every day. Why would a terrorist fly into a major US airport, when he could just as easily fly into Mexico and then walk across the border (carrying as much cargo as he liked). Think of the vast drug shipments that cross this border, and then tell me that sneaking across a small suitcase of biological agents would be difficult. I also disagree that "small attacks aren't enough". If you and 9 of your friends coordinate to roll grenades into 10 elementary schools in 10 different cities, I can assure you that you'd make headlines, and bring daily life to a standstill as parents refused to send their children to school. It's also increasingly bizarre to me that terrorists would target airports or airplanes at all. Airports are the one place where security is most concentrated. Practically speaking, blowing up a plane is probably the most difficult option you could choose if you wanted to kill 300 people. Why not pick one of the other myriad unguarded 'soft' targets where people gather? Either terrorists are incredibly stupid, vanishingly small in number, or both.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  I've entered the US several times without ever showing a passport or seeing a customs official. The US-Canadian border is pretty much open if you know the terrain. Officially you're required to report in but plenty of people don't bother, especially in winter when all the waterways that are open the rest of the year freeze over. > Either terrorists are incredibly stupid, vanishingly small in number, or both. Stupid for sure, if their stated goal is to bring down society, but they don't really want to do that, they are like petulant kids that crave attention. 9/11 was almost too successful in that respect, it could have easily caused the world to band together in to eradicating this once and for all. Fortunately the Iraq war changed all that, everybody wins. The people that sell anti-terrorism equipment, the terrorists themselves and the media, the politicians too. All those privacy violating laws that got passed in the last couple of years under the banner of 'anti-terror' wouldn't have stood a chance of passing if the general public wasn't kept in a continued state of anxiety. Condition 'red' ...
  - 17y ago
axod 17y ago
What does "Terrorism" even mean? Was columbine a terrorist attack? The media is completely messed up beyond belief though. In the UK there was a little girl went missing whilst on holiday, and whilst sad, she's had a massively disproportionate amount of reporting. Still stories in the papers about it now years later.
- hugh3 17y ago
  No. Terrorism is the deliberate murder of civilians (or threats thereto), in order to advance a political objective. It's not actually all that hard to define, some people just try to deliberately muddy the waters. - The Columbine shootings were not terrorism since they had no political motive. - The assassination of JFK was not terrorism since the President is not, for the purposes of this discussion, a "civilian" (I might need to work on the definition of "civillian") - If a warplane drops a bomb aimed at a tank and it hits an orphanage by accident, that's not terrorism since the civilians weren't the actual target. (Note: that doesn't necessarily mean it was excusable). - The Fort Hood massacre and the many attacks by Al Qaeda against US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are not, strictly speaking, terrorism, since the targets are military rather than civilian (again this just a semantic distinction I'm making here, not a moral one). Any other border cases we'd like to discuss? Note that by this definition terrorist attacks were commonly used by both sides in World War 2.
  - axod 17y ago
    But why does the motive matter? I don't think it's useful. Especially when reporting in the media. Perhaps we should call them "random unprovoked killings of civilians".
    - branden 17y ago
      A crime's motive determines in part how you understand it and how you prevent it. Terrorism isn't random; it is focused on a particular goal and planned in advance. Unhinged mall shooters won't be stopped by coordinated intelligence gathering, and they can't be investigated for links to other such shooters. Any similarity between such acts and terrorism is superficial at best and requires that you ignore the crime's context. A media that doesn't distinguish the two will either trivialize terrorism or needlessly sensationalize random violent acts.
deleted 17y ago
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jefarmstrong 17y ago
One factor that I think the post gets wrong is that it's hard to make a bomb. The NYC "bomb" that just fizzled is a good example. From the limited descriptions it sounds like that thing would never have blown up. Catch fire and burn, maybe. You can't just throw some propane tanks, a couple of fireworks and gas together and expect it to blow up. The Oklahoma bomb was a huge undertaking. Also, the more time and effort you put into building a real bomb, the more likely you are to get caught - buying lots of (the right kind of) fertilizer is a telltale sign.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  I suspect there is a missing qualifier there. i.e; "Bombs are easy to make if you have some common sense". Bombs can come in all shapes and forms; I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people here (for example) could overcome the problem of a) building it and b) not using obvious "tell tale" materials. Off hand I recall Meth can be created out of "household" products and the reactions involved can be very volatile/explosive - that seems like the possible makings of an effective bomb right there. (also; tracking fertilizer sales is probably not going to help you ID terrorists :) I bet the numbers are just crazy - also, any sensible terrorist will be nicking small quantities from farms etc.) On the other hand terrorist converts acting alone are, I suggest, less likely to be able to do the correct research and construction.
  - danudey 17y ago
    Somehow I think setting up a meth lab in a parkade near a building's support structures would be noticed by security.
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      You don't have to set up a lab; the bomb is produced by unstable chemicals. At the very least you could drive up a van and mix those chemicals together.
vaksel 17y ago
actually I think the smaller terrorist attacks would be much more effective at instilling terror. remember the dc sniper? After the first couple of people were killed, everyone started running in zig zags everywhere they went. blow up a bus or a train once a week, and you'll shut down most cities. It doesn't even have to be a huge bomb. A few fire crackers that kill/wound 1-2 people and the media will do it's job in making people think it's the end of the world. and if they can't get bombs/firecrackers, they can always buy a few automatic weapons at any gun store, and open up on a few trains/buses/malls. Same effect without the boom. Terrorism is just overhyped, since media has nothing better to do. Take 2009..let's list all the terrorist attacks in the United States: 2/4/2009 - Chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board wounded in a car bomb.(probably abortion related) 5/25/2009 - someone blows up a starbucks bench(0 casualties) 6/1/2009 - a muslim shoots up a recruiting station(1 dead, 1 wounded) 12/25/2009 - the underwear bomber(0 casualties) So a total of 4 attacks, 1 dead, 2 wounded. And none of them were organized, terrorists aren't the evil geniuses that the media paints them as. In fact most terrorists. are basically just wannabees who've watched the news and want to be part of the "war". You have a bigger chance of getting killed by a falling tree or getting hit by lighting, than you do of getting hurt in a terrorist attack. Terrorism is just hype, it's a small criminal matter, that's not worth the trillions the United States is spending to fight it. It's all just security theater....make people think something is being done, when in reality nothing they can do can stop any further attacks. But the "terrorists are coming to kill you!" sure does work in getting the public to agree to anything you want.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  > Terrorism is just hype, it's a small criminal matter, that's not worth the trillions the United States is spending to fight it Yes, but think about the money that is being made by keeping the hype alive.
- zaidf 17y ago
  Terrorism is just hype, it's a small criminal matter, that's not worth the trillions the United States Counter argument to that is that it is because of the billions in spending that actual terrorism is such a rare occurance.
dkarl 17y ago
One thing I wonder about, but have no basis for knowing, is whether it was easier ten years ago for Al Qaeda to convince the 9/11 attackers that they would have the adulation and gratitude of the Muslim community at large. At that time, terrorism in the Muslim public's mind was mostly associated with Palestinians fighting Israeli occupation, and the 9/11 attack was framed as a blow against U.S. occupation of the Arabian Peninsula. I'm sure many potential terrorists have since heard their friends, family, and neighbors comment unfavorably on the 9/11 attacks and their consequences for Muslims and for the image of Islam. That might hurt recruiting among people who are smart and social enough to be part of a large-scale attack.
fredBuddemeyer 17y ago
yes most of these actions are the work of a lone nut but the problem is the increasing impact that nut has thanks to evolving technology. the ability to cause mass destruction is following a law similar to mr. moore's (albeit we are on the early, flat part of this curve). a century ago it was impossible to wipe out a huge population; 50 years ago the largest nations could do it. today the nuclear and biological options have added an order of magnitude to the club and there is no reason to believe this will stop. rather than a vested political group that would themselves be subject to revenge it's the irrational individual that will inevitably prove most destructive.
raquo 17y ago
I don't know about the US, but here in Moscow/Russia terrorism seems much more organized. We don't have amateur school shootings, we mainly get train/subway/plane bombings. In the past we used to have whole buildings demolished by bombs. Apart from funding justification, it often seems like "Don't push on us here in Caucasus, or else we bring terror closer to you" message from terrorists to the government.
c00p3r 17y ago
The terrorist attacks tend to happen when the governments need to shift a public attention from their deep troubles. And this tendency is not limited to the third world like Russia. So, it's just not an appropriate time.
- goldbug 16y ago
  You are totally right.
sabat 17y ago
I appreciate Bruce's attempts, but as usual, I'm skeptical about his presumed knowledge about every area of security merely because he's an accomplished cryptographer. Security is a mish-mash of scattered fields related only by the concern that someone is going to do something undesirable. I have strong doubts that being a cryptographer qualifies you, automatically, as an expert in physical security. We need to face the fact the reason there aren't more terrorist attacks is simply because there are not that many people in the world are genuinely willing to commit suicide while taking other lives. Schneier's not entirely wrong, but I think his reasons are peripheral.
- iron_ball 17y ago
  Well, that was precisely one of his points. There aren't all that many terrorists out there.
  - sabat 17y ago
    If you define "terrorist" as someone who is actually going to attempt to take others' lives (and possibly his own), then sure. I'm not that sure this is what Bruce meant.
- timcederman 17y ago
  Not to be too condescending, but it's pretty obvious you haven't studied information security at all (let alone read Schneier's work?). Saying someone is "only" an "accomplished cryptographer" really diminishes what is required to have the mindset that makes you a good cryptographer, amongst other things.
  - sabat 17y ago
    Actually I have 10+ years in the field, am a CISSP, and was a CISO in the financial services industry for 6 years. Saying someone is "only" an "accomplished cryptographer" really diminishes what is required to have the mindset that makes you a good cryptographer That's precisely the point of view I'm refuting. The kind of mindset you need to be a good cryptographer has little or nothing to do with being good at physical security, network security, or any other field of security. The reason: informations security is composed of disparate fields, related only by the need to maintain C., I., and A.
mcantelon 17y ago
Terrorism in America is a much lower threat than mundane factors such as traffic safety. Terrorism, however, justifies the creation of counter-insurgence infrastructure (and supporting industry) which will be useful to the establishment as America de-industrializes. America will, at some point, face internal conflict as it implements the austerity measures necessary to continue to finance military campaigns, service debt (directly or via currency inflation), and continue to adapt to trade imbalances.
EliAndrewC 17y ago
Last year, Slate published an in-depth series of articles summarizing the various theories about why we haven't seen more terrorist attacks, e.g. the "Terrorists are Dumb" theory, the "Near Enemy" theory, the "Bush kept us safe" theory, etc. The series was very interested and well-cited and echoes many of the points that Schneier makes in the OP and may be found here: http://www.slate.com/id/2208971/ http://www.slate.com/id/2208971/
raganwald 17y ago
For the three (maybe four) hackers who haven't already seen it, please watch Terry Gilliam's brilliant dark satire Brazil. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/
metamemetics 17y ago
>Note that this is very different than terrorism by an occupied population: the IRA in Northern Ireland, Iraqis in Iraq, Palestinians in Israel. Setting aside the actual politics, all of these terrorists believe they are repelling foreign invaders. That's not the situation here in the U.S. Not so sure about that point, Osama's stated reason was US military bases in Saudi Arabia (viewing it as a foreign invasion) and support for Israel (viewing it as a foreign invasion).
- roc 17y ago
  I think that those situations are different from Al Qaeda striking the west, though I agree that Schneier's imprecise on the distinction. The big difference is that those acts are local rebellion. The actions by locals, against an "other" (or its agents/totems) within the locality, have little to fear from other civilians who might happen upon them plotting, training, preparing or delivering terror against the "other". And for the attack to be successful, it merely has to be "news" within the locality. You don't need to inspire/impress a command/support structure half-a-world-away. You just need to keep the support of others in the locality. An "other" operating within a foreign country, however, risks exposure at every turn. Particularly within a country "alert" to the risk and when the "other" is trivially identifiable as such. And his attacks must be more about style, as he needs to inspire/impress people with no local context for a precise or less spectacular attack.
budu 17y ago
Because of Jack Bauer!!!
radioactive21 17y ago
The part where he mentions Muslims in America do not support it is a good point to note. I have Muslim friends, and they have told me that even amongst the hardcore Muslims in the US, there are lots of talk about disagreement of US policy but no one ever talks or jokes about terrorist attacks. Even in private or just friendly talks. On a side note another thing that I did find interesting that my friend told me was that the FBI visits Mosques frequently. Just to have friendly talk or to keep in touch. US intelligence works with local Muslim activist and Mosques more than people think.
911miss 17y ago
This is why: http://imgur.com/fwP2Z?tags http://imgur.com/fwP2Z?tags
- jbrennan 17y ago
  Wait, what?
meelash 17y ago
There aren't more terrorist attacks, because the classification as "terrorist" is a false classification. In reality the same mindset, motives, situation, that allegedly drive "terrorists" drive the people who are committing murders of their friends/family/coworkers/random-people every day. When an act of violence is carried out by a Muslim-named individual with an ostensibly political motive, you classify that as terrorism, whereas the underlying psychosis that leads to the crime is the same as most other acts of violence. The manifestation of that psychosis has circumstances and external justification that are irrational, random, and individual to each person. So this question is like asking, "Why aren't there more 5'7", 11 shoe size, blue sweater-ed murderers?" The fact that there are not more "terrorist attacks" is proof that the classification of "terrorist attacks" is an unnaturally narrow one, based on arbitrary features of the perpetrators.
- smallblacksun 16y ago
  The word "terrorism" is not only applied to Muslims. McVeigh is called a terrorist. The IRA were called terrorists.
  - meelash 16y ago
    It was an example of one situation that is described as terrorism, not intended to define the entire class. That said, I don't think my comments necessarily apply to the IRA, but Timothy McVeigh probably fits the bill.
askar_yu 17y ago
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/weekinreview/04shane.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/weekinreview/04shane.html
elblanco 17y ago
Because they need to keep doing more terrorist attacks, not perpetuate open warfare. If they turn the heat up too much, it turns into open warfare and the U.S. invades Afghanistan. If it stays infrequent and random, the U.S. only does a missile strike. Put another way, if somebody tries to break into your network (even if they fail) every single day, you'll do something to stop it. If they try only every so often, 2 or 3 times a year, you might notice it and be alarmed a bit, but probably wouldn't do anything to stop it. Most likely because 2 or 3 data points isn't enough pattern to figure out an abatement strategy. In Iraq the modus operandi was IEDs, dozens a day, so the U.S. poured enormous resources into defeating IEDs (billions and billions of dollars), that resulted in everything from signal jammers to the popularization of geospatial intelligence and social network analysis. If the method had been infrequent, we would have just been on a heightened sense of alert all the time, but not sure where to resource defeat efforts.
goldbug 16y ago
Terrorism is a tool of government to implement police state: 10 steps necessary for a Fascistic group (or government) to destroy the democratic character of a nation-state and subvert the social/political liberty previously exercised by its citizens: 1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy. 2. Create secret prisons where torture takes place. 3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens. 4. Set up an internal surveillance system. 5. Harass citizens' groups. 6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release. 7. Target key individuals. 8. Control the press. 9. Treat all political dissidents as traitors. 10. Suspend the rule of law. This pattern was implemented in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and any country on the road to totalitarianism. Btw. For military industrial complex who gain from this 40% of US budget this never ending war with ghost enemies. These people are living by killing humans. For them there is no problem to stage such events. 1,3 million Iraqis dead based on total lie about WMD. Of course if you say that Putin could use this type of methods during Moscow terrorist attack everyone would consider that this is totally possible but in USA such things could never happen. Yeaaah right! You are on the path to POLICE STATE and you afraid to face the truth.

215 points by billpg 17y ago

Because they wouldn't be 'sexy', a good terrorist attack plays the media as much as any other factor (number of people wounded/killed, timing and so on). Killing people, especially in batches of 50 or so (sorry, that's not meant rude, just being analytical) is easy. Doing it in a spectacular way ready for media consumption is very hard. Terrorists have a real problem here. If they decided to simply butcher their way through humanity we'd have a much bigger problem. See Algeria for what that world could look like.

jfager 17y ago
I have a hard time believing that the same country that spent an entire day watching a tin-foil balloon float around because it thought a boy was inside wouldn't have a total media freak out over a 'terrist'-linked mall shooting.
- ojbyrne 17y ago
  An entire day yes, but it very rapidly disappeared from the public consciousness. And it didn't change the behavior of government in the slightest (no anti-balloon legislation passed that I know of).
- archon 17y ago
  I'm not sure that the country spent the entire day watching that particular event. The cable news stations did.
- flatline 17y ago
  Same here, the media in this country is nuts. CNN droned on for hours about the truck in Times Square - with no new information! Isn't it supposed to be news? Wouldn't a scrolling update or a blurb at the top of each hour suffice? It actually makes it hard to find out if the situation has changed when the reporting never does. All the major news broadcasts are primarily there for the purpose of entertainment.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    When you really think about it, nothing happened. There was a failed attempt, case closed. A stickup of a convenience store 500 yards away killing two would have never gotten that kind of coverage.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Good point. I think part of the fascination with the balloon incident was that it was about a child, and that there was speculation that it was a hoax and people tried to figure out on which side they came down. The parents did a pretty good job of predicting the public response, I'm surprised they didn't end up in jail for that trick. Let's hope none of their kids ever really gets lost because I'm sure the authorities will assume that it is just another grab for attention with possibly disastrous results. Don't cry 'wolf' when there is no wolf... The media would most definitely freak out over a mall shooting, but mall shootings are not that rare today (right now google news has 650 items linked to that theme), especially if it involved guys in non western clothing. But it would not be on the same level as 'shoe bomber tries to blow up airliner', at least I would think it wouldn't be. If the terrorists really were simply out to kill you, which route would be more effective do you think? Blow up an airliner with a relatively small chance of success with a bomb straight out of some spy novel or to smuggle an armalite in to the local mall and let loose? Can you see malls with body scanners in your future? Schools with body scanners? I'm sure the people selling that stuff would have their wet dreams come true if someone tried that. In NL here we had a craze some years ago where some crazy injected a few oranges in a supermarket with mercury. The media took it and ran with it, causing all kinds of copycat incidents. The funny thing is that mercury is relatively safe as a fluid, it is when it is in vapour form or when it is part of a reactive compound that the trouble begins. That didn't stop an all out panic though, fueled by an uninformed media milking it for all it was worth.
brandong 17y ago
The DC sniper would be a good counterpoint to this. Single kills over a moderate period of time and it generated intense amounts of media coverage.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Yes, it was pretty 'sexy' media wise. Built in sequels. As I said, Algeria is a good example of what happens when that sort of thing goes on all the time. People lose interest, try to ignore it. If terrorism really becomes an every day occurrence it would stop to be news. Look at Iraq, when stuff was blowing up all over the place people simply looked at the totals, the 'bodycounts', not the individual events. It became a statistics issue, but no longer a prime time news issue.
tjmc 17y ago
> Killing people, especially in batches of 50 or so ...is easy. Doing it in a spectacular way ready for media consumption is very hard Depends on who those 50 people (or less) are. The attack on the Sri Lankan national cricket team bus in Pakistan was a type of terrorist escalation that Schneier didn't account for - celebrity. Red carpets aren't guarded to the extent of presidents. Nor are most national sports teams (think Munich 1972) or Fortune 100 CEOs. Not a nice thought - but as you say, just being analytical.

tokenadult 17y ago

The best way for people in civilized societies to defeat terrorism is not to live in fear, and to keep on advancing rationality and freedom.

drunkpotato 17y ago
In order to "keep on" advancing rationality and freedom we would first have to start advancing rationality and freedom. Both are in short supply.
- DrSprout 17y ago
  You could start by making a rational argument instead of appealing to a cynical belief that everyone is irrational and intent on restricting freedom. The essence of the irrationality that pervades American political discourse is exactly that sort of "everyone is crazy" mentality. There are plenty of people advancing rationality and freedom. You aren't one of them.
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    appealing to a cynical belief that everyone is irrational and intent on restricting freedom I don't see that in the GP. It looks to me that he's working from the observation that personal liberty is decreasing, presumably revealing that the decisions being made are not rational. In particular, there's no reason to read into this anything about scope ("everyone"), nor their intent (to restrict freedom). Clearly it would be incorrect to impute this to everyone when the restricted liberty can only be caused by the few in power. Also, it may not be their intent to restrict freedom. Indeed, their intent may be to save our freedom, but due to the observed lack of rationality, their efforts carry the (assumedly unintended) side effect of restricting freedom.
    - drunkpotato 17y ago
      Thank you, that was a very clear and succinct rebuttal. I would add to it, that "advancing freedom" is one of those phrases that is, when you examine it, quite poorly defined. Freedom is more a set of associations than a strict definition, though I'm sure one can find philosophers who have attempted to strictly define it, so you get "freedom sub Professor X". Freedom is much easier to talk about in the abstract than to define, and lends itself to pithy (or, less charitably, glib) phrases that can be twisted to whatever one's own definition of freedom is. My original post was flippant and lacking in nuance, to be sure (still not warranting the personal attack; I do, in fact, attempt to point out logical fallacies and bring about reasonable discourse). I am not immune to making the odd sound-bite myself, though calling my post cynical and then making a strawman attack also does not advance the cause of rationality.

ja30278 17y ago

I've been increasingly wondering about this, and I'm not sure I agree with the article. Schneier asserts that "It's hard to sneak terrorists into the U.S.", which is hard to swallow given the essentially unchecked flow of immigrants coming across the Mexican border every day. Why would a terrorist fly into a major US airport, when he could just as easily fly into Mexico and then walk across the border (carrying as much cargo as he liked). Think of the vast drug shipments that cross this border, and then tell me that sneaking across a small suitcase of biological agents would be difficult. I also disagree that "small attacks aren't enough". If you and 9 of your friends coordinate to roll grenades into 10 elementary schools in 10 different cities, I can assure you that you'd make headlines, and bring daily life to a standstill as parents refused to send their children to school. It's also increasingly bizarre to me that terrorists would target airports or airplanes at all. Airports are the one place where security is most concentrated. Practically speaking, blowing up a plane is probably the most difficult option you could choose if you wanted to kill 300 people. Why not pick one of the other myriad unguarded 'soft' targets where people gather? Either terrorists are incredibly stupid, vanishingly small in number, or both.

jacquesm 17y ago
I've entered the US several times without ever showing a passport or seeing a customs official. The US-Canadian border is pretty much open if you know the terrain. Officially you're required to report in but plenty of people don't bother, especially in winter when all the waterways that are open the rest of the year freeze over. > Either terrorists are incredibly stupid, vanishingly small in number, or both. Stupid for sure, if their stated goal is to bring down society, but they don't really want to do that, they are like petulant kids that crave attention. 9/11 was almost too successful in that respect, it could have easily caused the world to band together in to eradicating this once and for all. Fortunately the Iraq war changed all that, everybody wins. The people that sell anti-terrorism equipment, the terrorists themselves and the media, the politicians too. All those privacy violating laws that got passed in the last couple of years under the banner of 'anti-terror' wouldn't have stood a chance of passing if the general public wasn't kept in a continued state of anxiety. Condition 'red' ...
- 17y ago

axod 17y ago

What does "Terrorism" even mean? Was columbine a terrorist attack? The media is completely messed up beyond belief though. In the UK there was a little girl went missing whilst on holiday, and whilst sad, she's had a massively disproportionate amount of reporting. Still stories in the papers about it now years later.

hugh3 17y ago
No. Terrorism is the deliberate murder of civilians (or threats thereto), in order to advance a political objective. It's not actually all that hard to define, some people just try to deliberately muddy the waters. - The Columbine shootings were not terrorism since they had no political motive. - The assassination of JFK was not terrorism since the President is not, for the purposes of this discussion, a "civilian" (I might need to work on the definition of "civillian") - If a warplane drops a bomb aimed at a tank and it hits an orphanage by accident, that's not terrorism since the civilians weren't the actual target. (Note: that doesn't necessarily mean it was excusable). - The Fort Hood massacre and the many attacks by Al Qaeda against US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are not, strictly speaking, terrorism, since the targets are military rather than civilian (again this just a semantic distinction I'm making here, not a moral one). Any other border cases we'd like to discuss? Note that by this definition terrorist attacks were commonly used by both sides in World War 2.
- axod 17y ago
  But why does the motive matter? I don't think it's useful. Especially when reporting in the media. Perhaps we should call them "random unprovoked killings of civilians".
  - branden 17y ago
    A crime's motive determines in part how you understand it and how you prevent it. Terrorism isn't random; it is focused on a particular goal and planned in advance. Unhinged mall shooters won't be stopped by coordinated intelligence gathering, and they can't be investigated for links to other such shooters. Any similarity between such acts and terrorism is superficial at best and requires that you ignore the crime's context. A media that doesn't distinguish the two will either trivialize terrorism or needlessly sensationalize random violent acts.

deleted 17y ago

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jefarmstrong 17y ago

One factor that I think the post gets wrong is that it's hard to make a bomb. The NYC "bomb" that just fizzled is a good example. From the limited descriptions it sounds like that thing would never have blown up. Catch fire and burn, maybe. You can't just throw some propane tanks, a couple of fireworks and gas together and expect it to blow up. The Oklahoma bomb was a huge undertaking. Also, the more time and effort you put into building a real bomb, the more likely you are to get caught - buying lots of (the right kind of) fertilizer is a telltale sign.

ErrantX 17y ago
I suspect there is a missing qualifier there. i.e; "Bombs are easy to make if you have some common sense". Bombs can come in all shapes and forms; I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people here (for example) could overcome the problem of a) building it and b) not using obvious "tell tale" materials. Off hand I recall Meth can be created out of "household" products and the reactions involved can be very volatile/explosive - that seems like the possible makings of an effective bomb right there. (also; tracking fertilizer sales is probably not going to help you ID terrorists :) I bet the numbers are just crazy - also, any sensible terrorist will be nicking small quantities from farms etc.) On the other hand terrorist converts acting alone are, I suggest, less likely to be able to do the correct research and construction.
- danudey 17y ago
  Somehow I think setting up a meth lab in a parkade near a building's support structures would be noticed by security.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    You don't have to set up a lab; the bomb is produced by unstable chemicals. At the very least you could drive up a van and mix those chemicals together.

vaksel 17y ago

actually I think the smaller terrorist attacks would be much more effective at instilling terror. remember the dc sniper? After the first couple of people were killed, everyone started running in zig zags everywhere they went. blow up a bus or a train once a week, and you'll shut down most cities. It doesn't even have to be a huge bomb. A few fire crackers that kill/wound 1-2 people and the media will do it's job in making people think it's the end of the world. and if they can't get bombs/firecrackers, they can always buy a few automatic weapons at any gun store, and open up on a few trains/buses/malls. Same effect without the boom. Terrorism is just overhyped, since media has nothing better to do. Take 2009..let's list all the terrorist attacks in the United States: 2/4/2009 - Chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board wounded in a car bomb.(probably abortion related) 5/25/2009 - someone blows up a starbucks bench(0 casualties) 6/1/2009 - a muslim shoots up a recruiting station(1 dead, 1 wounded) 12/25/2009 - the underwear bomber(0 casualties) So a total of 4 attacks, 1 dead, 2 wounded. And none of them were organized, terrorists aren't the evil geniuses that the media paints them as. In fact most terrorists. are basically just wannabees who've watched the news and want to be part of the "war". You have a bigger chance of getting killed by a falling tree or getting hit by lighting, than you do of getting hurt in a terrorist attack. Terrorism is just hype, it's a small criminal matter, that's not worth the trillions the United States is spending to fight it. It's all just security theater....make people think something is being done, when in reality nothing they can do can stop any further attacks. But the "terrorists are coming to kill you!" sure does work in getting the public to agree to anything you want.

jacquesm 17y ago
> Terrorism is just hype, it's a small criminal matter, that's not worth the trillions the United States is spending to fight it Yes, but think about the money that is being made by keeping the hype alive.
zaidf 17y ago
Terrorism is just hype, it's a small criminal matter, that's not worth the trillions the United States Counter argument to that is that it is because of the billions in spending that actual terrorism is such a rare occurance.

dkarl 17y ago

One thing I wonder about, but have no basis for knowing, is whether it was easier ten years ago for Al Qaeda to convince the 9/11 attackers that they would have the adulation and gratitude of the Muslim community at large. At that time, terrorism in the Muslim public's mind was mostly associated with Palestinians fighting Israeli occupation, and the 9/11 attack was framed as a blow against U.S. occupation of the Arabian Peninsula. I'm sure many potential terrorists have since heard their friends, family, and neighbors comment unfavorably on the 9/11 attacks and their consequences for Muslims and for the image of Islam. That might hurt recruiting among people who are smart and social enough to be part of a large-scale attack.

fredBuddemeyer 17y ago

yes most of these actions are the work of a lone nut but the problem is the increasing impact that nut has thanks to evolving technology. the ability to cause mass destruction is following a law similar to mr. moore's (albeit we are on the early, flat part of this curve). a century ago it was impossible to wipe out a huge population; 50 years ago the largest nations could do it. today the nuclear and biological options have added an order of magnitude to the club and there is no reason to believe this will stop. rather than a vested political group that would themselves be subject to revenge it's the irrational individual that will inevitably prove most destructive.

raquo 17y ago

I don't know about the US, but here in Moscow/Russia terrorism seems much more organized. We don't have amateur school shootings, we mainly get train/subway/plane bombings. In the past we used to have whole buildings demolished by bombs. Apart from funding justification, it often seems like "Don't push on us here in Caucasus, or else we bring terror closer to you" message from terrorists to the government.

c00p3r 17y ago

The terrorist attacks tend to happen when the governments need to shift a public attention from their deep troubles. And this tendency is not limited to the third world like Russia. So, it's just not an appropriate time.

goldbug 16y ago
You are totally right.

sabat 17y ago

I appreciate Bruce's attempts, but as usual, I'm skeptical about his presumed knowledge about every area of security merely because he's an accomplished cryptographer. Security is a mish-mash of scattered fields related only by the concern that someone is going to do something undesirable. I have strong doubts that being a cryptographer qualifies you, automatically, as an expert in physical security. We need to face the fact the reason there aren't more terrorist attacks is simply because there are not that many people in the world are genuinely willing to commit suicide while taking other lives. Schneier's not entirely wrong, but I think his reasons are peripheral.

iron_ball 17y ago
Well, that was precisely one of his points. There aren't all that many terrorists out there.
- sabat 17y ago
  If you define "terrorist" as someone who is actually going to attempt to take others' lives (and possibly his own), then sure. I'm not that sure this is what Bruce meant.
timcederman 17y ago
Not to be too condescending, but it's pretty obvious you haven't studied information security at all (let alone read Schneier's work?). Saying someone is "only" an "accomplished cryptographer" really diminishes what is required to have the mindset that makes you a good cryptographer, amongst other things.
- sabat 17y ago
  Actually I have 10+ years in the field, am a CISSP, and was a CISO in the financial services industry for 6 years. Saying someone is "only" an "accomplished cryptographer" really diminishes what is required to have the mindset that makes you a good cryptographer That's precisely the point of view I'm refuting. The kind of mindset you need to be a good cryptographer has little or nothing to do with being good at physical security, network security, or any other field of security. The reason: informations security is composed of disparate fields, related only by the need to maintain C., I., and A.

mcantelon 17y ago

Terrorism in America is a much lower threat than mundane factors such as traffic safety. Terrorism, however, justifies the creation of counter-insurgence infrastructure (and supporting industry) which will be useful to the establishment as America de-industrializes. America will, at some point, face internal conflict as it implements the austerity measures necessary to continue to finance military campaigns, service debt (directly or via currency inflation), and continue to adapt to trade imbalances.

EliAndrewC 17y ago

Last year, Slate published an in-depth series of articles summarizing the various theories about why we haven't seen more terrorist attacks, e.g. the "Terrorists are Dumb" theory, the "Near Enemy" theory, the "Bush kept us safe" theory, etc. The series was very interested and well-cited and echoes many of the points that Schneier makes in the OP and may be found here: http://www.slate.com/id/2208971/ http://www.slate.com/id/2208971/

raganwald 17y ago

For the three (maybe four) hackers who haven't already seen it, please watch Terry Gilliam's brilliant dark satire Brazil. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/

metamemetics 17y ago

>Note that this is very different than terrorism by an occupied population: the IRA in Northern Ireland, Iraqis in Iraq, Palestinians in Israel. Setting aside the actual politics, all of these terrorists believe they are repelling foreign invaders. That's not the situation here in the U.S. Not so sure about that point, Osama's stated reason was US military bases in Saudi Arabia (viewing it as a foreign invasion) and support for Israel (viewing it as a foreign invasion).

roc 17y ago
I think that those situations are different from Al Qaeda striking the west, though I agree that Schneier's imprecise on the distinction. The big difference is that those acts are local rebellion. The actions by locals, against an "other" (or its agents/totems) within the locality, have little to fear from other civilians who might happen upon them plotting, training, preparing or delivering terror against the "other". And for the attack to be successful, it merely has to be "news" within the locality. You don't need to inspire/impress a command/support structure half-a-world-away. You just need to keep the support of others in the locality. An "other" operating within a foreign country, however, risks exposure at every turn. Particularly within a country "alert" to the risk and when the "other" is trivially identifiable as such. And his attacks must be more about style, as he needs to inspire/impress people with no local context for a precise or less spectacular attack.

budu 17y ago

Because of Jack Bauer!!!

radioactive21 17y ago

The part where he mentions Muslims in America do not support it is a good point to note. I have Muslim friends, and they have told me that even amongst the hardcore Muslims in the US, there are lots of talk about disagreement of US policy but no one ever talks or jokes about terrorist attacks. Even in private or just friendly talks. On a side note another thing that I did find interesting that my friend told me was that the FBI visits Mosques frequently. Just to have friendly talk or to keep in touch. US intelligence works with local Muslim activist and Mosques more than people think.

911miss 17y ago

This is why: http://imgur.com/fwP2Z?tags http://imgur.com/fwP2Z?tags

jbrennan 17y ago
Wait, what?

meelash 17y ago

There aren't more terrorist attacks, because the classification as "terrorist" is a false classification. In reality the same mindset, motives, situation, that allegedly drive "terrorists" drive the people who are committing murders of their friends/family/coworkers/random-people every day. When an act of violence is carried out by a Muslim-named individual with an ostensibly political motive, you classify that as terrorism, whereas the underlying psychosis that leads to the crime is the same as most other acts of violence. The manifestation of that psychosis has circumstances and external justification that are irrational, random, and individual to each person. So this question is like asking, "Why aren't there more 5'7", 11 shoe size, blue sweater-ed murderers?" The fact that there are not more "terrorist attacks" is proof that the classification of "terrorist attacks" is an unnaturally narrow one, based on arbitrary features of the perpetrators.

smallblacksun 16y ago
The word "terrorism" is not only applied to Muslims. McVeigh is called a terrorist. The IRA were called terrorists.
- meelash 16y ago
  It was an example of one situation that is described as terrorism, not intended to define the entire class. That said, I don't think my comments necessarily apply to the IRA, but Timothy McVeigh probably fits the bill.

askar_yu 17y ago

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/weekinreview/04shane.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/weekinreview/04shane.html

elblanco 17y ago

Because they need to keep doing more terrorist attacks, not perpetuate open warfare. If they turn the heat up too much, it turns into open warfare and the U.S. invades Afghanistan. If it stays infrequent and random, the U.S. only does a missile strike. Put another way, if somebody tries to break into your network (even if they fail) every single day, you'll do something to stop it. If they try only every so often, 2 or 3 times a year, you might notice it and be alarmed a bit, but probably wouldn't do anything to stop it. Most likely because 2 or 3 data points isn't enough pattern to figure out an abatement strategy. In Iraq the modus operandi was IEDs, dozens a day, so the U.S. poured enormous resources into defeating IEDs (billions and billions of dollars), that resulted in everything from signal jammers to the popularization of geospatial intelligence and social network analysis. If the method had been infrequent, we would have just been on a heightened sense of alert all the time, but not sure where to resource defeat efforts.

goldbug 16y ago

Terrorism is a tool of government to implement police state: 10 steps necessary for a Fascistic group (or government) to destroy the democratic character of a nation-state and subvert the social/political liberty previously exercised by its citizens: 1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy. 2. Create secret prisons where torture takes place. 3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens. 4. Set up an internal surveillance system. 5. Harass citizens' groups. 6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release. 7. Target key individuals. 8. Control the press. 9. Treat all political dissidents as traitors. 10. Suspend the rule of law. This pattern was implemented in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and any country on the road to totalitarianism. Btw. For military industrial complex who gain from this 40% of US budget this never ending war with ghost enemies. These people are living by killing humans. For them there is no problem to stage such events. 1,3 million Iraqis dead based on total lie about WMD. Of course if you say that Putin could use this type of methods during Moscow terrorist attack everyone would consider that this is totally possible but in USA such things could never happen. Yeaaah right! You are on the path to POLICE STATE and you afraid to face the truth.