2 ms·

Rationally, the deterrence should increase monotonically with the chance of being caught. With two serial 90% effective checks, you have a 99% effective system

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.

belorn 10y ago
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.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  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.
  - belorn 10y ago
    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.
    - robotresearcher 10y ago
      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.
      - belorn 10y ago
        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.

belorn 10y ago

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.

robotresearcher 10y ago
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.
- belorn 10y ago
  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.
  - robotresearcher 10y ago
    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.
    - belorn 10y ago
      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.