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The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On
- rayiner 14y ago"Terrorism, even the terrorism of radical Islamists and right-wing extremists and lone actors all put together, is not an 'existential threat' against our nation. Even the events of 9/11, as horrific as they were, didn't do existential damage to our nation. Our society is more robust than it might seem from watching the news. We need to start acting that way." I wonder if there were people saying that to Romans about the barbarian Germanic hordes.
- GuiA 14y agoThere's a key difference between the two, and I'm confident that you know that yourself :)
- rayiner 14y agoEnlighten me.
- pazimzadeh 14y agoBoston was not invaded, sieged, or sacked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(410) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(410)
- cynicalkane 14y agoThe Germans were the border of the nation of Rome from 100 BC until the Empire fell. They once slaughtered an entire Republic field army--and remember the Republic's army consisted of most of Rome's young, able-bodied citizens. They defeated Augustus, among other emperors, and eventually sacked Rome. Twice. Before making the whole thing collapse. So, small difference.
- rayiner 14y agoSo because we're geographically isolated, there is nothing to worry about? Modern technology doesn't change the circumstances any?
- cynicalkane 14y agoThe point I'm trying to make is the differences between terrorists and invading Germans are all of them. You might as well compare terrorists to the Irish potato famine.
- rayiner 14y agoMy point isn't that islamic terrorists are like Germans. It's that Schneier's comment smacks of an inability to contemplate that anything bad could happen to the U.S., much like I imagine the attitude was in Rome before Germans proved them wrong.
- setrofim_ 14y agoI'm pretty sure he has the ability (and even makes a game out it[1]). What Schneier is saying is that U.S. citizens should not let the country's policy be dictated by panic blown-out-proportion reactions to imaginary threats. [1] http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/sixth_movie-plo.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/sixth_movie-pl...
- jlgreco 14y agoWhat exactly are you envisioning here? If not a sacking of the country by terrorist hoards, what exactly are you proposing the parallels between the fall of Rome and our modern society will be? I can envision terrorist attacks doing major irreversible damage to our society, but only through the fear, spiraling out of control, that they have the potential to cause. A fear so excessive that it could figuratively drive our society off the cliffs of Saipan. Presumably (since you appear to be advocating fear, and since it would be plainly idiotic to suggest a sacking is immenent) you are suggesting a different mechanism. So what is this mechanism?
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- mladenkovacevic 14y agoIf anyone's experiencing Rome's fate as a result of Islamic extremist activity it's the countries in the middle east we've chosen as a battlefield against terrorism. In fact it's worse than Rome because on one side you've got the American troops and drones, while on the other side you've got suicide bombers. Basically death and destruction at every turn. If anyone's going to end up sacking and pillaging America it'll be American corporate greed and not extremists. Now there's some barbarian hordes you should be watching out for.
- girvo 14y agoPerhaps its because I just finished reading Brendan DuBois' "Resurrection Day", but I feel that the only thing that could really bring the US to its knees in the way you are envisioning would be full-scale nuclear war on the US mainland. Not terrorists.
- darkarmani 14y ago> I wonder if there were people saying that to Romans about the barbarian Germanic hordes. I'm not sure why Germans would be bombing Boston because of the Romans. You aren't really thinking this through. The Romans don't even have an empire anymore.
- carbocation 14y agoI think for HN it's worth noting, perhaps in the title, that this article is written by Bruce Schneier.
- AVTizzle 14y agoBecause I needed to look it up, too: "Bruce Schneier an American cryptographer, computer security specialist, and writer. He is the author of several books on general security topics, computer security and cryptography." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Schneier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Schneier
- gizmo686 14y agoIf you ask me to name a cryptographer, Scheier is by far the first one that comes to mind. Also, in my experience, his book, Applied Cryptography, is by far the most reccomended book for people new to crypto.
- AgentConundrum 14y agoI know basically nothing about cryptography, but Scheier is the first to my mind as well. The only other name that even comes to my mind is Colin Percival, but that's only because of his comments on HN (cperciva).
- tptacek 14y agoApplied Cryptography is a terrible reference. Please don't recommend it to programmers. Instead, recommend Practical Cryptography / Cryptography Engineering (they're the same book), which Schneier co-authored with Niels Fergusen. Update: I said "terrible book" but I'm going to start being more precise about this. It's not a terrible "book"; I enjoyed the hell out of it when I was a teenager. It's just misleading and dangerous.
- chii 14y agoNot having read (nor the time and inclination to read) the book, what is so bad about it, and what is the difference with the one you do recommend?
- rurounijones 14y agoGlad this got posted quickly. I can already see the glee in intelligence / law enforcement agencys' eyes as they think how they can use this latest incident as reasoning for more over-arching powers. For a long time Londoners had to put up with IRA bombs but "Kept calm and carried on" (to use the phrase). I hope the US can follow suit. [EDIT] Changed "secret service" to "intelligence / law enforcement agencies" to avoid confusion.
- rayiner 14y agoWhat does the secret service have anything to do with this?
- rurounijones 14y agoSorry, forgot that the Secret Service is an actual thing in the US. Amended post.
- riggins 14y ago"For a long time Londoners had to put up with IRA bombs but "Kept calm and carried on" " I really feel like a "keep calm carry on" ad campaign could do some good. Shift the mindset from 'ACKKK TERRORISTS!' to 'I can handle this'
- zanny 14y agoShifting the mindset doesn't enable for profit private defense contractors and firms providing law enforcement equipment from making fistfulls of profits from taxpayer money.
- twoodfin 14y agoThis is a non-sequitur. Just because people in London didn't panic (and neither have I seen much that could aptly be described as "panic" in the U.S.), it doesn't follow that the British authorities didn't acquire more security and policing powers to deal with the IRA.
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- untog 14y agoIt was a great moment of national pride for me (which are rare in the UK) in the wake of the 7/7/2005 bombings. People were back on the Tube and buses the next day, refusing to allow their lives to be disrupted further. I've always taken solace from those people- I hope that the people of Boston can be equally inspiring.
- dpeck 14y agoThe British resolve is something that those of us across the pond seem to have lost, or perhaps it is something that was developed in the British people during the terrible days of WW1 and WW2. We here tend to work more of a spirit of freak-outery and cynicism. And as much as it annoys me, I think its more a symptom of how relatively little most of us and our ancestors have had to worry about in the US as much of our history was as a mostly rural international backwater that quickly transitioned quickly to a world power with oceans and, almost always, peaceful neighbors on its borders. Which is something to be thankful for, even if it has led to a fairly weak resolve.
- greenyoda 14y agoI saw no shortage of resolve in NYC after 9/11. Just as untog said of London, we all went to work the next day and carried on with our lives.
- dpeck 14y agoperhaps, and I in no way diminish the everyday heroism of doing that. I don't remember much about NYCs reaction, as I was in school in Atlanta at the time. But my father worked on an air force base at the time and reactions there and around that town were anything but carrying on.
- MBlume 14y agoThere was an excellent article by a New Yorker a while back contrasting the response within NYC with that of the rest of the country.
- yarou 14y agoInter arma enim silent leges.
- comicjk 14y agoErgo impiorum designare omnia tempora "inter arma"
- greenyoda 14y agoTranslation from the Latin, with help from Google Translate: Amidst warfare, laws are silent. Therefore the wicked shall designate all times "amidst warfare". Edit: Searching for the first phrase, "inter arma enim silent leges", found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_arma_enim_silent_leges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_arma_enim_silent_leges Apparently, the original is from Cicero (slightly differently worded).
- jdotjdot 14y agoThanks for this quote (and the translation) -- this is great. Thought I was reading House of Leaves there for a second.
- nraynaud 14y agoI got lucky to leave the USA the day before they raise the crazy level at the airports. I wonder what they will imagine to render flying and border-crossing worse. I guess "make the leaders live abroad for a while and force them to read enlightenment century books" is off the table as a reaction to terrorism?
- tquai 14y agoFWIW, Obama and Romney have both lived abroad. I think it takes a certain kind of person to want to be president, and the effect of travel is different on a person like that. For this and other reasons, I think electoral politics is one of the least effective places to put energy, in working for change.
- hiddenfeatures 14y agoAs Bill Maher so eloquently put it: "Its horrible, but this time, let's not overreact, wallow, erect monuments to terrorism; let's handle it Israeli-Munich style" Source: https://twitter.com/billmaher/status/323951293506924544 https://twitter.com/billmaher/status/323951293506924544
- cup 14y agoBy assassinating (and abusing due process) those responsible rather than adressing the issues which continue to allow this circle of violence and retaliatory action to continue ad nauseum.
- lostlogin 14y agoI know you haven't said this, but due process hasn't been followed in prior years - gitmo prisoners still languish in limbo.
- rangibaby 14y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
- afhof 14y agoIts too bad that most people don't have a basic appreciation of statistics or probability. Its too bad Schneier only spends a tiny paragraph on it: "Even though this will be in the news for weeks, we should recognize this for what it is: a rare event". The chance that a person will die from a bombing, or be shot, or their plane crash, or a hurricane kill them is so small that there is almost NO reason to be afraid of it. It is far more likely that a person will die of Heart disease or cancer than any of the above. What will almost certainly kill us, we accept. What is almost inconsequential to us, we abhor.
- rayiner 14y agoPeople don't react to terrorism because they're afraid of being blown up personally. They do it because they're afraid of the precedent that might be set by not responding. It's statistically unlikely that you'll be the victim of gang violence, but does that mean it's irrational prosecute and punish gang members? No, because the activity threatens social stability vastly out of proportion with the probability of any given person being victim to it. In general, we punish crimes not because it's likely that we'll be the victims of one, but because if we don't the problem might grow out of hand and undermine civil order.
- timr 14y ago#citationneeded Really now. I don't need to go much beyond the evening news to know that people spend a lot of time being afraid of things that aren't likely to happen. (What don't you know about your toothbrush that could kill you? Probably very little.) Your model of humanity is one that's much more rational and thoughtful than what I've come to expect from my neighbors. Nobody is scared of a decline in social stability; they're scared of getting shot or robbed or blown up. Usually by people who look different than they do.
- rayiner 14y agoListen to Obama's speech on the issue. It's targeted to calm the average American. Listen to the word he uses to characterize the administration's response: justice. What does "justice" mean in this context? It means nothing other than the government's response to activity that threatens social stability and psychologically remedy the injuries created by actions that upset social stability.
- yk 14y agoReading this, the thought struck me that we should perhaps not think of terrorism as violence, but rather as black hat PR. So TSA and GWOT are actually no more helpful than a bad review for a movie.
- Cieplak 14y ago"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
- ptaipale 14y agoBTW, as far as I understand, this quote is nowadays used in a way that rather different or even contradicting with its original one. Originally, Franklin was rallying up militia to take up arms against roving bands, or perhaps even "extremists" as they might be called today. So "purchasing safety" was "not joining armed forces that fight criminals and enemies". This was before the revolution, and what Americans call "the frontier" was in Pennsylvania.
- seivan 14y agoProbably going to get very well down voted for this, but it hasn't stopped me before. It's not through terrorism they beat us. But through politics. Either twisting the minds of the current leaders, or infecting political parties and slowly implementing sharia - happening in Sweden, with our own tax money. Forget gay and female civil rights.
- no_more_death 14y agoSeivan, I apologize deeply for getting your comment off track, and I hope others will not follow this further from your main point. However, I would just offer a quick point of advice. Don't spend keystrokes saying you might be down-voted for something. It's actually bolder to just say what you're going to say. When you reference downvoting, you stigmatize it and influence people not to do so. I would rather know if people are going to have a downvote reaction to my comment than shame them into not downvoting me. I've had the exact same tendency to observe "well I might get downvoted for this," but I think it's a tendency that should be resisted.
- seivan 14y agoFair enough, appreciate the input. I'll remember it till next time, and you're kinda on to something, it sounds defeatist and quite frankly just tacky.
- subsystem 14y agoOr just don't write it at all since expected to be down voted is often a sign of unfounded opinions. In this case there's no indication at this point of this being done by jihadists, which makes the previous comment ignorant at best.
- nl 14y agoSpeaking of which, here's the results. They are notable because a non-Kenyan won for the first time in 3 years. Men Lelisa Desisa (Eth): 2:10:22 Micah Kogo (Ken): 2:10:27 Gebregziabher Gebremariam (Eth): ? Women Rita Jeptoo (Ken): 2:26:25 Meseret Hailu (Eth) Sharon Cherop (Ken)
- knodi 14y agoFinally some common sense in a world where common sense isn't so common. Don't let fear rule you, i'm glad not all media is out to scare people.
- ronnier 14y ago"Keep Calm and Carry On". This phrase from the British has peaked in recent times. http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Calm%20and%20Carry%20On http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Calm%20and%20Carry%20... A week hardly passes that I don't see it on a shirt, a coworkers wall, or in a meme.
- buro9 14y agoIt certainly beats the prior poster in 1939 of "Freedom Is In Peril Defend It With All Your Might".
- eli_gottlieb 14y agoSign of the times.
- dutchbrit 14y agoBruce mentions that one of the reasons why people should stay calm is that terrorists are dumb. However, this could be the actions of a new Unabomber (let us hope it isn't), who managed to go on a bombing streak for 18 years without being caught. It's really too early to start making assumptions. I say, don't keep calm and carry on, take this as an example that life can end any second, just like that, out of nowhere. Live your life enjoying what you do. Most of us don't, which is sad. If you're enjoying life to the fullest, carry on. If you aren't living your life to the fullest, then no, don't just 'carry on'. Life is fragile, and this should be a reminder. I for one know, I shouldn't 'carry on'. I need to improve my life. Make the most out of your precious time.
- GeorgeTirebiter 14y agoYou are aware that "we" basically created the Unabomber, yes? http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/06/chase.htm http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/06/chase.ht...
- dutchbrit 14y agoCreated or not, it's still plausible that this could happen again. Good read btw!
- MichaelApproved 14y ago"It turns out that terrorism is much harder than most people think. It's hard to find willing terrorists, it's hard to put a plot together, it's hard to get materials, and it's hard to execute a workable plan. As a collective group, terrorists are dumb, and they make dumb mistakes; criminal masterminds are another myth from movies and comic books." He is very wrong. He is confusing foot soldiers with their leaders. Terrorist leaders are not dumb. Yes, it's harder than we think but not for the reasons in the article. In Israel, there was a wave of bombings every few days. The bombers were not dumb. They were very successful and killed many people. I believe that it wasn't until the borders got sealed tight that the bombings subsided. That's why they had to resort to using Katyusha rockets but, believe me, if they could get in the country, they'd blow things up, no problem. Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan all have had regular waves of successful suicide bombings. What keeps the US relatively free of terrorism is the massive ocean that's between the terrorists and their target. It makes an operation much harder to execute because it's more remote from their base of operations. What we've seen so far is the evolution of their attempts to bridge that gap. The author is confusing these early experiments with stupidity. The terrorists are smart and they learn from the failures of their experiments. Eventually, they'll get better at blowing things up from a distance. If we write them off as dumb, we're going to be in for a surprise when they perfect their methods. Edit: Israel is tiny and could control its borders much easier than Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan and the US. We see that Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan are very vulnerable to terrorism because their borders are easy to penetrate. The US has the advantage of an ocean defending its borders. Eventually, they'll overcome that obstacle.
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- markdown 14y ago> What keeps the US relatively free of terrorism is the massive ocean that's between the terrorists and their target. What keeps most countries relatively free from terrorism is that they aren't occupying other peoples land or bombing their women and children all the way to hell. Ever wonder why extremists haven't bombed the Cook Islands or Peru?
- rdfmq 14y agoWow this article is bullshit. If we want to stop getting bombed, we need to stop bombing other countries. Simple as that. What happened in Boston today happens every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks to America.
- kleiba 14y agoThose on the other are criminals. They should be found, arrested, and punished. Wait, you are saying terrorists deserve a fair trial, too? What a strange concept...
- venomsnake 14y agoThat is refreshingly sane. Sadly I fear that there will be total overreaction by the government and the media. The only proper reaction is take care of the survivors, bring the responsible to justice and then cry for the dead. Do not assassinate them - bringing them in chains in court is much more humiliating.
- MichaelApproved 14y ago"bring the responsible to justice" Probably the most difficult parts of this will be to define who is responsible and what exactly constitutes as justice.
- venomsnake 14y agoTried in a federal court with the full rights and protections defined by the US constitution etc etc. Killing them like osama, blasting them with a drone or detaining them in gitmo means the terrorist have won, because they have dragged the system down to their own level. Also it still may be not an act of terror. Just some wackos that decide it is fun to blow stuff up. They don't have a need for a political agenda or ideology to do stuff like that.
- MichaelApproved 14y ago"Killing them like osama[...] means the terrorist have won," I don't understand the trouble you have with the Osama situation. The US attempted to apprehend Osama so they could bring him to justice but he resisted and was shot to death. How would you have handled that situation?
- venomsnake 14y agoI would have tortured him then executed him by slow pig blood transfusion. But I am not a good man. I like revenge. And yet I think that the most powerful and expensive military in the world should have found a way to properly extract him. I am not convinced that the way it was handled brought the needed closure to the 9/11 events. It just proved that US was better at targeted killing than Al Caida or whatever that ragtag bunch was called.
- nu2ycombinator 14y agoThe title "Marathon Bombing" does not give right vibe. :(
- AustinLin 14y agoThank you for this.
- everyone 14y ago"Our fears would play right into the perpetrators' hands -- and magnify the power of their victory for whichever goals whatever group behind this, still to be uncovered, has." Thats really bad writing!
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- mikestew 14y agoI ran the prestigious marathon for the first time yesterday. I had a good race, set a new best time for recent years, and had a great experience. The only thing I would have been able to do yesterday was give blood, and that apparently wasn't needed. So there's nothing I can do, and fretting and worrying isn't going to change anything. Walking around scared isn't going to prevent anything. I sympathize with those affected, from those who lost friends and family to the thousands who were not allowed to finish the race. What I won't do is make the bombing the primary memory of the race. Sorry, bombers, you're not taking that away. I'll allow it to stand as a seperate, tragic event in my mind and deal with it from there. Today my wife and I will go walk the Freedom Trail just as we planned. Maybe we won't get into some (or any) of the monuments, but we're doing it regardless. I mean, what else are we supposed to do, huddle in our hotel room until our flight tomorrow? The breakfast place a block south of the closed off crime scene is open, so we're off to go get some food now.
- nraynaud 14y agoread "Boston Massacre" memorial plate. The wording is interesting (at least for a foreigner).
- chii 14y agowhat does it say on it, if you can recall?
- SkyMarshal 14y agoWith a little googling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boston_Massacre_high-res.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boston_Massacre_high-res.j... and more clearly: http://www.masshist.org/database/transcription.cfm?transcriptDir=masshist&transcript=bloodymassacre.xml&queryID=178 http://www.masshist.org/database/transcription.cfm?transcrip...
- nraynaud 14y agoSorry, I was just referring to the plate in the street. I didn't know about this article and that there was a possible confusion.
- occam65 14y agoExcuse my frankness, and this is a nice article and all, but why is this on Hacker News? I understand it being a very big story in the general news, but I come here for stories about a particular topic.
- bane 14y agoTalking with some friends we all were reminded, we've been in a constant state of war for over a decade now (20 combined years if you think about in a different way). There's a qualitative difference in the populace since 9/11. The first responders in Boston were nurses who had been combat medics during the height of the Iraq war -- people who had seen the same scene dozens of times. Following them were soldiers in uniform who cleared the area of debris to make evacuation easier. It's no doubt a reason the deaths were held to 3. One of the major outcomes of WWI and WWII was a rapid advancement in trauma surgery, with reconstructive surgery advancing decades almost overnight. It'll be one of the enduring legacies of the Iraq and Afghan Wars that those who lot their legs in this event will be running the marathon again.
- squozzer 14y agoAs much as I'd like to agree with the estimable Mr. Schneier, there's a part of me who remembers watching "Brazil" and the scene where the restaurant blows up and everyone just goes about their business. Later, if you remember, the protagonist goes through the wringer for failing to have a proper form 27/6 on a minor matter. So why should we keep calm, not in the face of a terrorist attack, but knowing that our government has priorities that differ from the people's? Consider how much time and energy our government spends to stop file-sharing and pot smoking, which despite what Nancy Reagan might have said, has not contributed much of anything to the terrorist financial networks. I'm not so sure the measures taken so far to prevent terrorism were even designed for that purpose. Given the rotten state of government finances and the US's overall economic decline, the massive surveillance apparatus under construction seems better suited to preventing capital flight than plot detection. It's sort of like the massive fence that used to separate Czechoslovakia from West Germany. The Czechs supposedly built it to keep NATO out, but the nuts and bolts faced towards West Germany. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. And I wouldn't mind it one bit.
- perlgeek 14y agoOne country that did it right was Norway. After shooting and bombing in 2011, this is what the prime minister's reaction was: > Stoltenberg further vowed that the attack would not hurt Norwegian democracy, and said the proper answer to the violence was "more democracy, more openness, but not naivety". Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks#Domestic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks#Domestic Please, can we have such a sensible reaction everywhere?