Look it up people, it’s terrorism.

Wouldn’t you say the Oklahoma City bombing was terrorism? The news media sure did. Joseph Stack harbored a grudge against the US Government for perceived wrongs, much like Tim McVeigh.

Several easy-to-find definitions of terrorism (although a widely agreed-to definition somehow still escapes us).

Princeton.edu

The calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.

Wiktionary.org

1. The deliberate commission of an act of violence to create an emotional response through the suffering of the victims in the furtherance of a political or social agenda.
2. Violence against civilians to achieve military or political objectives.

An act of violence against civilians in the furtherance of a political or social agenda is terrorism no matter who the perpetrator is.

The new “millimeter wave scanners” rolling out in some U.S. airports — and used as part of the “secondary screening” on selected passengers — photograph the human body through the clothing with a high-degree of photo-realistic accuracy.

From the article:

“These machines, which show detailed images of a person’s naked body, are equivalent to a ‘virtual strip search,’ ” says the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). “The image resolution … is high so the picture of the body presented to screeners is detailed enough to show genitalia.”

…and…

Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union marvels at the government’s double standard: “If Playboy published them, there would be politicians out there saying they’re pornographic.”

The TSA has also begun handing out cracker-jack-box badges to it’s workforce and outfitting them in blue, police-looking uniforms. Real law enforcement officers are none to happy being cast in the same lot with the TSA workers.

Now … they want to see us naked. Are we ready yet to say enough is enough, or will we, as we have since 9/11, simply march like lemmings through the nudie-portal and continue to let the TSA and their policies run amok, awash in excessive power and limited, ineffective oversight?

The TSA itself likely represents the greatest threat to aviation safety and the long-term economic viability of the airline industry. In so poorly executing their mission, they create a very thin illusion of security when in fact it could be argued the aviation safety record of the last 7 years was achieved in spite of them, rather than because of them.

A serious, thoughtful discussion needs to occur about how best to understand and guard against whatever the real threat to airline safety is, and shape new policies and, if necessary, organizations around the outcomes of that discussion. The TSA was hastily conceived during a period of fear and sorrow and since inception the divergence between real threats and their ill-conceived policies has only grown. 5 ounces of shampoo and a butter knife do not a terrorist make. Folks, It’s time to start over with this one.

I’m sure there is real investigation going on and real plots are being uncovered and disrupted. But the ones that seem to get the most attention are the ones that revolve around sensational targets or the potential, however remote, of mass-casualties, regardless of the actors’ operational capacity.

As he says in his article: “[...] in this country, while you have to be competent to pull off a terrorist attack, you don’t have to be competent to cause terror.”

Perhaps these stories are the security equivalent of an opiate for the masses. The appearance that the security folks are “on the job” and “getting things done”. The reality sometimes seems so different.

There are real terrorists out there that pose a real threat to us. Too often, the ones you see getting arrested on TV or simmering in their cages at Gitmo aren’t the ones we should worry about.

From their site:
[...]
“OptOutPreScreen.com is the official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry website to accept and process requests from consumers to Opt-In or Opt-Out of firm offers of credit or insurance.”
[...]

In short, the site allows you to opt-out from (for 5 years or permanently), or opt-in to, the “…lists used by creditors or insurers to make firm offers of credit or insurance that are not initiated by you…”.

About 50% of the junk mail I receive are from credit card companies offering credit lines or cards with teaser rates for balance transfers. If this will stop 50% of my junk mail, I’ll be one happy camper.

BBC News has an article reflecting on the shrinking boundaries within which parents limit their children. Parents today can easily be overwhelmed by compelling and tragic stories of losing a child — to illness, accidental death, kidnapping or worse. There are people whose careers are built around keeping attention focused on these tragedies (some I prefer to others).

The result of this deluge of despair is a cadre of parents who feel feel that — to keep from having to bear the weight of a similar tragedy firsthand — they must take all possible steps to protect and sanitize their kids experiences from not only real threats, but from all possible threats they (with the help of 24-hour-global-news) can imagine. The result is an ever-shrinking bubble of pseudo-reality parents attempt to craft for their kids that may ultimately do more harm than good.

The BBC article discusses this trend, and it’s possible impact on childhood development.

From the article:
[...]
“There is increasing concern that today’s ‘cotton-wool kids’ are having their development hampered. They are likely to be risk-averse, stifled by fears which are more phobic than real. Their lack of unsupervised play may also reduce the opportunity to form deep friendships in early years.”
[...]

There remain cultural differences as well. Many American’s (including me I’ll admit) were shocked to hear that Madeleine McCann was taken from her bed in a Portugal resort while her parents were having dinner 50 meters away.

I’ve written about kids and security before. I rarely watch “mainstream” news simply because — as my wife says — it doesn’t improve my life or make me happier. But stories like this have a way of bringing themselves into focus, despite my intentional ignorance.

It’s something to think about — most all of us do it to some degree. Always keeping our kids uber-clean, on a short leash, loaded-up with vitamins, and in the air conditioning may help us sleep better at night. But many of our concerns are really just pop-phobias, and our preoccupation with them may be keeping our kids from living open, imaginative lives unencumbered by our own fears, both real and imagined.

My favorite… “Bruce Schneier once proved the infinitude of twin primes — by enumeration.”

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Bruce Schneier, read on.

Also, be sure to get the t-shirt.

YourCreditAdvisor.com has a 24-point checklist for recovering your identity that seems pretty comprehensive.

Needless to say, if it ever happens to you, you’ll be one busy individual trying to recover it.

Establishing a pattern of always paying with cash as much as possible can be one step in minimizing your exposure. Spending money you already have – instead of charging it – is always a good idea as well, and apparently when you pay with cash, you’re more inclined to spend less than when using a credit card.

Identity theft happens to real people. I found out last weekend a house behind ours was purchased using a stolen identity.

That said, it has given us some quality satire and art to reflect the humor we find in collective paranoia and overreaction.

But sadly, these stories represent more about what we lost after 9/11 than what we gained. Stories of Homeland Security pork begging to be spent are available for almost daily digestion.

Our perceived threat matrix has become far too broad and our methods for dealing with diverse threat vectors too narrow (e.g., “blow it up!”). While blowing things up is unquestionably fun and makes for great TV, it’s not cheap and worse, when not outright embarrassing, does little to quell public fear about the authorities’ ability to prevent whatever real threat there may be.

This even reached me personally last year at our neighborhood elementary school. One of the children had left their backpack outside after school was dismissed for the day. Eventually someone noticed it and (of course) phoned 911. The bomb squad from a neighboring community was called in to show off their toys. The media also came, complete with a helicopter overhead to observe what would inevitably be a dramatic detonation of the suspicious backpack. The police robot gently tugged at the backpack and dragged it away from the building, then, however they do these things, the backpack was blown up on live TV.

Scattered across the schoolyard were the guts of what used to be some poor kids backpack — books, multi-colored folders, etc., and what remained of the backpack. It was all very exciting, and all very ridiculous to most any casual observer….

In essence, they abstract the connection between a user and their sensitive data by using a cryptographic hash rather than a foreign key. The result is that should the data fall into the wrong hands, the data is readable but not traceable back to its owner. So in a bank for example, the bad guys would know that somebody has $500k in their account and somebody else has $500, but they wouldn’t know which one is me (well, anyone who knows me would, but…).

The design does have a few drawbacks, which he addresses, and additional measures would be required for very-high security applications (like a bank maybe). But it’s good to see smart people putting some good thought into designing simple, effective security into application and database architectures (which I’ve always felt was the most-overlooked and easiest-to-exploit of the generally accepted data security threats), and protecting users data from what is arguably it’s biggest threat – internal compromise.