Moscow Airport Bombing

[Aggie]

  for the victims.  

I really have been wondering when this was going to happen, and why it hasn't already.  Pre-9/11, I remember finding it strange that the international airport in Manila restricted entry to everyone except passengers who could produce a valid passport and air ticket; post-9/11 I wondered why more didn't.

I have also been very careful not to point out anywhere that the pre-security areas of airports offered an extremely soft target with possibly a far greater potential to disrupt travel than taking down planes - no point putting ideas in anyone's head or looking like I'm advocating it.

FWIW, I suppose it's a good thing this didn't happen in America; it serves to fuel a current conflict but at least it's not an excuse to go start a new one.  

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

And we'd find a way. EYERAN HAETS US TERRARIST ATTACK EYERAN MUST'VE DUN IT

Here's hoping there's no copycats.

[pieces o nine]

           

[Swatopluk]

At least in Russia no one of importance will ask that stupid question "Why do they hate us?".
Instead it will be 'Okay, who exactly was it this time?' and (I assume) 'are there more security gaps that we should look for?'
I guess the government will be so pragmatic about it that some will accuse it of lack of empathy.
Oh yes, and the situation in the regions that probably spawned this will not change at all.
My bet is that there will be a repeat (as this one itself was), the question is just when and where.

[Sibling DavidH]

This time it seems the perpetrators were moslems from Chechnya or that area of the North Caucusus.  There are reports that 'foreign' agitators from Pakistan and elsewhere are active there, stirring up the already appalling hatreds.
When Putin takes over the front role again, perhaps he'll send the army in there once more.  That'd be popular in the homeland and make things a whole lot worse.

BTW AFAIK I've never been in an airport where there are any kind of security checks on people coming into Arrivals to meet passengers.  That's where this latest incident happened.

[Swatopluk]

As I said, same stuff as after the last attacks. And the army is already there anyway.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Suicide bombers will always be a problem, add to that how relatively easy is to make explosives (plus the information readily available in the internet) and inevitably there will be incidents like this one. Wherever there is a large amount of traffic it will be impossible to scan/stop everybody. In fact it's scary to think all the stuff that could happen in airports, train or metro stations, almost impossible to stop if a suicide bomber is used.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

As always, I expect to see more meaningless hassling of paying customers, without actually being effective at stopping a determined creator-of-death-and-chaos.

For that is what the US has done-- all window-dressing and glitter, very, very little substantive (read: effective) measures to stop a determined attacker.  But, all that glitter has seemed to work, for now, and we've not had a major bombing since 9/11.   But make no mistake, it is mostly glitter and for show.  It is a case of, "See? We are Doing Something About It", when in fact, they are doing nothing of the sort-- the holes are gaping, to anyone with a modest imagination.

To be truly effective?  They would need to spend some actual money--which they won't do, because they must pay those giant bonuses to the CEO's...

... one easy solution, is bomb dogs.  It's been demonstrated, repeatedly, that you cannot spoof these animals-- only create false positives.   If you had in place, a secondary search regimen, you simply kick all the positives to that station, for a thorough search, skipping all the negative results and letting them through unimpeded.

As for the checked luggage?  You could easily scan those for chemical trails and vapors-- all explosives emit chemical vapors, many of which can seep past plastic coverings.  It is the nature of volatile chemicals to be... volatile.  Easy to sniff for--I've seen machines than could do this, easily.   Sure, not cheap at first, but once you geared up, just like those ubiquitous X-ran scanners, economies of scale would bring costs down, and quickly.

The dogs could be stationed at the entrances, and routinely walk up and down, sniffing anyone who enters the facility.  Including workers.  The chemical machines could be set up next to the conveyors, and any positive, the bags are automatically diverted to a close-inspection station.  First, you'd X-ray it like at the carry-on station.  Then, if still unsure, you open it and look.   Since the machine can be calibrated to degree of positive?  Really high positives, could be treated as if it was an actual bomb, eliminating possible booby-traps.

Besides, the dogs would be there, and would likely alert on the incoming luggage, if it was that high an emission, before it made it inside... 

... the beauty of all this?  You wouldn't need to bother, if human traffic density was low.  The terrorists are not interested in blowing up 3 or 5 people, most of whom were workers anyway.  So most of the time, you'd not even need the dogs.  But the sniffing machines?  Those could work 24/7-- they never get tired.

That would only leave, as a gaping hole, the air-package industry, which has no security at all, as far as I could tell.

But it seems to work-- terrorists don't seem interested in bombing an airplane full of packages, anyway.  If a terrorist does not kill several women and at least one child?  They consider it a failure, I guess...

... sick *^*s.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

All those measures only prevent an individual inside the building, not one at the door at a high traffic hour, on the same token you can't avoid the cars loading and unloading passengers that will not get checked.

If you want to avoid a car bomb you would practically have to redesign how an airport works and require huge loading areas.

It is fortunate that the people doing the stuff is crazy and few, otherwise it would be very scary.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

As always, I expect to see more meaningless hassling of paying customers, without actually being effective at stopping a determined creator-of-death-and-chaos.

For that is what the US has done-- all window-dressing and glitter, very, very little substantive (read: effective) measures to stop a determined attacker.  But, all that glitter has seemed to work, for now, and we've not had a major bombing since 9/11.   But make no mistake, it is mostly glitter and for show.  It is a case of, "See? We are Doing Something About It", when in fact, they are doing nothing of the sort-- the holes are gaping, to anyone with a modest imagination.

To be truly effective?  They would need to spend some actual money--which they won't do, because they must pay those giant bonuses to the CEO's...

... one easy solution, is bomb dogs.  It's been demonstrated, repeatedly, that you cannot spoof these animals-- only create false positives.   If you had in place, a secondary search regimen, you simply kick all the positives to that station, for a thorough search, skipping all the negative results and letting them through unimpeded.

As for the checked luggage?  You could easily scan those for chemical trails and vapors-- all explosives emit chemical vapors, many of which can seep past plastic coverings.  It is the nature of volatile chemicals to be... volatile.  Easy to sniff for--I've seen machines than could do this, easily.   Sure, not cheap at first, but once you geared up, just like those ubiquitous X-ran scanners, economies of scale would bring costs down, and quickly.

The dogs could be stationed at the entrances, and routinely walk up and down, sniffing anyone who enters the facility.  Including workers.  The chemical machines could be set up next to the conveyors, and any positive, the bags are automatically diverted to a close-inspection station.  First, you'd X-ray it like at the carry-on station.  Then, if still unsure, you open it and look.   Since the machine can be calibrated to degree of positive?  Really high positives, could be treated as if it was an actual bomb, eliminating possible booby-traps.

Besides, the dogs would be there, and would likely alert on the incoming luggage, if it was that high an emission, before it made it inside... 

... the beauty of all this?  You wouldn't need to bother, if human traffic density was low.  The terrorists are not interested in blowing up 3 or 5 people, most of whom were workers anyway.  So most of the time, you'd not even need the dogs.  But the sniffing machines?  Those could work 24/7-- they never get tired.

That would only leave, as a gaping hole, the air-package industry, which has no security at all, as far as I could tell.

But it seems to work-- terrorists don't seem interested in bombing an airplane full of packages, anyway.  If a terrorist does not kill several women and at least one child?  They consider it a failure, I guess...

... sick *^*s.

Still not gonna stop people who target waiting lines. If they get bunched up someplace else in the airport, that's now just as soft of a target as the security lines are. Airports are soft targets, full stop. There isn't much we can do about it unless we stop all flight, which simply isn't feasible.

[Swatopluk]

Also there would be a huge number of false positives. Any person with heart troubles would turn into one because the pills contain nitroglycerine as the main ingredient. And the Chechens are not above sending old ladies as their means of delivery.
Sniffing will not catch all potential explosives and iirc security experts report that terrorists have been experimenting with different concoctions to get past the standard equipment. Permanganate is not volatile and can turn about anything organic into a bomb, if handled the 'correct' way (so does liquid oxygen but that's a bit impractical for most applications). Some modern scanners can spot it but those are very expensive and also would mean an extra dose of x-rays. Even better but also more expensive and not suitable for living persons are neutron rays (can be used for luggage and already is in some places).

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Thinking further on a safer airport I was thinking that you would have to isolate all incoming traffic into concrete corridors to be pre-screened (using different kinds of sensors and cameras to look at all angles of the car), and any suspected vehicle would be then directed to a concrete bowl where you could safely detonate up to 10 metric tons of TNT.

Something equivalent would have to be done with pedestrians entering the facility, that is placing them individually in corridors where they can be scanned in different ways and where a detonation would only injure the bomber.

Needless to say that such solutions are prohibitively expensive, unconstitutionally invasive in most locales, and completely impractical.

[Sibling DavidH]

These terrorists are fixated on airports and aircraft.  Admittedly these are handy places to inflict mass killings, but one would think that with increasingly effective security they would start looking elsewhere.  They've hit a few trains, very successfully, why don't they go for a few more?  Then there's cinemas, sports stadiums, crowded streets, stores.   Hopefully they won't get clever.  I remember that in the 70s the IRA were very amateurish but they got much better.

[Swatopluk]

In the East cinemas were a favored target (notoriously during the Iranian revolution)
I was actually surprised that  on 9/12 there was no series of derailed trains. It would have been the perfect opportunity.
And the Staten Island Ferry would have been great for propaganda too (cars were banned from the ferries later because of this).

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

There are two scenarios in fictional history, one by Tom Clancy and the other by the author of Silence of the Lambs (who's name I forget, sorry).  In the latter story, terrorists created a giant claymore-like bomb on a blimp, and had planned to fly it into the Superbowl game, detonating it like a giant shotgun.  "Black Sunday" was the name of both the novel (pretty good) and the movie (pretty bad).

In Clancy's novel, "The Sum of all our Fears" (terrible movie rendition) terrorists had commandeered a TV truck replete with loads of equipment.  And nestled inside, was a nuke.  Again, at the superbowl, the bomb was to go off-- I can't remember if it did, nor not, in the novel.  I think it did.

Anyway, massively attended football games, both American and European, would be a target of opportunity for people who's only goal, is to sow death and destruction.  And what better symbol to the "decadence" of "western culture" than a sports game?

I suppose the only thing preventing them, is technical savy-- which they just do not have.  Lucky us.

One of the sole redeeming values of ultra-repressive religious cults, I suppose:  technological ignorance.