On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 05:54:13 GMT, KLM wrote:

On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 01:32:03 GMT, Spehro Pefhany
wrote:


On a different discussion point, picture the recent Spanish train
bombings (10 set off.) Had the train installed cellphone signal
blocking equipment most of those bombs would probably not have been
set off.

From the fact that few of them went off in the station, where they
would have been far more effective, one may conclude that they were
triggered by simple timers.


Let's say three bombs went off at the station. If the other seven
were prevented from going off that would still have been a significant
victory against terror.

Of course terrorists will always find other ways to detonate their
bombs and the most effective method is still the suicide bomber, no
technology sophistication there. Be forewarned. They will not remain
the technology primitives they are today. In this escalating war new
solutions will have to be found again and again. But in the meantime
I think I have put forth a reasonable proposal that is cheap and
easily implemented, to greatly reduce the opportunities for cellphone
triggered bombs. More important, perhaps to reduce the enormous
effort and costs to provide surveillance in public places.

I like my idea of a built-in transponder chip that can be interrogated
at check-out counters. A portable interrogator can be used to check
abandoned packages from a safe distance without needing to know the
cellphone call number. The Spanish rescue team found an unexploded
bomb laden bag with a cellphone trigger and were very lucky that it
didn't go off.

Objections of others partially aside, you're getting close to a
workable idea. If a few of the off the shelf trak phones had to be
recalled or exchanged for new ones, any old ones the T's stockpiled
would be worthless.

The RFID systems could be set up to either cover a small area like a
turnstile or a larger area depending on how you wanted to go about
implementing security for a given loacation.

The problem to overcome is that we don't want to set one off in a
crowd, so we don't want it to ring in response to the RFID
interrogation. We also don't want an invasion of privacy, so a
generic RFID response would be the solution.

We also don't want the thing detonating from the interrogation with
people around and that's the biggest prob. You have to admit only
one person at a time into the area. That's not too bad. It's common
courtesy to stand back from someone using an ATM so maybe a few feet
will do. Like in a bank line.

I don't imagine the T's will want the thing detonating at the check
point either, so they'll probably have that figured out and an
inspection of the phone should reveal anything suspicious.

I think the real problem is the human factor. When baggage handlers
make $15/hr and get full union benefits, while the security
contractor pays his monkeys minimum wage, you have apathy. This is
no BS, it's serious. Back in the 80's after the Berlin disco bombing
and a few other attacks, people were talking a lot about security.
And talking is about all they did.

I went through the security check at the Atlanta airport and after
being admitted into the so-called secure area I had to go to the
bathroom so I asked where it was. Damned if it wasn't outside the
secure area. I went out through an unckecked passage and came right
back in. No one bothered checking me.

Last few times I went through a metal detector, I set it off. The
first time, the guard checked me with the wand and suggested it was
my shoes or the jacket zipper, but didn't ask me to remove them. The
second time (a month later) I went through, the same guard was
there. I just pointed to the shoes and the zipper and I was in.
Friggin' apathy. Maybe he remembered that the wand didn't indicate a
big enough chunk of metal, but that jacket fit just about right to
conceal a Glock.
--
Best Regards,
Mike