Rubenerd

This latest terrorist attack on Moscow's airport (Moscow Times: Blast Kills 34 at Domodedovo) highlights the problems I, Bruce Schneier and plenty of other people have been talking about for a long time.

Common sense isn’t

Think about this logically for a second. I know we're not supposed to because attacks like this are supposed to be used as an excuse for our tax dollars to be spent on expensive and useless new gadgets for "border protection", but…

Firstly, if you wanted to hurt as many people as possible, what better location is there than a hugely crowded bottleneck behind the latest security theatre contraptions and procedures we've devised?

Secondly, security theatre is the term Bruce Schneier coined for measures that are designed to give the illusion of safety, even though they do nothing. In any case (not least this one), obsessive airport security is making the situation worse not better.

It’ll only get better

Problem is, where will the authorities insist on taking us from here? Will we need to walk through separate scanners to allow us access to the hall full of people… with the scanners? Will we need to schedule an appointment to go through a scanner then stay in the airport for a week before boarding a plane? These all may seem crazy and far fetched, but I'm sure if someone stepped through a time portal from the 1960s to now and saw all the nonsense we were being subjugated to, they'd most likely thing we're crazy and far fetched ourselves. Could you blame them?

To the credit of the Russians, at least the airport remained open even in the areas where the bomb was detonated. If terrorists don't terrorise innocent people, they haven't "won".

My thoughts, and I'm sure all yours too, also go out to the people who lost loved ones in the attack, and to those that were injured. None of us can imagine how you're feeling right now. Stay strong. hugs