UncleBill is sooo right. The classic mistake people make is thinking that terrorists are all huddled in caves, wishing for something more than a rock with which to smite the infidel.
the Mujahadeen in Chechnya had a website, for crying out loud, where AAR would be updated almost daily. This included casualty estimates.
Any book you can walk into any bookstore and buy that could possibly be of use to a terrorist, someone already has. Any information that you can glean from the Internet to help make bombs, or plan ambushes, someone has already read, printed, and probably used.
The biggest mistake we can make against this foe is to underestimate him.
Desmostylus, I was providing information to prove to UncleBill that there was substance behind my general comments. The information I quoted was common enough knowledge that I doubted the terrorists got a jot of worth from it.
jjimm, thank you, my day hasn’t been too bad so far. My concern is that there are no limits to what people feel free to conjecture on the board about terrorist activities, and that people as un-saavy as science fiction writers have been (fruitfully) called by the US government as experts. I.e., any speculation that’s plausible or valid could be of use to terrorists.
Tristan, your comments are very close to the nub. Anybody can go into a bookstore. We, on the SDMB, aren’t doing that. We come here because there’s something here that other information sources can’t give.
Now, I ask you all, what’s the purpose of speculating how an aircraft might or might not be shot down? Sure, it satisfies an itch we have. But what the speculation stumbles across something the terrorists didn’t consider? If we, here consider our opinion to be a cut above common knowledge, isn’t it possible the terrorists would place the same value on our opinions?
As is the case in many war-time scenarios, one counter measure is not good enough to ensure the successful outcome of every eventuality.
To be safe, the airports must have buffer zones, the airliners must have counter measures and jamming equipment, and we must have combat trained, seasoned pilots at the helm of the aircraft.
All of these measures are not enough to completly secure the passengers from attack, but together they may be enough to force the terrorists to choose another avenue toward their end.
We of the Futile Gesture Liberation Army would like to thank partly_warmer for his suggestion and description of the Stinger. We had one in the garage all the time, but we’re so ignorant we thought it was a BBQ. Thanks partly_warmer.
Also have to thank the board in general for drawing attention to this “U.S.A.” as a possible target. You know, we’d searched the internet high and low and no-one mentioned it anywhere until we came across the SDMB! Do you have anything more about it we should know?
But all things considered, I think we’re going to go with the planets colliding scheme . So thanks for that one!
As you can imagine, we’re all unimaginative idiots here at the FGLA (not our fault, we’re foreign too and many of us don’t even speak English!) and don’t know the first thing about terrorism, so SDMB is now securely in our bookmarks and will be our number one source for all ideas in future! Keep up the good work!
I would argue back that the secret government monitors of all your communications are just as likely to be reading this as the terrorists are.
There was an outcry here in the (just from memory) mid-seventies when Electronics Australia magazine published plans for a do-it-yourself atomic bomb. The information used came just from stuff that they found in the (just from memory) library of Sydney University.
The outcry was similar to yours, partly_warmer, but the publication did serve the useful purpose of making some people in government think that “hey, that might be possible after all”.
Futile, though your humor appeal to me quite strongly, I have certain reservations about its logical foundation. None of which detracts from the pleasure of the humor itself.
Either:
The SDMB is repeating things that are obvious and effortlessly assembled elsewhere, or
A group of highly intelligent people are too lazy or inept to make effective use of the Internet’s popular search engines and prefer to have it summarized for their benefit, or
Blush we’re actually having worthwhile, significant conversations.
I understand, naturally that the effects of points 1 and 2 give no aid to the terrorists. If that were the case, then I’m happy to say my comments make no difference, either. Oddly, tho, since I’ve developed a number of cutting-edge software projects, and I believe a number of my fellow Dopers are in the same class – and many more will soon make similar contributions – I have a certain disease, an uncertainty, that we can assue that nothing we say will be original.
While I don’t know if you meant 20-miles in radius or diameter, I do know the value of pi. How many security folks do you think that will take to patrol such an area?
I’m not being flip here, Demostylus. If I didn’t believe the CIA was reading these posts, or would read them as necessary, I would personally send them copies. Not kidding.
I don’t undestand why it is so hard for mr./mrs. warmer to distinguish between the possibility of an attack/how to prevent it and how to “DO the attack”.
I think broomstick covered the measures that we could take as a nation or an aviation industry to minimize the possibility of either a launch or a hit, while pointing out the problems and limitations associated with each option.
So back to the OP. Apparently nothing, other than argue with partly_warmer, who will, in turn claim that he/she/it’s just researching he/she/it’s novel.
And I find it hard to believe that the developer of “a number of cutting-edge software projects” can’t work out the secret code used to punctuate posts.
I’m agreeing with Stinkpalm, my compass-thread to determine true north is wavering wildly.
… uh … UncleBill what did aahala say that went outside the bounds of cut-and-dry security arrangements?
jjimm, you refer me to Janes??? But, uh, I have a number of their books, and read their web site often.
Stinkpalm (always right in there with a practical question): If I am a terrorist, what I want to know is, first and foremost: How is somebody going to anticipate my attack? So I suggest an attack, then I get Doper X to tell me why it won’t work. Then . . . hang on, this is subtle . . . I DO SOMETHING ELSE!
Lovely, lovely, lovely. The true vein of British snobbism surfaces. Shall I just tell you which lords and ladies are my personal acquaintances? (Sorry, the number isn’t zero.)
It’s quite late for me, and I’ll just have to kiss your feet about making punctuation mistakes. (Later,I’ll make you eat something unpleasant.)
By the way, were you intending, anywhere along the process, to actually address any of my points? Or have you taken the lawyer’s desperation oath to abuse the personality of the speaker?