[extropy-chat] Nuke the Great Satan

[David Lubkin]

Henrik Öhrström wrote:

>Ethnic profiling have its own limitations, El Als security was very neatly
>bypassed when someone (Sorry can't find the reference, I read about it in a
>swedish newspaper) used persons who did not look like palestinians or arabic
>but looked like "native" judes. They could waltz right through with
>suitcases filled with plastelina, because nobody looked twice at them.

Unlikely. El Al, as any good security or quality 
mechanism does, relies on multiple imperfect 
filters. You get to six-sigma by layering enough 
fallible-but-independent filters on top of each other.

El Al, of course, does not advertise the full set 
of precautions they take. However, it is 
well-known that they interview everyone 
pre-flight, and the screener is someone very 
skilled at picking up behavioral cues.

I don't think anyone would mind airline 
travellers carrying logic games 
(www.plastelina.net/), but assuming you meant plastique --

No one would waltz through with suitcases filled 
with plastique. Everyone's carry-on luggage is 
searched. It is also reasonable to expect chemical and/or canine screens.

Also, it is exceedingly doubtful that Israel 
would presume that someone who "did not look like 
an Arab" was safe. In May 1972, while I lived 
half-an-hour away, a group of Japanese Red Army 
terrorists attacked at Lod (now Ben Gurion) Airport, killing 26.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1013172.stm .

Still, it would make sense for El Al (and for the 
US) to use ethnic profiling as one of a large suite of filters.


-- David Lubkin.