Airport Security
With the interesting developments this past week regarding the terrorist plot to blow up the airlines, it's interesting to finally see an article that discusses the real security issues. Wired News is running an article that talks about why it is more important to protect against suspicious people rather than tools that may be used. An attacker can always get the tools on to the plane. How about smuggling banned substances in condoms, such as a drug mule might do? I also thought about the explosive belt that is mentioned in the article. How about the tactic that prisoners use with the use of their internal orifices to hide things? The reality is that if you want to stop the bad guy, focus on the behavior. The Israeli airport security folks have it right - they ask questions and look for signs of nervous behavior. If you are going to blow yourself up, you will likely have some telltale sign of this when questioned.
There are many lessons to be learned here - not just for airport security but also for information security. The important point is to analyze the threats, categorize them appropriately, and align your defenses where they make the most sense. We all have a limited amount of resources to deploy when protecting information and lessons such as this go a long way to refining our risk assessment methodologies.