29 December 2009

TSA’a knee-jerk responses to the Detroit airport attack

There is a reason that our society doesn’t allow cops to write laws and leaves that up to legislatures and a –thankfully—cumbersome process.  It is not what cops are good at.  They are outstanding at enforcing laws—not writing them.  Another way of looking at this, give a little boy a hammer and he will immediately determine that everything needs hammering.  But—there is a world in which cops do craft laws…the world of TSA and Executive Branch directives.  If TSA thought it could get away with it, every airport would require body cavity strip searches, including for your 95 year old granny.  And, airline passengers would be padlocked into their seats.  They evidently do believe that they can get away with forbidding potty breaks during the last sixty minutes (a magic number I suppose) of a flight, shutting off in-flight movies, and banning most carry-ons, blankets and pillows.  Hopefully, these knee-jerk decisions will go the way of the past bans on nail clippers, miniature round-nosed sewing kit scissors, and matches.  Rather than remedy the actual abysmal failures that allowed this attack, a White House that is notoriously weak on defending America against radical Islamic terrorists will let the cops write new laws.  A robust intelligence service is the answer--not banning potty breaks.

18 SEPTEMBER 2009

The gutting of the CIA

Our very best and most effective defense against international terrorism is a strong and vibrant intelligence service.  Watching an interview of Dr. Michael Scheuer on Fox, I had pause for contemplation.  Nixon forced out Richard Helms who may very well have been the best DCI, ever.  Clinton hamstrung the CIA.  Now, Obama and Holder are eviscerating it.  That is, of course, hardly a surprise.   The President’s view of the Agency is self-evident.  The FBI is taking over all interrogations.   Super wacky people like Suntein are in charge of new regulations.  Obama appointed a well-meaning political hack as DCI (who seems to be trying to make it work).  A Naval officer is now the intelligence czar and yet another governor was made head of homeland security.  Maybe the only bright reflection in this murky pool is that Brennan was made the terrorism czar, if he doesn’t resign like Melissa Hathway (too bad) and Rod Beckstrom (thank Goodness).   Over the past few decades I have seen friends resign from the Agency—often the best and the brightest.  Our very best and most effective defense is evaporating.  As Pogo wisely uttered, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”

 

09 SEPTEMBER 2009

The Dying of Melody 

It may have started with Rap, but melody probably contracted a terminal illness from N Sync in 1995. Talksinging! Try whistling contemporary music.  You probably can't.

02 AUGUST 2009

Adam Savage, Mythbusters, was a main attraction at DEFCON 17 in Las Vegas this week.  See the link to my article about Mythbusters in "Articles." 

20 JULY 2009

Death of the Town Crier

With the passing of Walter Cronkite the last vestige of objective journalism has evaporated into the miasma of pseudo journalism. Cronkite wasn’t perfect, especially after his retirement, but he was as close to unvarnished news as we are likely to ever get.  In his wake, the spin is accelerating.  We will see more fluffy interviews of people who either don’t have newsworthy knowledge or who we know ahead of time won’t answer questions or won’t answer honestly.  News will be padded and fluffed up.  Then again, just as we get the government we deserve, so too we will get the news we deserve.  Hello Katie Couric!

 

10 MAY 2009

Avaak Vue Personal Video Network has developed a wireless video camera that doesn’t use WI-FI and, therefore, can run for a year on a lithium-ion battery.  It was developed under a grant from the U.S. Navy and DARPA.  Although it is sold as a consumer product (i.e. Nanny-cam), it has creative security application potential.  (www.vuezone.com) (Popular Science, May 2009)

 

02 MAY 2009

Ask a Global-Warmer to show you evidence that human activity can affect global warming in a meaningful way and he or she will give you proof that the earth is warming and glaciers are melting.  Explain that your question wasn't answered and he or she will give you more proof that the climate is changing.  Al is such a trickster!  

01 MAY 2009

Do you need to refresh your Weltanschauung? Re-read Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth.  

25 APRIL 2009

President Obama appointed a political hack to be the Director of the CIA, another governor to run Homeland Security, and Rosa Brooks to babysit the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.  His intentions toward the Agency couldn’t be clearer!

24 APRIL 2009

Production Weekly is reporting that Leonardo DiCaprio is looking to produce a remake of the classic 1983 hacker film WarGames.

Strauchs LLC recently started a new project involving the Defense Department’s Base Alignment and Relocation Program (BRAC) with American Security Programs.

23 APRIL 2009

IIAPSC Conference, Palm Springs, CA
John Strauchs will be attending the annual conference of the International Association of Professional Security Consultants in Palm Springs from 26 to 30 April 2009.

Security Technology Transfer
Air Wick recently released a new product that utilizes a sensor that detects changes in light in front of a room odorizer to trigger a spurt of fragrance—spin-off security technology.

New Technology is Old Technology
Hedy Lamarr, 1940s movie star, holds a shared patent for frequency-hopping, spread spectrum radio signals. She and her husband came up with the technology to prevent radio-controlled American torpedoes from having their signals jammed by the Germans during WWII. It was based on using player piano paper rolls. Among many other applications today, if you have a secure garage door opener, it is possible that it used Hedy’s patent. She received an award for her invention in 1997 in New York City.

21 APRIL 2009

Rambo
David Morrell’s early novel, First Blood, introduced his emblematic character, Rambo. David came up with the name while grocery shopping with his wife. Rambo is the name of a kind of apple.

Wendell Willkie
It is worth reading One World by Wendell L. Willkie (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1943) to see that the world and politics haven’t changed nearly as much as we think it has.

18 APRIL 2009

Security in Hollywood, Myths and Legends

Panic Room: This is a room designed for temporary refuge from intruders. Only Hollywood calls them panic rooms. Everyone in security or intelligence calls them safe rooms. Moreover, they only need to resist forced entry for as long as it takes a security or law enforcement response to arrive. Sorry Jody Foster!

1. Sneakers: These are supposed to be people who specialize in defeating security systems to test effectiveness. Alas—they’re not called sneakers. Some call them tiger teams and others either red hats or black hats. Sneakers are a kind of shoe.
1. The motion picture, Sneakers, is full of subtle, deliberate technical errors so as not to make a training film for criminals. Hardly anyone noticed!
1. Holding a lighter under a sprinkler head does not cause all sprinkler heads to activate—only the one above the lighter.
1. Blowing powder from a compact, puffing cigarette smoke or dispersing other common substances will not make invisible infrared beams to become visible.
1. Attaching a cool high-tech gadget to a closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera will not result in being able to see what that or any other camera sees. It is theoretically possible to use induction to capture a signal from coaxial cable, but the signal would be too poor to be of any value.
1. If you call someone a CIA agent, that person is a foreign national. If he or she is American, you might want to use the term case officer.

15 APRIL 2009

Cheesesteaks
For the best cheesesteaks in the nation, find Zandy’s in Allentown, PA.

Coffee
Brewed coffee isn’t worth drinking after seven minutes.