security theater Concepts

Engineering Security

by Peter Gutmann

’s actually there. There’s even a special name for these types of measures when they’re encountered in the physical world, “security theatre”. Warning dialogs and popups are the security theatre of computer security. Unfortunately most users couldn’t care less about the details, they just want to be assured that they’re

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required, an issue that’s covered in “SSL Certificates: Indistinguishable from Placebo” on page 33). Moving beyond warning dialogs and popups, another example of a security-theatre “feature” that’s added to a number of user interfaces is the ability to apply time-based access control restrictions for consumer networking devices. Virtually

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] [99] [100] [101] [102] [103] “The Myths of Security: What the Computer Security Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know”, John Viega, O’Reilly, 2009. “Security Theater on the Wells Fargo Website”, Don Bixby, 13 March 2013, discussion thread at http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/03/security_theate_8.html

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://safe2login.com/htm/int_004.html. “Locks, Safes and Security: An International Police Reference (2 nd ed)”, Marc Tobias, Charles C Thomas Publisher Ltd, 2000”. “Security theater?”, Peter Fairbrother, posting to the ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk mailing list, message-ID 4C877EDD.8070905@zen.co.uk, 8 September 2010. “Gozi Trojan”, Don

Vertical: The City From Satellites to Bunkers

by Stephen Graham · 8 Nov 2016 · 519pp · 136,708 words

. Where they function, cross-border tunnels work to render the above-ground discourses of perfect, militarised control as little less than a post 9/11 ‘security theatre’. They radically undermine the way militarised and patrolled borders are brought into being through a series of architectural fallacies asserting perfect administrative control. They thus

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, organised by politicians and contractors to symbolise projects deemed to ‘protect’ vulnerable national identities against some demonised, external or racialised other.28 Because the lethal security theatre of the above-ground walls relies on demonising all that it forces both beyond and below ground, by definition it very often also disguises the

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

by Oliver Burkeman · 1 Jul 2012 · 211pp · 69,380 words

of safety and security – even though this feeling may be only indirectly related, at best, to being more safe or secure. Schneier coined the term ‘security theatre’ to refer to all those measures that are designed primarily to increase the feeling of security, without actually making people more secure. Indeed, it is

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perfectly possible to argue – Schneier has often done so – that security theatre in fact makes us less secure. It swallows resources that might otherwise be expended on more effective anti-terrorism measures, such as intelligence-gathering, and

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. The blog post was headlined: ‘UK Spends Billions To Force Rail Terrorists To Drive a Little Further’. Brown’s announcement was a classic piece of security theatre: a costly way to make travellers feel safer – so long as they didn’t reflect too closely on the details – while doing nothing to deter

New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future

by James Bridle · 18 Jun 2018 · 301pp · 85,263 words

own strategies for opposing abuses of power. Does throwing light on the subject really help? Improved lighting has long been one of the axioms of security theatre itself, but the installation of lighting on city streets has as often been followed by a rise in crime as it has preceded a fall

Homeland: The War on Terror in American Life

by Richard Beck · 2 Sep 2024 · 715pp · 212,449 words

that had happened, which made one begin to suspect that the terrorist threat as a whole had been overhyped. People started to use the phrase “security theater” to describe the situation, the idea being that successfully staging the appearance of safety was a higher priority than actually making the airports secure. But

Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness

by Simone Browne · 1 Oct 2015 · 326pp · 84,180 words

of the Book of Negroes 3 B®anding Blackness Biometric Technology and the Surveillance of Blackness 4 “What Did TSA Find in Solange’s Fro”? Security Theater at the Airport Epilogue: When Blackness Enters the Frame Notes Bibliography Index ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book began as notes that I scribbled in the margins while

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“intelligence sources and methods information that is protected from disclosure.” With this, the redaction and Executive Order 13526 could be understood as a form of security theater where certain “intelligence sources and methods,” if in existence, could still be put into operation, and as such could not be declassified. Fanon’s FOIA

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.com as a way to question the current trade in slave memorabilia and branding blackness. Chapter 4, “‘What Did TSA Find in Solange’s Fro’?: Security Theater at the Airport,” asks, broadly, what the experiences of black women in airports can tell us about the airport as a social formation. This chapter

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the airport and popular culture representations of post-9/11 security practices at the airport to form a general theory of security theater. This is far from saying that security measures and security theater at the airport are a strictly post-9/11 formation. Between 1970 and 2000 there were 184 hijackings of U

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TSA agents and by airline workers by looking at cases of, mainly, black women who were subjected to invasive pat downs, hair searches, and other security theater measures. I do this as a way to question how black women are deployed in narratives about airport security, for example, through representations in popular

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, and ineffective TSA agents. This chapter suggests that we pay attention to the ways that black women’s bodies come to represent, and also resist, security theater at the airport. The epilogue brings together this book’s key concerns around the question of what happens when blackness enters the frame, whether that

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alternative, but, as Fanon puts it, “the right to demand human behavior from the other.”125 4 “WHAT DID TSA FIND IN SOLANGE’S FRO”? SECURITY THEATER AT THE AIRPORT Surveillance seems designed to produce a particular effect—Black women remain visible yet silenced; their bodies become written by other texts, yet

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even disgust” with the customs officers.12 Itinerary 2. If the airport can be thought of as a site of learning, what can representations of security theater in popular culture and art at and about the airport tell us about the post-9/11 flying lessons of contemporary air travel? The second

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’s Baggage Allowance, Evan Roth’s Art in Airports series, and the digital art exhibition Terminal Zero One as they each question and critically engage security theater in contemporary air travel. Also in this section, I identify a pattern in the ways that black women have been caricatured in representations of aviation

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, where the outcome is often discriminatory treatment. I recount these stories about airports in this chapter as a way to think through the concept of security theater by examining the many ways that travelers approach performances of security through their own assertions of travel agency, mobility rights, and resistance at airports. At

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I often play Jet Set: A Game for Airports on my phone while waiting in line at airport screening zones, in this way playing security theater while security theater is actually in play. Jet Set is a video game where players take on the role of a TSA agent ushering passengers through the screening

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me to, literally, play with questions of power, labor, and the theater of airport security. I also want to think here of the “theater” in “security theater” as a “military metaphor” in the way that Robin D. G. Kelley reminds us, in his discussion of African American working-class oppositional practices, of

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dark Birmingham alleyways” while others played pranks onboard buses, like the chemical warfare of releasing stink bombs.21 I cite Kelley here to say that security theater at the airport must be understood not only as about the staging of security and the theatrical performance that passengers must successfully comply with in

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Border Agency declined to continue testing asylum applicants past the pilot project. Itinerary 2: Surveillance at the Airport Security Checkpoint Safety is acted out in security theater, which consists of certain language, forms, and customs, including the pictogram signage, overhead public address, and even the airline English stock phrases and instructions uttered

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to “the drama of people meeting one another.”52 At the airport, the traveler is incited to speak the truth through rites and rituals. With security theater we all have our parts to play, whether workers, consumers, or travelers who are encouraged to “Talk to TSA” by scanning with their smartphones QR

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his mobile phone, on YouTube, that video went viral, receiving over seventy thousand views the first day. Throughout Tyner’s video, the stock phrases of security theater can be heard being played through the airport’s overhead public address system: “Security is everyone’s responsibility,” sounding a collective responsibility for airport security

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passing not weighted down by racial baggage. South Park’s “Reverse Cowgirl” lampoons all of the markers of what has come to be known as security theater: the signage (“Be Ready for Security” and “Your toilet safety is our number one priority”), long lines at public bathrooms, pat downs, metal detectors, and

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as she assumes the position for a full-body scan. In the “Unknown Person” segment of the performance, Pamela Z sings the scripted questions of security theater: “Did you pack your own bags?” “Did any unknown person ask you to carry something?” “What is the purpose of your travel?” In one corner

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is contained in the baggage: hypodermic needles, a gun, small animals, a beating heart, or an eggbeater. Baggage Allowance is a play on travel and security theater, that through its depiction of attachment, possessions, and grief—such as a steam trunk that weeps—offers a window on the traveler’s journey, including

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–38, 145 airports: black women and, 135–36, 140–45, 147–52; no-joking protocol and, 145–46; passenger screening zones and, 69, 136–46; security theater and, 27–29, 39, 131–36, 145–59, 184n15; trusted traveler programs and, 39, 135–36, 152–56. See also South Park (TV show); TSA

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, 137, 156–59, 162; gestural computing and, 152–56; pedagogy and, 134–45, 157–59; punishment and, 35–37, 51–52, 68, 97–102, 118; security theater and, 2, 27, 51–52, 131–36, 145–59 Persuasive Games, 136–37 Phenix (ship), 100 Philadelphia Enquirer, 89 Philipsburg Proclamation, 71, 176n20 Phillips, Caryl

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Antonio International Airport, 138 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 2 Scarred Chest (Thomas), 126 Scott, A. O., 119 Seattle-Tacoma Airport, 138 Secondary Security Screening Selection, 69 security theater, 2, 27, 51–52, 131–36, 145–59 Sennett, Richard, 68 sexuality: erotic resistance and, 50, 171n73; race and, 10–11, 96, 101, 149 Shakur

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, 161–64; resistance methods and, 6–7, 12, 22, 23, 24, 28–29, 33, 52–55, 57–62, 64–69, 77–83, 88, 131–36; security theater and, 2, 27, 39, 51–52, 63–64, 131–36, 145–59; slavery and, 7–13, 21–26, 31–32, 42, 45–57, 66–69

Beautiful security

by Andy Oram and John Viega · 15 Dec 2009 · 302pp · 82,233 words

Works A Real-Life Example Personal Data Stored As a Convenience Trade-offs Going Deeper References 240 243 244 244 245 246 CASTING SPELLS: PC SECURITY THEATER by Michael Wood and Fernando Francisco 247 Growing Attacks, Defenses in Retreat The Illusion Revealed Better Practices for Desktop Security Conclusion 248 252 257 258

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the Other 68%, by Grant Geyer and Brian Dunphy Chapter 15, Doing Real Work Without Real Data, by Peter Wayner Chapter 16, Casting Spells: PC Security Theater, by Michael Wood and Fernando Francisco Conventions Used in This Book The following typographical conventions are used in this book: Italic Indicates new terms, URLs

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Jr. “U.S. Settles With Company on Leak of Consumers’ Data,” New York Times. January 27, 2006. 246 CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN Casting Spells: PC Security Theater Michael Wood Fernando Francisco S TORM CLOUDS GATHER AND THERE IS UNREST IN THE LAND ; THIEVES WANDER the highway with impunity, monsters hide in every

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the unprecedented ability of digital networks to record and * See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_notable_computer_viruses_and_worms. CASTING SPELLS: PC SECURITY THEATER 249 sift through data. They therefore rushed to mine user accounts and track surfing habits to build statistics on behavior, preferences, location, etc. They then

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creative new threats. We can now examine why we have reached the limits of this approach, and why it is already insufficient. CASTING SPELLS: PC SECURITY THEATER 251 The Illusion Revealed In this section, we’ll review each type of security solution to see how it protects your computer and where it

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-executables, her protection is breached. Meanwhile, these programs are extremely resource hungry and can adversely affect both system performance and user experience. CASTING SPELLS: PC SECURITY THEATER 253 Anti-virus and anti-spyware scanning is a desperate and shockingly intrusive approach, even when it works well. Users routinely notice and complain about

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is a mechanism for saving a file to the real environment; the security of that procedure is described in the following section. CASTING SPELLS: PC SECURITY THEATER 255 If the AMS monitoring software described earlier (in the section “Applying artificial intelligence” on page 254) detects bad behavior, it immediately and automatically reboots

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they all can now address viruses, trojans, worms, rootkits, spyware, and what are euphemistically called “potentially unwanted or harmful applications” (mostly adware). CASTING SPELLS: PC SECURITY THEATER 257 Cure Virtualization, data backup or replication, and emergency recovery provide means for recovering from infections (along with routine user errors, such as deleting key

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-But Some Don't

by Nate Silver · 31 Aug 2012 · 829pp · 186,976 words

more than window dressing. Likewise, the ever more cumbersome requirements for commercial flights fall into the category of what the security expert Bruce Schneier calls “security theater”75—they are more for show than to actually deter terrorists. It’s by no means completely irrational to be worried about airport security; airplanes

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Law Review, 73 (2006). http://lawreview.uchicago.edu/sites/lawreview.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/73.1/73_1_Harcourt_Ludwig.pdf. 75. Bruce Schneier, “Beyond Security Theater,” Schneier on Security, November 13, 2009. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/beyond_security.html. 76. Ibid., Kindle location 1035. 77. Nate Silver

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Iraq War,” The Guardian, February 15, 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/defector-admits-wmd-lies-iraq-war. 86. Schneier, “Beyond Security Theater,” Kindle locations 1321–1322. 87. Harvey E. Lapan and Todd Sandler, “Terrorism and Signalling,” European Journal of Political Economy, 9, 3 (August 1993), pp. 383

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, 105, 106–7 statheads vs., 86, 88, 128 search trees, 284, 285 sea-rise levels, 385 Seattle, Wash., 150 Securities and Exchange Commission, 24, 353 security theater, 439 self-awareness, 328 self-canceling predictions, 219–20, 228 self-confidence, 97 see also overconfidence self-fulfilling predictions, 216–19, 353 semiconductor companies, 186

Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks

by Scott J. Shapiro · 523pp · 154,042 words

tied into a long ponytail. Schneier is known for his flowery shirts and flattop taxicab hats. He is outspoken and unapologetic. Schneier invented the term security theater, arguing that the post-9/11 reforms to airline security only make us feel safer. In reality, they’ve made us less safe. According to

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it up: Bruce Schneier, “Is Aviation Security Mostly for Show?,” CNN, December 29, 2009, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/29/schneier.air.travel.security.theater/. “precisely calibrated attacks”: Bruce Schneier, “Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet,” Lawfare, September 13, 2016, https://www.lawfareblog.com/someone-learning-how

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

by Steven Pinker · 24 Sep 2012 · 1,351pp · 385,579 words

of cataclysmic sabotage at chemical plants.180 The massive bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security was created overnight to reassure the nation with such security theater as color-coded terrorist alerts, advisories to stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape, obsessive checking of identification cards (despite fakes being so plentiful