The Speculist

It appears that this might be a corporate "viral marketing" campaign gone badly awry. (See MAKE magazine's blog for some additional information.)

I agree that WHOEVER placed these devices should be punished as though they had intended the actual outcome, if not as though they had intended property damage or physical harm.

Mr. Torrone's protests aside, asking public safety authorities to discriminate one electronic device from another when lives are potentially endangered is asking too much. If it isn't cleared first it gets treated as potentially deadly. No exceptions.

asking public safety authorities to discriminate one electronic device from another when lives are potentially endangered is asking too much.

Yes, God forbid they should be forced to use logic and reason in times of crisis.

"..God forbid they should be forced to use logic and reason in times of crisis."

Mr. Haislip, I contend that, under the circumstances, mitigating or eliminating the potential immediate threat and then seeng to it that such a potential threat is countered in advance of its ever happening again is the pinnicle of "logic and reason in times of crisis".

I think where we disagree is on the immediacy of the potential threat posed by devices of the scale and type under consideration in today's incident in Boston.

Multiple devices, on a scale somewhere between a PDA and a laptop computer, appear to have been surreptitiously placed, by person or persons unknown, in areas that seem to intend maximum exposure of these devices to pedestrian and possibly vehicular and public transport. Not knowing the intent of the person or organization that emplaced these devices, nor the capabilities of the devices themselves, and lacking any information regarding the devices' possible future actions or the timing thereof didn't give public safety officials a great deal of basis from which to exercise logic and / or reason beyond:

-FACT: A number of devices have unexpectedly been emplaced in areas where the public is exposed to them.

-FACT: In the past, in other, similar, times and places, similarly unexpected devices have caused great physical and economic harm to people and things around them.

-FACT: Those similarly unexpected devices sometimes caused this harm with little or no time for assessment after discovery.

-FACT: Occasionally, those similarly unexpected devices were designed and intended to attract the attention of public safety officials, either to distract those officials from other work or to entice them to the devices' locations that they might be harmed.

Given the premises outlined above, and lacking additional information, logic and reason dictate that the devices in today's case be treated as potential threats.

Please review the recent (mid-20th Century and up) histories of Great Britain, Israel, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States (among others) for relevant historical examples.

an article with a photo can be found at: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003550044_webdevices31.html
I encourage everyone to look at the photo of the device.

I am quite concerned that the minds here would suggest that putting an LED display on a bridge should be treated as an act of terrorism. Many people are developing a sense of fatigue from the constant drone of threats. The human mind is not well suited to putting those threats into perspective. Please take a moment to consider the number of people that have died in terrorist activity in the last five or ten years in the united states. Contrast that to the number of deaths from traffic accidents, drug overdoses, or any manner of diseases.

My contention is that we would do better to accept the risk of terrorism than to sacrifice many of the freedoms and efficiencies we have known in the recent past. The sacrifices being made in the US are out of perspective with the risk of terrorism. There is a risk assessment to be made when an LED panel with a cartoon character is found. Officials are rather limited in the way they can respond because the public expects them to remain cautious. Intellectual communities such as this one however have an opportunity to put those risks into perspective against the costs and sacrifices that may be used to mitigate them.

I am quite concerned that the minds here would suggest that putting an LED display on a bridge should be treated as an act of terrorism.

Nope. No picture of the device was available at the time I wrote my entry, and I stand by what I wrote. The people who put this thing out are morons who didn't think about the possible perception of what they were doing. Should they be treated as terrorists? Probably not.

The issue is what's intended. My point was that anyone who intends to cause such a scare should be treated the same as someone who actually plants a bomb.

Why the hand-wringing, Parry? What "costs and sacrifices" does such a position require?

Michael, "fact" two is not correct and what is the relevance of fact one? I see this as an example of when the unknown is considered excessively dangerous merely because it is unknown. A grocery paper bag of similar size would not have attracted attention yet it can hide considerably more explosive power than the devices in question.

And if you're interested in killing police officers or other public employees, suicide bombers exploding at or near the entrace to public buildings are more effective.

Karl -
(Thank you for reading carefully.)

In the order originally presented:

(Questioned: Relevance) "FACT 1" - "A number of devices have unexpectedly been emplaced in areas where the public is exposed to them."

This statement of the general situation, as it may have been understood at the outset of events in Boston on Wednesday morning, is presented as the origin of the chain of logic. Upon further investigation, "A number" turns out to equal "nine" according to theNew York Times".

(Denied: Incorrect) "FACT 2" - "In the past, in other, similar, times and places, similarly unexpected devices have caused great physical and economic harm to people and things around them"

Here, I am afraid that, in an effort to, simply and clearly, elaborate the logic and reasoning that might lead to the reactions demonstrated by the responding agencies, I have possibly committed the fallacy of overgeneralization. Perhaps a few historic examples from "other, similar, times and places" might serve to shore up this premise.

Example 1: Subway of Tokyo, Japan, March 20th 1995, (wikipedia) using plastic bags of liquid sarin nerve agent disguised in newspapers and sharpened umbrellas as 'detonators', terrorists kill twelve and injure and estimated one thousand. "...great physical and economic harm to people and things around them."

Example 2: Commuter trains, Madrid, Spain, March 11th, 2004, (wikipedia) Although not mentioned in the cited reference, if memory serves, the devices involved in this attack, that killed one hundred ninety-one and injured two thousand and fifty, were brought aboard the commuter trains disguised as student's bookbags.

Example 3: Centennial Olympic Park, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, July 27th, 1996, (wikipedia) A military-style ALICE backpack concealing bombs and supplemental projectiles, left out of the way but in plain sight, explodes, killing two and injuring one hundred and eleven.

Additional examples, from a single city, may be found in wikipedia's list of "Terrorist Incidents in London".

The point that I was attempting to make here was that small, seemingly innocuous objects, can conceal big danger if the context presents them to a proverbially "target-rich environment".

In anticipation of two likely additional objections, let me say that I am well aware that the devices discovered in Boston on Wednesday were designed less to disguise them than to draw attention to them (LED cartoon characters tend to attract notice), and that nine devices of the size depicted in the MAKE: Magazine blog entry I referred to in my first comment (link) would likely not collectively occupy the volume of any one of the packages in the Examples (possibly excepting the Tokyo sarin packets).

To the first objection my response is that attraction is not necessarily an indicator of safety, in fact certain aerially-delivered mines have been accused of being excessivly attractive to children (photo).

If my intent was to drive my target population to self-select for youth and / or first responders, I'd make my means of attack attractive to 'hipsters' and make it stand out for detection.

My response to the second anticipated objection would be to remind the audience that a particularly feared antipersonnel mine (the "Claymore") has similar dimensions to a hardback book, and, "properly"-applied, could injure or kill several people.

The examples you give aren't similar which is why I still dispute the second "fact". First, they are far higher densities of people (and the people present weren't mostly protected by vehicles). Further, the devices were designed to be disguised not stand out.

Second, if I recall correctly, the example of child-attractive explosives you give were deployed in Afghanistan, yet another location dissimilar to roads in Boston.

My ultimate point though is why should small LED signs receive more attention than larger but nondescript containers? Especially given the natural explanation that someone did it as a joke or advertisement?

My take is that this isn't like pulling a fire alarm lever. You don't expect the city to mobilize to deal with a few funny looking signs.

Er, that was in reply to Michael's reply. There was a video on the MAKE magazine blog showing a hooded person putting these devices in place. If it's that easy (and relatively risk-free)to cause a disproportionate security response, then maybe would-be terrorists should go this far less risky route.

Karl -
(Thanks once again for the sort of well-reasoned critique that you've become known and appreciated for on this blog.)

For the moment, available time limits my ability to address your points to the degree I attempted above, but, allow me to shoot from the hip.

I begin to see that we are teetering on the point of an agreed-upon definition of 'similarity'. Reasoning by analogy is limited by the availability of suitable analogs and the classes, categories, and characteristics compared. Perhaps, if you are interested, we could come to mutually-agreeable definitions offline? (I'm fairly certain Phil has both of our email addresses...)

First (prime), I haven't yet studied the precise placement of all nine devices relative to the transportation infrastructure of the Boston metropolitan area, so, I will take your assertion as true on it's face and assume that all devices were placed in areas with heavy automobile traffic but minimal exposure to pedestrians. This would, as you say, minimize the potential for mass civilian casualties if the items in question were bombs but would also tend to select for a higher proportion casualties among first responders in a command- or tamper- detonated scenario.

Second, "why should small LED signs receive more attention than larger, but nondescript containers?" Off the cuff, two reasons:

1) They were designed to attract attention. (circular, I know. But even security professionals tend to jump at the blindingly obvious.)

2) They were out of context. This was part of their attraction as advertising devices, I know, but it is one more check box filled in the list of characteristics of potentially-dangerous devices.

Second, I agree that the specific device I indicated derived its (likely-uninintended) enticement effect from its application in rural, civilian, areas rather than its intended battlefield context. I presented it as an example of a device whose characteristics tended to shift the composition of its effected population by means of enticement, and, therefore, exemplary of the concept, not comparable to the urban electronic devices in question in any other fashion.

Third, "If it is that easy (and relatively risk-free) to cause a disproportionate security response, then maybe would-be terrorists should go this far less risky route." Indeed, and perhaps this, more than anything else about these events and our discussion, is the proper jumping off point for the authors and readers of this blog. There has been an unfortunate event, what ideas can we as Speculists offer to prevent such events, as well as far more serious ones, from occurring in the future, and how, if possible, can we prevent the solutions we propose from having unintended results as bad or worse than the events we've attempted to prevent?

(Note to self: do not attempt ordinally numbering your points when 'shooting from the hip'.)

Please ignore my numbering gaffe in the comment above.

- Mike