This latest round of terror alerts and the resulting over-reaction by authorities is just the latest example of how politics and stupidity combine to give the terrorists exactly what they want.  Perhaps the best analysis that I’ve seen has been written by Bruce Schneier, one of the world’s leading security experts and the author of the best-seller “Beyond Fear.”  In the latest issue of his Crypto-Gram newsletter he writes bin an article titled “What The Terrorists Want”:

 ”In truth, it’s doubtful that their plan would have succeeded; chemists have been debunking the idea since it became public. Certainly the suspects were a long way off from trying: None had bought airline tickets, and some didn’t even have passports.

Regardless of the threat, from the would-be bombers’ perspective, the explosives and planes were merely tactics. Their goal was to cause terror, and in that they’ve succeeded.

Imagine for a moment what would have happened if they had blown up ten planes. There would be canceled flights, chaos at airports, bans on carry-on luggage, world leaders talking tough new security measures, political posturing and all sorts of false alarms as jittery people panicked. To a lesser degree, that’s basically what’s happening right now.”

Bruce goes into some depth on the subject and provides links to a variety of technical resources that debund the seriousness of this threat.  The bottom line is we’re still far too concerned about show and not enough about go, about doing what’s really effective to combat terrorist plots.  Our limited resources are being squandered.  I strongly urge you to read Bruce’s entire article.