North American Network Operators Group
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Re: London incidents

  • From: Patrick W. Gilmore
  • Date: Tue Jul 12 13:51:58 2005 
On Jul 12, 2005, at 12:56 PM, Jim Popovitch wrote:


Billions of dollars, millions of person-hours, and more frustration
than I can quantify is not a good price to pay for the infinitesimal
increase in security (if any) we have received through decisions like
this one.
How can you accurately know this? I think you are just presuming, but
you (like I) will never really truly know. We don't like spending that
money, but we have no proof that not spending it is better. We can all
agree that it could probably be spent wiser, but this is the US Government.
To date, the TSA, the OMB, Congress, the FBI, and the CIA all agree that the TSA has not made us any safer. (Note the first department in that list.)

Of course, maybe we averted World War III, but everyone who's been asked (including the security people themselves), and real-world tests of our security efforts, show that we are not any safer.

IOW: No, it is not a presumption.


I think the world has shown that cellphones have been used over and
over
to detonate explosive devices. Why wait for it to be proved again
before doing something? AFAIK "Emergency Only" mode allows for 911
calls, just not inbound/outbound calls. Besides, the US (at least) is
full of a lot of people who need to hang up the phone and start
driving
good again.

Your logic is ... illogical.  If you cannot see why, I will not be
able to explain it to you.  (But you probably feel safer knowing I
can't pack a Zippo in my checked in baggage.)


No, your logic is ... illogical.., and I will not show you where. ;-)
Others in the thread have shown fallacies in your argument. I am sorry you did not understand them.


As for the "Emergency Only" mode, the original poster said _power was
cut_ to the repeaters.  Could you explain to me how this allows for
911 calls please?
The original poster quoted a news report, how may times have you seen
technically accurate news reports? I don't know the source of the
report but I do know that some people think the the whole internet is
down when only it is their connection. In this case (someone saying that
the port authority had shutdown cellphone access) there are so many
possible interpretations that it is impossible to really know without
firsthand knowledge. Speculation as to "how", is just as bad as speculation
as to "why" (which is why I jumped into this cat fight).
I was not speculating.  From the post:


Then we have this:
http://us.cnn.com/2005/US/07/11/tunnels.cell.phones.ap/index.html

  "The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs area
  transit hubs, bridges and tunnels, decided last Thursday to
  indefinitely sever power to transmitters providing wireless
  service in the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, spokesman Tony
  Ciavolella said Monday."
The Port Authority spokesman said they decided to "indefinitely sever power to transmitters". The source seems reliable, knowledgeable, and specific.

So you "jumped into this cat fight" by "speculating" on something when you had an authoritative source with good, specific information.

--
TTFN,
patrick