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Bruce Schneier On Perceived and Real Risks

Posted by Zonk on Fri Nov 03, 2006 08:32 PM
from the hit-me-with-your-best-shot dept.
Security Math Science
prostoalex writes "Encryption guru Bruce Schneier takes a look at perceived and actual risks with some insightful commentary on how warped the public perception of risks may be: '...we worry more about anthrax (with an annual death toll of roughly zero) than influenza (with an annual death toll of a quarter-million to a half-million people). Influenza is a natural accident, anthrax is an intentional action, and the smallest action captures our attention in a way that the largest accident doesn't. If two airplanes had been hit by lightning and crashed into a New York skyscraper, few of us would be able to name the date on which it happened.'"
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  • If two airplanes had been hit by lightning and crashed into a New York skyscraper, few of us would be able to name the date on which it happened.'"

    But I'm pretty sure if it happened on the same day and dropped both towers it'd be every bit as famous as the one we had.

    • Really? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2006, @08:40PM (#16711791)
      Without consulting google, on what date did the Indian ocean tsunami hit?

    • Re:Nice soundbyte there... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by despisethesun (880261) on Friday November 03 2006, @08:51PM (#16711871)
      Really? Without looking it up on the internet, tell me the exact day the Hindenberg crashed. Same with the Titanic. The Eschede train disaster. If 9/11 were caused by lightning it would certainly have been a memorable event and wound up on about a hundred Discovery Channel specials, but the exact date of it would likely have been forgotten, and there wouldn't be the huge politicisation of the event that there was. Nobody would be telling you to "remember 9/11". It would just be some crazy shit that happened, of interest mostly to airplane and disaster buffs and an excuse for people afraid of flying to stay on the ground.

      • Re:Nice soundbyte there... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Breakfast Pants (323698) on Friday November 03 2006, @10:50PM (#16712629) Journal
        I'm sure 5 years after the hindenberg crashed a hell of a lot of people could tell you when it happened.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Lemmy Caution (8378)
          You make an excellent point: we remember these events in relative, "lived-in" time, not in absolute historical time. Absolute historical time is very much a late development - the classical historians didn't really use it, and it isn't really "natural" or intuitive. When we recall, for example, when we lost our virginity, when a relative died, and so forth, we refer to our age before we refer to the year it occured; we locate it experientally proximate events (where we were living and working, for example.)
    • But I'm pretty sure if it happened on the same day and dropped both towers it'd be every bit as famous as the one we had.

      Then tell me what was the date of the great san fransisco earth quake? do so without looking it up. It's only memorable because we have a huge species spanning problem with confirmation bias, distorted sense of risk, and we're in general gullable and stupid. Just see how a marketting partment made santa part of chirstmas and Diamonds part of engagements. The current American administratio

      • Re:Nice soundbyte there... (Score:5, Informative)

        by cold fjord (826450) on Saturday November 04 2006, @12:21AM (#16713049)
        I would certainly hope it would be famous for violating the laws of physics

        No need for Data, Scotty, or Spock to get involved. The real explanation is much more mundane.

        Debunking The 9/11 Myths - Mar. 2005 Cover Story [popularmechanics.com]

        "Melted" Steel
        CLAIM: "We have been lied to," announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. "The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel." The posting is entitled "Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC."

        FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800 to 1500F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength--and that required exposure to much less heat. "I have never seen melted steel in a building fire," says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. "But I've seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks."

        "Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100F," notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. "And at 1800 it is probably at less than 10 percent." NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.

        But jet fuel wasn't the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832F.

        "The jet fuel was the ignition source," Williams tells PM. "It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."

        The original article lead to a book Debunking 9/11 Myths [popularmechanics.com], needed now more than ever.

        The Conspiracy Industry [popularmechanics.com], By James B. Meigs, Editor-In-Chief, Popular Mechanics
  • I've often wondered about the fact that the number of lives lost in the 9/11 attack are lost every year in to traffic "accidents" in the US. So where's the war on cars?

    • The war on cars is in the power cops have to give out tickets for reckless driving, parking and putting a buck fifty into a broken meter, and failing to use a turn signal in a turn-only lane. It's just like the war on terror - it makes old people feel safer, gives arbitrary power to the government, and most people are too stupid to realize it does nothing for them.
    • I've often wondered about the fact that the number of lives lost in the 9/11 attack are lost every year in to traffic "accidents" in the US. So where's the war on cars?

      Traffic deaths do not take out 2,000 people in a single incident.

      Traffic deaths do not massively damage infrastructure or erase 50,000 high-paying jobs in a single incident. Traffic deaths do not kill a significant fraction of a city's first responders.

      New Orleans may never fully recover from Katrina. There are damn few world cities as ri

  • It might also be worth mentioning that in an average hour, 6304 people die [census.gov]. That's more than twice the number of people who died in the September 11th attacks (2973). I'm not saying those attacks weren't a big deal, but maybe we are overestimating their effect a bit?
    • ... a war on hours
      • When did I say that there should be no penalty for the September 11th attacks? Are you literate?
          • I'm going to assume that you're capable of basic arithmetic, and meant to write 'hours' instead of 'seconds'. That's not just my assertion. It's a documented fact that in an average half-hour, more people will die than in the September 11th attacks. Stating that fact isn't the same as claiming that the September 11th attacks were moral, or that they were insignificant, or any other such thing.
  • Wouldn't have remembered what happened? Heck yes we would have. At least new yorkers anyway. I want to know what the heck you do for a living that two planes crashing and leveling buildings in major cities due to lightning hits is considered mundane and unremarkable.
    • The only reason you remember it is because someone had the gall to do it to Americans. Terrorism happened all over the world before then but no one ever cared.
      • The only reason you remember it is because someone had the gall to do it to Americans. Terrorism happened all over the world before then but no one ever cared.


        Americans actively supported the terrorism in Northern Ireland, of course that sort of terror was fine.
  • Plus it's amazing how many people have no idea about the 1918 Flu epidemic that killed between 50 - 100 million yet the only significant event that caused a heavy death toll that we often remember of the period was the Great War.
  • "You can't make this stuff up:

    A retired veteran and candidate for Oklahoma State School Superintendent says he wants to make schools safer by creating bulletproof textbooks.

    Bill Crozier says the books could give students and teachers a fighting chance if there's a shooting at their school."

    why wasn't -that- slashdotted??
    • Ignoring the sheer idiocy of that statement... I bet most students would remove any bulletproof cover or lining. I know MY books are heavy enough as they are already!
    • would lead to the inner city schools actually having up to date books (or books at all).
    • He's still better than his opponent who opposes protecting our children from gunfire.

      Apropos, that Democrat has not said he is against pornography featuring deviant child rape by the terrorists burning the gay marriage flag that will cut and run the mushroom clound by raising your taxes while calling our troops DUMB. Nancy Pelosi as a speaker, ooooooooooooo!

  • You're more likely to be killed by a car accident than terrorism. You can take steps to reduce the odds, but they will always be there. With few exceptions though, the other drivers are not trying to kill you. Your car, the weather, or whatever it is causes the accident is not an intelligent being that "has it in for you".

    So. Are people irrational or not? Maybe not. Terrorists, if successful, can destabilize the whole society. It hasn't happened yet, but in theory, left unchecked, it could. OTOH,

    • I don't know about that... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rewt66 (738525) on Friday November 03 2006, @09:02PM (#16711935)
      Looking at what Schneier is saying, what humans are really doing is paying less attention to non-intelligent threats, even though they are more deadly. That does not sound like a successful survival strategy to me.
    • It's folly to deny that we're just out of the age of tribal culture, and many of us are still there. Stir in fear, my-god-is-better-than-yours,-heathen, make some insulting commentary, and it's a recipe for explosiveness.

      Add in greed, as in oil greed and thirst (it used to be water and arable land) and you get Iraq, as no proof has been forthcoming of any of the reasons we went to war there. Instead, we shot about $3trillion getting revenge for about 3K deaths.... this after we went to war for Kuwait and ru
    • You're more likely to be killed by a car accident than terrorism. You can take steps to reduce the odds, but they will always be there. With few exceptions though, the other drivers are not trying to kill you. Your car, the weather, or whatever it is causes the accident is not an intelligent being that "has it in for you".

      So. Are people irrational or not? Maybe not. Terrorists, if successful, can destabilize the whole society. It hasn't happened yet, but in theory, left unchecked, it could. OTOH, lightning
    • "Terrorists, if successful, can destabilize the whole society."

      The point of the article really ...

      If our fears were in relation to the actual risk we face ( eg: take your car, or take a plane ), Terrorist would never be able to succeed.

      Terrorist try to scare the shit of the people with a very local action and a very limited number of death. In the big scheme of things, the annual death caused by terrorism worldwide is much lower than the number of people murdered in 1 US city. If Terrorist were to succeed i
  • Without going to look it up, see if you can recall the date of the Indian Ocean tsunami in less than 3 seconds.

  • Perhaps it is about intentionality (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Infonaut (96956) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Friday November 03 2006, @09:05PM (#16711939) Homepage Journal

    When people fly two planes into the WTC, and their fellow travellers express the intent to conduct further attacks, the human intention behind it is pretty clear. Accidents happen, of course, but generally people aren't *trying* to get into car accidents. The idea that people are out there dreaming up further schemes involving mass destruction is what freaks people out. Sure, the odds are still absurdly low that you or I are going to get whacked by terrorists, but human beings are deliberately trying to create the destruction. I think it feels much more personal when you realize that human beings are behind these events, rather than random chance or nature.

    • Natural disasters evoke stoicism, or might make us mad at God. Depraved actions of another human being are fascinating because we are constantly struggling with our own desires to do what we know is wrong. "Would I do any better in the other guys shoes," we wonder. The more frenetic my denouciation of the evil terrorists, the more likely my own struggle against evil is on the brink of failure. Those who have hard won victories against the evil within know better - "there but for the grace of God go I".

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SQL Error (16383)
      This is exactly right.

      Humans naturally and correctly respond more strongly to intentional attacks than to accidents.

      Accidents will happen, and at any given point they may be more statistically threatening than whatever deliberate attacks may be going on. But accidents are relatively constant, and societies work to minimise them. Intentional attacks, on the other hand, tend to have people working to maximise the effects.

      There are people right now who would bomb every airplane in the world if they had the a
  • As a member of the SCA who participates in Heavy List Fighting. From time to time I end up talking to non members often parents and there children. All to often I get the question, "isn't this dangerus?" I all to often reply "not as dangerus as driving here."

    People will jump in a car and drive to the store. Then till you how dangerus it is to do X or Y.

    What I would love to see would be an analysys of the number of highway deaths that accured becase more people drove and are driving futher and more often sin
    • The obvious point I'd like to make is clearly this Heavy List Fighting causes some kind of brain injury that turns your spelling to shit.
  • would have to think about the header of this article. Wouldn't that be nice, don't you think?
  • In these things, the profit motive, direct or indirect, cannot be ignored. If a plane hits a building, by accident or through airline fault, no one is going to want to talk about, as it will cost the airline bunches, and talk will just make the eventual settlement higher. We all want to believe we live in a safe place, are in control of our lives, and our country is powerful enough to protect those of us who are worthy of protection. That is why after 9/11 so many people wanted to believe it was a govern
  • On 9/11/2001 something just short of 5k people died at the hands of terrorists, while around 25k died of starvation, and 32k died in auto accidents. Of course the second two happend again on 9/12, and 9/13, and 9/14 ...
  • Risks are hard to quantify, which makes comparing them difficult. There's an index of risk factors which tries to estimate the probable loss of life expectancy (LLE) [utexas.edu] by counting how many days of life will be lost because of an activity or condition.

    It makes interesting reading, particularly when you compare it to our perceived risks.

  • I applaud Mr. Schneier for bringing to light the availability heuristic [wikipedia.org].

    Essentially, that sums TFA up in two words. When something's drummed into your brain on a regular basis, your brain begins to classify it as being real or genuine; it's a more "available" scenario or assertion to you. While in this particular case it proves cause for a lot of fallacies about terrorism, and the media/politicians take advantage of it regularly, it's actually something you do as a way of survival (think Darwin); it allow

  • If two airplanes had been hit by lightning and crashed into a New York skyscraper, few of us would be able to name the date on which it happened.

    If that skyscraper then collapsed, killing 3000 people, I'm thinking we'd remember it. If not the exact date, at least the fact that it happened. Witness Katrina- an accident in which far fewer people died than on 9/11. Do I remember the exact date Katrina hit? Nope. But I do remember it happened.

    Is it really so mystical that people would react more strongly

  • As human beings, we seem to have an inborn fear of homicide, whether it's from a stranger breaking into your house, or a group of 'those guys over there' coming over and killing us en masse in an act of war. I think recent human history was incredibly violent, with cycles of revenge killings, and this had seletcive pressure on the human psyche.
  • "Shit Happens" - Forrest Gump :-)*

    "Don't Worry, Be Happy" - Bobby McFerrin

    * 2nd ref: footnotes [wikipedia.org]

    • The first job of government is to protect its people. Aggressively when required.

      You will be perfectly safe in your jail cell, no doubt.
    • kills a ton of people each year.

      I'd hazard a guess that more people are concerned about bird flu than the garden variety (i know it varies from year to year) yet they are more likely to die from the latter.
    • Given the number of people who don't remember the year that "9/11" occurred in I suspect that if the event didn't have political significance it wouldn't have been named "9/11" and that date would not be something people remember.
    • I like to point out that more people in the U.S. die of drunk driving accidents in any year than died from terrorism in that year.

      A math professor of mine once pointed out that more people in the U.S. die each year from eating fast food than die from rabies.

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