[Gllug] London explosions

[Sean Burlington]

On Thursday 07 Jul 2005 9:21 pm, Peter Childs wrote:
>     Ok We're all agreed that ID card will not fix anything, But what
> about putting Airport Style metal detectors at every tube and train
> station in the country and scanning everyone entering the system,

funny you should say that - from this weeks newscientist (print copy arrived 
before the bombings)

the only way I think would make a difference is to do some of the things Sir 
Bob and co have been campaigning for like make world trade a little less 
unfair (and stop corrupting African governments with huge sums of oil money)



http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18725075.400

Technology cannot stop suicide bombers

Technology is no better than good old-fashioned detective work at preventing 
suicide-bomb attacks, says a new study.

Newly developed terahertz scanners and sensitive sensors can detect explosives 
carried by would-be bombers. However, even if the technology were affordable 
and reliable, and could be widely deployed in urban areas, it still would not 
save many lives, says Edward Kaplan at Yale University.

Kaplan and Moshe Kress at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, 
California, mathematically modelled how many sensors would be needed to warn 
that a suicide bomber was walking through either an open plaza or a grid of 
city streets.

Even if every sensor worked perfectly, more than 150 would be needed to cover 
a 500-metre-square plaza and detect a suicide bomber at least 10 seconds 
before they detonated their bomb. Within a street grid, there would have to 
be sensors at 80 per cent of all road intersections (Proceedings of the 
National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0500567102). Even then, in 
both scenarios such sensor networks would only identify four out of five 
bombers, and would not reliably reduce the number of expected casualties, the 
researchers found.

"Trying to rely upon last-minute detection of random suicide bombers is the 
wrong way to go," says Kaplan. Sensors could be effective at protecting 
specific areas, such as sporting events or government buildings, he says, but 
many suicide bombers attack random targets, as is evident in Iraq and Israel. 
Investing in

-- 

Sean
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