Sorting Fact From Fiction in Mumbai Attacks | Danger Room from Wired.com#more

Sorting Fact From Fiction in Mumbai Attacks Danger Room from Wired.com


Bruce Schneier is making sense, as usual. First, he draws some early lessons from the Mumbai attacks.

Here's one:

Low-tech is very effective. Movie-plot threats -- terrorists with crop dusters, terrorists with biological agents, terrorists targeting our water supplies -- might be what people worry about, but a bunch of trained (we don't really know yet what sort of training they had, but it's clear that they had some) men with guns and grenades is all they needed. [Well, plus some Radio Shack tech -- ed.]


Then, Schneier slaps sense into worrywarts who complain that all the talk on Twitter somehow helped the Mumbai terrorists.

This fear is exactly backwards. During a terrorist attack -- during any crisis situation, actually -- the one thing people can do is exchange information. It helps people, calms people, and actually reduces the thing the terrorists are trying to achieve: terror. Yes, there are specific movie-plot scenarios where certain public pronouncements might help the terrorists, but those are rare. I would much rather err on the side of more information, more openness, and more communication.

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