What to do about perceived future threats? 3

[ivymike]

What would you fine engineers do if, while pondering the implications of some emerging technology, you realized a cheap and simple method to use the technology for terrorism?

Say, for example, that a piece of technology that is expected to be widely available in near future could be used very easily for things that nobody seems to have thought of yet, even in discussions of the "bad side" of the tech?

When "dangerous" ideas come to mind, I'm not sure that just keeping them to myself is the best approach, since I don't figure myself to be the most imaginative character in the world (somebody else certainly has had, or will have, the same idea somewhere). Then again, I wouldn't want to attract too much attention to the ideas (or myself, for that matter) by discussing them openly.

Suggestions?

 

[DaveVikingPE]

I recommend that you sleep with one eye opened...

You know, with something as small as a pencil amazing damage can be done...

or...

Do YOU want to cause mayhem?

 

[ivymike]

I gather from your response that you do not consider this topic worthy of discussion. I envy your position, that you do not need to be wary of the implications of your work, or that of your neighbors. I wonder if there are others here who have more interest in this topic?

 

[GregLocock]

One of my many interests is battleships. Consequently I spend enormous amounts of time arguing with military historians. One of the outcomes of those discussions is that basically most inventions come about because the time is right, rather than one genius waking up one morning with a new idea.

Now, it may be that you are ahead of the curve, but generally I would say that discussing a particular threat is not going to result in a new discovery, but it may popularise it.

I tried to get a definitive answer from someone I know who works in that sort of field, but he has not responded to my email.

With your particualr device I could see a couple of big flaws (power and visibility), so in this instance it is not a big deal, but I think you should generally bung in a note to the FBI. I wouldn't bother in Australia, our lot are usually working for the opposition anyway. :<





Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[Hush]

Necessity may be the mother of invention but some organizations seem to feel it is a necessity to cause destruction and mayhem amongst civilian populations. These are the people who would sieze upon what would otherwise be
an innocent musing to create a terrorist weapon. Seems to me Tom Clancy wrote about crashing an airliner into a building a few years before it was done. Did his novel spark the events of 9/11, maybe. In the end though, does that mean we should take Mr. Clancy's word processor away from him, no.

 

[ivymike]

Speaking of giving ideas to the bad guys, there was an online forum similar to this one, in which a conversation was conducted about the possible effects of crashing a passenger aircraft into the WTC, some time before the actual event... No telling who's reading, I guess.

 

[RDK]

There is a lot of technology out there that can easily be used for terrorist attacks. I can think of several scenarios, that with simple low technology and little organization, catastrophic damage can be caused. Again in the sprit of not giving the bad guys any ideas, I’ll not mention them.

What seams to be the Achilles heel of the terrorists is that they undertake elaborate planning exercises that can lead the authorities to them, hopefully before the attacks but if not after and this will identify the command and control systems making them venerable to counter attack. If they followed the Nike commercial and just did it they would be a lot more successful.

If there was some emerging technology that I was involved in that had a simple terrorist application I would advise some authority of the potential and implication. In the US take it to the new directorate of Homeland Security, in Canada the RCMP, in other countries the appropriate police organization.

Now getting them to understand the technology, the implications and the threat might be a different matter. If it’s a military type of application try your military authorities. They can at least understand the application if not the technology.
Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng

Construction Project Management
From conception to completion

http://www.kitsonengineering.com

 

[ivymike]

btw, Greg, you might find these articles interesting (and you might not):

http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=8170

http://buffy.eecs.berkeley.edu/IRO/Summary/02abstracts/mxu.1.html

 

[ivymike]

I should have added the following in/re visibility - have you ever seen someone steal a fake potted plant from a restaurant? I have, and I didn't do anything more than chuckle and continue eating. What would your reaction be if you saw someone putting one back?

 

[PM]

Some implied questions here sound something like:[ol][li]Because all technologies can be turned to nefarious purpose, should technological development be restrained because it can be corrupted in future?[/li][li]Do professional engineers have an obligation to contemplate and or conceive of significant threats posed by the technologies they develop and use?[/li][li] Do they have an obligation to notify the authorities when they foresee a specific application of technology for malevolent purpose?[/li][li]Are they obligated to design 'anti-terrorist safeguards into their technologies?[/li][/ol]I don't think any of this is feasible and therefore the rhetorical answer is no.

Regards,

 

[ivymike]

Do you honestly believe that engineers have no obligation to consider the implications of technology that they develop, nor to assist in the defense of the public against specific threats? I disagree with that position.

To quote from the preface of a book entitled Engineers and Their Profession (John D. Kemper):

&quot;Technical advancement may be the guiding devotion of the engineering profession, but the members of this group should be fully aware that human welfare is the ultimate justification for technology's existence. Regardless of whatever views the reader may hold concerning the workings of society, history shows that no society will long tolerate any group within itself whose aims are regarded as antagonistic to those of the majority.&quot;

My own interpretation in the above is that engineers must consider, to the extent possible, the social implications of that which they help to create. Whether this means emissions controls on automobiles, careful disposition of harmful materials, or restrictions on the distribution of certain technology, we are obligated as professionals to act in the interest of public safety and welfare.

It's an odd situation that we are in; people in many cases seem to have a strong desire for things that may prove to be their own undoing. It's hard to not be regarded as &quot;antagonistic to the majority&quot; while suggesting that they should give up smoking, booze, junk food, and SUV's.

Then again, I'm not licensed anyway, so what the heck am I talking about? Another beer please, it's a long drive home.

 

[swertel]

This is an excert from the Code of Ethics posted by the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), USA.

http://www.nspe.org/ethics/eh1-code.asp#

&quot;Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall:
1. Hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public.&quot;

Their very first fundamental canon (not cannon ) states that we as professional engineers and engineering professionals MUST consider the safety and security of everyone that comes in contact with the products we produce.

As I interpret it, we must consider ALL possible uses of the products we create; and during the design of said product, limit the possibility of misuse. It has been said that there is no one as resourceful as a fool, so engineers can't possibly think of every misuse of our creations, but we can think of some and must defend against those. (Of course, playing that balancing act between company profit, delivery schedules, and ethics that we do so well in the meantime.)

Finally, to comment on Rick's (RDK) post, Edgar Allen Poe stated this concept best in one of his writings. (Sorry, I can't remember the specific work.) Revenge is only satisfying when the person you are revenging knows who is doing it. As we seal the person inside of a brick wall in our wine cellar, that person must realize what it is we are doing without having the ability to stop us. Terrorism is just a form of revenge. It is not satisfying to terrorist if they remain anonymous. That's why they plan those elaborate acts that can be traced to them. We've all seen the news after a terrorist act; every terrorist group makes an announcement that they were responsible for that &quot;glorious&quot; act. Without the tracibility, the actual responsible party would not get their satisfaction.

 

[DaveVikingPE]

I think that a Mad Scientists and Engineers Code of Ethics is what you're looking for.

I admit my approach is sarcastic and may seem patronizing, but I'm serious. The earliest engineering code I know of (Hammurabi) was quite simple: build something that kills someone and your life is forfeit. So I'm inclined to believe that the welfare of humanity was recognized as paramount to civil engineering from the get-go.

Concerning military engineering, including building weapons of all kinds, what is paramount is the ability to kill the enemy - which includes building sturdy fortifications, developing efficient means of feeding, clothing, transporting, training, housing, etc. armies.

Weapons and violence are necessary, in fact I'll say that they are vital to human survival. We must kill to eat and a lot of killing had to happen to get where we are (re: US Civil War, etc.).

As far as the &quot;implications&quot; of one's design are concerned: one has many choices. You can keep it to yourself and hope it's not developed by someone else. You can continue your work and make sure your country has it, thus assuring that it'll only be used to your advantage (assuming that's what you want). You can sell it to the &quot;bad guys&quot; after you've sold it to your own country and hope that &quot;mutally assured destruction&quot; will maintain the peace. Or you can write SF novels about civilizations that use the weapon and hope a movie is made out of it.

As far as terrorists go, we are talking about people who have no problem with killing themselves. They will use whatever means is the most convenient and whatever means will to the most damage, strike the most terror, make the most noise with what they have available. It seems most prefer some sort of explosives. Should the Nobel Peace prize be renamed because of the Nobel's link to dynamite?

Hey, ivymike, are you drinking and driving? What's up with that?

The EAPoe story is &quot;The Cask of Amontillado.&quot;

 

[ivymike]

Then again, I'm not licensed anyway, so what the heck am I talking about? Another beer please, it's a long drive home.

Hey, ivymike, are you drinking and driving? What's up with that?

Well yeah, that was the meaning behind my statement. No, I wasn't actually drinking and driving, I was sitting at my desk at home with a glass of milk. The &quot;license&quot; I was referring to was an engineering license, not a driver's license, but that distinction is immaterial for the purposes of the comment. I was simply attempting to illustrate, through irony, that even non-licensed engineers have obligations to society and to the public welfare.

 

[PM]

Is it just me, or is the quality of posts improving on this forum? It seems awfully easy to &quot;dumb down&quot; a complex ethical issue, but some of these posts really turn you around and make you ruminate. I might need more time to cogitate ivymike's Dec 10th post before I respond. For now, I can't disagree with ivymike, but in practical terms how can anyone anticipate some zealot flying a plane into a building. If we were expected to do so, development would cease.

Regards,

 

[austim]

PM,

Maybe development would not &quot;cease&quot;.

All it would need to largely eliminate further plane/building (or for that matter, plane/mountain) interactions would be a reasonably fail-safe system in all airliners that would over-ride the pilot and divert the plane if the system recognised an obstruction within a defined 'hazard area'.

If we can already land a plane without any input from the pilot, surely such a system would not be beyond today's technology?

 

[Hush]

Actually the WTC and Pentagon tragedies could have been prevented with something as simple as a door lock. This was discussed long before 9/11 after some loon tried to crash an airliner over Africa but was dismissed as being an excessive cost for the perceived risk involved.

On any new design we conduct a risk and failure analysis. Up till now it has been along the lines of, how stupid could the user possibly be? Now we need to also think, how malevolent could the user possibly be?

 

[Haf]

Think of the practical implications of what many of you are suggesting. A lot of great ideas and inventions never make it off the ground because they can't be made profitable. If every invention had to be made &quot;terrorist proof&quot; (which is probably impossible anyway), it makes it that much more difficult to be profitable.

Take planes and buildings as an example. Austim's suggestion that planes have pilot over-ride systems is a good idea, and it's probably not beyond today's technology. But do you really want to pay $200 more for your plane ticket? Think of the implications to the airlines. Less people would fly, and, in the long run, more airlines would face UAL-like financial problems. The same goes for buildings. Should we make our large structures airplane proof? Oh, and by the way, when you make your building airplane proof, don't forget to consider planes that will be developed 50 years from now (or whatever you expect your building lifetime to be). It's border-line ridiculous!

These comments allude to a bigger question, indirectly posed by ivymike. Do we really want terrorists to change our way of life? Do we want technology development to be partially controlled by terrorists?

Think of all the inventions already out there that are convenient to terrorists. One of the most important things for a terrorist organization is communication. Telephones, cell phones, email, internet, cassete tapes, and video tapes make terrorist communication more effective. Does that mean we should try to make these technologies terrorist proof?

Crooks, criminals, and terrorists have been utilizing the latest technology throughout history, and they will continue to do so. It is unreasonable and impractial to try to put a complete stop to this.

Having said all this, let me concede that there are obvious exceptions. Technologies developed specifically for weapons applications are one example. But, because of the very nature of those technologies, they are developed with countermeasures and other advesary-related issues in mind. Other technologies include encryption technology and GPS technology. In most cases, the government already regulates (and many times is the chief developer of) these technologies.

I would also like to make some comments on the ethical canon that so many of you are referring to, i.e., &quot;Hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public.&quot; This sounds good in theory, but is NEVER practiced in reality. I recently took a safety course, and the first thing the instuctor said was, &quot;Everybody likes to say 'safety first,' but, in reality, safety is usually last.&quot; The bottom line is that good engineers and companies
strive to make a product as safe as possible with the available budget. Then, in the end, a decision must be made as to whether the design is &quot;safe enough.&quot; But money always determines how safe you can make a product. Take cars and airplanes as an example. Everybody knows that both cars and airplanes could be safer than they are. Furthermore, people are well aware that some cars and planes are safer than others. Think about what that implies. Take an &quot;unsafe&quot; car (one that performs poorly in crash tests, braking, etc. vs. other cars). At some point, a designer said, &quot;Look, we could make this car safer, but then our price tag would go up to $25k. We want to sell this car for $15k, so we're not gonna do it.&quot; Are they holding public safety paramount? Absolutely not. Are they being unethical as a result of that? Probably not (it could be argued, I suppose).

With safety, &quot;acceptable risk&quot; always comes into the equation. The same goes with the development of technologies that could be used in harmful ways. At some point someone has to decide if the benefit from the intended use of the technology outweighs the potential harm from unintended use. The risk will always be there.

My (long) two cents,

Haf

 

[GregLocock]

But technology is a two edged sword (sorry about that). It works for the good guys as well as the bad guys, generally. When a piece of advanced technology remotely blows up a jeep with six naughty people in it that is a case where the technology seems to be improving the general lot.

The way to stifle terrorism is to remove injustice, and the most efficient way to do that is to make people more prosperous, and to educate them. Improving technology is an engineer's way of doing that.

Call me a cynical old capitalist! Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[PSE]

Since we are far from omniscient beings, It would be nigh impossible to consider FULLY, all the implications for new technologies. If immediate detrimental uses of a technology are apparent, at least we can be pro-active in trying to prevent such use. As for the rest, we can but react to, and in some cases, be amazed, at the ways an extremist individual or group can use technology to destroy.

I agree with GregLocock's post on stifling terrorism and feel that in a developing country, it would prove to have great impact. Unfortunately, regardless of what any of us or any government does, there will always be some disgruntled minority willing to do extreme acts of violence. We should not condemn or paralyze ourselves for not being able to see all contingencies in the use of technology.

Regards