2010-02-09

Priority is Certain .. Possible Meanings

Yeah that is a malpropism that makes no sense. In general it has no meaning, but it could also be a misquote or a partial quote. I wrote this earlier on the Schneier Blog but I figured it was good to post here now:


The question seems to have been "What is the probability of an ATTEMPTED attack in the next 6 months?" I would also lay the odds at 100% that someone, somewhere will ATTEMPT an attack in the United States in the next 6 months. The question is so open ended that to answer anything but would be wrong.

People who would like to become terrorists do try to come into the country all the time. The vast majority of them have been stopped for years with the same methods that were in use before 9/11/2001. So technically they are ATTEMPTING to commit terrorist acts. [Of course the various people who blow up mailboxes every April 15th to protest taxes may be technically committing terrorism ... so you can go beyond 'attempting'.]

To me, the unconscionable part of the conversation was the open ended question, and the lack of digging by the reporter on that.

Obligatory Fedora Item: The Fedora 13 release name Goddard is which is related in a way to the Beta from 2001 Roswell. Goddard did many rocket launches near Roswell NM. The Enigma of all this... what will follow Goddard?

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