Originally Posted by
mahohmei
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...e_captain.html
I thought it would be interesting to think of countermeasures to "bad guys" turning the cockpit door against the "good guys". The "bad guy" could be anyone, but it would most likely be a pilot gone mad or hijackers who have stormed the cockpit, most likely by buying a ticket in row 1, waiting for a pilot to use the bathroom, then, in a matter of seconds, shooting the pilots and FAs up front and locking the door. (Yes, I know it's a movie plot threat, but I'd rather have a free solution here before the TSA spends a few billion on a solution. This is primarily academic.)
Here are some solutions I have sofar:
- No way to completely lock outsiders out of the cockpit, and all crew know the combination. This would be useless on a small airplane if the hijacker has shot the pilot and FA.
- The cockpit door lock has a numeric keypad on both the inside and outside, but the inside knob remains continuously free for exit. Combination required to enter the cockpit. In addition, opening the door automatically unlocks it, and the door cannot be locked except by closing the door, then punching in the combination on either the inside or outside. Assuming that no crewmember will divulge the combination at gunpoint, you have not only prevented cockpit access, but you you have also prevented a hijacker from turning the cockpit door against passengers and crew.
Despite TSA's abysmal record of finding guns going through the checkpoint, the odds that a hijacker would be armed with a gun and be able to shoot anyone or anything are vanishing small. Knives and explosives are a far more likely threat. And even with knives and/or explosives, the odds are that any would-be hijacker on a US flight would be beaten to death by a terrified, paniced mob of passengers before he actually got control of the plane.
So, while your scenarios are not impossible, I think they're unlikely enough that we don't need to waste a lot of time or money trying to counter them. That's the TSA mentality, treating the least likely threats as imminent - spending billions on scanners that can't detect underwear bombs to detect underwear bombs; forcing hundreds of millions of travelers to remove shoes for x-ray inspection that can't spot shoe bombs to detect shoe bombs; limiting liquids to keep imaginary liquid explosives off the planes; forcing travelers to state their names out loud in a feeble and futile attempt to trip up someone who is traveling under false ID; interrogating travelers to watch for mythical micro-expressions... it seems to go on forever.