http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071121/bs_nm/airlines_israel_security_dc
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Piar
Cosa ne pensate?
Saluti a tutti
Piar
Israel launches anti-hijack pilot ID system
- Autore Discussione piar2007
- Data d'inizio
Israel launches anti-hijack pilot ID system
By Dan Williams
Tue Nov 20, 7:59 PM ET
LOD, Israel (Reuters) - Israeli authorities plan to issue a new anti-hijack identification system to incoming aircraft which they say is foolproof, but some experts are not convinced it will plug all the security holes on the horizon.
Starting next year, Israel will require pilots who fly to its airports to use the Security Code System (SCS), a local invention designed to ensure planes that have been commandeered for al Qaeda-style attacks are spotted in time.
Israel plans a trial run for the system, using a credit card-sized keypad, next month, in cooperation with five airlines from the United States, Europe and Africa. About 10,000 of the units will ultimately be issued, with Israel bearing the cost.
Pilots who fail the authentication test when they approach Israeli airspace will be denied entry. Should a plane go ahead, ignoring further warnings, Israel will consider it hostile and scramble fighter planes for an interception.
In the worst case, that could mean an aircraft is shot down.
"You can't bluff this system," Dani Shenar, chief of security for Israel's Transportation Ministry, told Reuters.
"It provides a higher level of confidence that the aircraft is being controlled by the right people, which is a huge asset in terms of avoiding unnecessary security alerts."
He said the system knows how to differentiate between "a classic hostage-taking hijacking and a 9/11-style hijacking."
Shenar and the company that developed SCS, Elbit Systems, declined on security grounds to give details of the technology and procedures involved.
TWO KINDS OF HIJACK
Several experts familiar with Israeli methodology say the system -- also known as "Code Positive" -- is based on the assumption that a hijacking will take place in one of two ways.
Hijackers could either kill the pilots and take control -- as is believed to have been the case in the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Or they could force pilots to issue a compliant response to the system in the hope of buying enough time to reach Israel and crash the planes into a target on the ground.
In the first case, the hijackers would fail the security check as they entered Israeli airspace, giving military authorities about 15 minutes to launch a response.
In the second, Shenar said, pilots would be expected to relay a "May Day" alert. He declined to say how they would do this during a hijacking.
Omer Laviv, an aviation security expert with the Israeli company Athena GS3, said some pilots may be reluctant to signal their predicament.
"That would mean certain death, while if you give the correct code, perhaps the attacker would be willing to land and to negotiate. Now, this is a big dilemma," Laviv said.
Also, Laviv said, hijackers could wait until after a plane had passed the checks and entered Israeli airspace to storm the crew, although Israel requires that all incoming airliners keep their flight deck doors locked.
"GUN TO THE HEAD"
Shenar said SCS's designers had taken the "gun to the pilot's head" scenario into consideration.
"Once a pilot understands this system, he will understand that using it is his best way of handling different hijack-related situations," Shenar said. "International experience shows that, in a crisis, a flight crew will do what it has to do."
The SCS keypad indicates that its user will be expected to enter a numerical code.
On the back of the device, which a Reuters correspondent inspected during an exclusive tour of the Israeli Transportation Ministry's aviation control facilities, is what looks like a microphone, labeled "Acoustic Signature"; that suggests there is also some kind of voice-identification technology.
Chris Yates, aviation security editor for Jane's publications, said since the system did not appear to use a transmitter he doubted it could feed live data from the flight deck to the ground.
International airliners have long been equipped with a universal transponder for emitting distress signals, something known to most hijackers by now. SCS would, at the very least, offer a novel safeguard, Yates said.
"Any technology enhancing flight safety is a worthwhile addition to the arsenal we have to beat terrorists," he said.
"The Israelis, from my experience, tend to keep useful initiatives close to their chests until they are ready for deployment. The reason is that all technologies have a limited shelf-life before ways and means are found to circumvent them."
He saw a potential risk in pilots issued with the system proving to be terrorist "sleepers" or collaborators.
"There are any number of instances around the world of airline staff being involved in all manner of criminal activity," he said. "And what about the threat, for example, of an unbalanced pilot?"
(Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Andrew Dobbie)
By Dan Williams
Tue Nov 20, 7:59 PM ET
LOD, Israel (Reuters) - Israeli authorities plan to issue a new anti-hijack identification system to incoming aircraft which they say is foolproof, but some experts are not convinced it will plug all the security holes on the horizon.
Starting next year, Israel will require pilots who fly to its airports to use the Security Code System (SCS), a local invention designed to ensure planes that have been commandeered for al Qaeda-style attacks are spotted in time.
Israel plans a trial run for the system, using a credit card-sized keypad, next month, in cooperation with five airlines from the United States, Europe and Africa. About 10,000 of the units will ultimately be issued, with Israel bearing the cost.
Pilots who fail the authentication test when they approach Israeli airspace will be denied entry. Should a plane go ahead, ignoring further warnings, Israel will consider it hostile and scramble fighter planes for an interception.
In the worst case, that could mean an aircraft is shot down.
"You can't bluff this system," Dani Shenar, chief of security for Israel's Transportation Ministry, told Reuters.
"It provides a higher level of confidence that the aircraft is being controlled by the right people, which is a huge asset in terms of avoiding unnecessary security alerts."
He said the system knows how to differentiate between "a classic hostage-taking hijacking and a 9/11-style hijacking."
Shenar and the company that developed SCS, Elbit Systems, declined on security grounds to give details of the technology and procedures involved.
TWO KINDS OF HIJACK
Several experts familiar with Israeli methodology say the system -- also known as "Code Positive" -- is based on the assumption that a hijacking will take place in one of two ways.
Hijackers could either kill the pilots and take control -- as is believed to have been the case in the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Or they could force pilots to issue a compliant response to the system in the hope of buying enough time to reach Israel and crash the planes into a target on the ground.
In the first case, the hijackers would fail the security check as they entered Israeli airspace, giving military authorities about 15 minutes to launch a response.
In the second, Shenar said, pilots would be expected to relay a "May Day" alert. He declined to say how they would do this during a hijacking.
Omer Laviv, an aviation security expert with the Israeli company Athena GS3, said some pilots may be reluctant to signal their predicament.
"That would mean certain death, while if you give the correct code, perhaps the attacker would be willing to land and to negotiate. Now, this is a big dilemma," Laviv said.
Also, Laviv said, hijackers could wait until after a plane had passed the checks and entered Israeli airspace to storm the crew, although Israel requires that all incoming airliners keep their flight deck doors locked.
"GUN TO THE HEAD"
Shenar said SCS's designers had taken the "gun to the pilot's head" scenario into consideration.
"Once a pilot understands this system, he will understand that using it is his best way of handling different hijack-related situations," Shenar said. "International experience shows that, in a crisis, a flight crew will do what it has to do."
The SCS keypad indicates that its user will be expected to enter a numerical code.
On the back of the device, which a Reuters correspondent inspected during an exclusive tour of the Israeli Transportation Ministry's aviation control facilities, is what looks like a microphone, labeled "Acoustic Signature"; that suggests there is also some kind of voice-identification technology.
Chris Yates, aviation security editor for Jane's publications, said since the system did not appear to use a transmitter he doubted it could feed live data from the flight deck to the ground.
International airliners have long been equipped with a universal transponder for emitting distress signals, something known to most hijackers by now. SCS would, at the very least, offer a novel safeguard, Yates said.
"Any technology enhancing flight safety is a worthwhile addition to the arsenal we have to beat terrorists," he said.
"The Israelis, from my experience, tend to keep useful initiatives close to their chests until they are ready for deployment. The reason is that all technologies have a limited shelf-life before ways and means are found to circumvent them."
He saw a potential risk in pilots issued with the system proving to be terrorist "sleepers" or collaborators.
"There are any number of instances around the world of airline staff being involved in all manner of criminal activity," he said. "And what about the threat, for example, of an unbalanced pilot?"
(Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Andrew Dobbie)
Idea banale: metterei una bella videocamera nel cockpit, con la quale controllare che ci siano solo i piloti e che le loro facce corrispondano a quelle trasmesse al decollo o durante il volo.
Al di là dei costi di allestimento (e, implicitamente, di grounding delle macchine), quello che incide in modo catastrofico sono i costi di traffico su banda satellitare... e poi, se mettessero la telecamera in cockpit, qualcuno di nostra conoscenza non potrebbe più fumare sullo strapuntino in mezzo ai piloti...[:301]
Una bella paraculata nei confronti degli equipaggi, non c'è che dire, ma dall'altro lato della medaglia la si può leggere come un clamoroso scaricabarile: "NOI vi forniamo questo equipaggiamento che VOI non ci avete chiesto. Se poi le cose vanno male, di solito siete tanto bravi, cavatevela da soli".
Se ho capito come funziona il meccanismo, lo spazio aereo israeliano sarebbe sempre OFF LIMITS, eccezion fatta per quei voli che si "certifichino" tramite il codice di accesso.
Mettiamoci nei panni di un pilota minacciato da un dirottatore, a 20NM dall'ingresso della FIR di Tel Aviv. Cosa facciamo?
a) ci rifiutiamo di inserire il codice corretto, esponendoci da un lato alle eventuali ritorsioni dei dirottatori, e dall'altro alle certe</u> ritorsioni dell'aviazione israeliana.
b) inseriamo il codice corretto.
Non so voi, ma io una certa tendenza a rispondere B ce l'avrei. Di conseguenza, un aereo dirottato potrebbe legittimamente entrare nello spazio aereo israeliano e fare un po' quello che gli pare. O si genera di volta in volta un codice che significa "Siamo dirottati, ma fammi entrare altrimenti mi sgozzano", o la vedo dura identificare per davvero chi è dirottato e chi no.
Nicola
PS: inutile parlare di squawk, quella - purtroppo - è roba vecchia e risaputa.
@ Marcogiov
BTW, vado leggermente OT ma è interessante: pare che verrà presto emanata una direttiva europea (o forse è già stata addirittura emanata) che vieterà l'utilizzo della banda (UHF o satellitare che sia) usata da ACARS per finalità diverse da ACARS stesso.
In pratica se vuoi trasmettere altri dati, anche marginali in quanto a dimensione (ad es. il caso delle foto in cockpit o delle stringhe di testo per le news a bordo via IFE), sei obbligato ad usare un'altra connessione ad hoc.
BTW, vado leggermente OT ma è interessante: pare che verrà presto emanata una direttiva europea (o forse è già stata addirittura emanata) che vieterà l'utilizzo della banda (UHF o satellitare che sia) usata da ACARS per finalità diverse da ACARS stesso.
In pratica se vuoi trasmettere altri dati, anche marginali in quanto a dimensione (ad es. il caso delle foto in cockpit o delle stringhe di testo per le news a bordo via IFE), sei obbligato ad usare un'altra connessione ad hoc.
Gli Stati Uniti hanno già speso quasi 500 miliardi di dollari dal 2003 per la guerra in Iraq per garantire - così rivendicava l'amministrazione - la sicurezza degli americani. Con la stessa cifra sai quante misure di sicurezza si potevano finanziare! In Italia spendiamo 18 miliardi di euro all'anno in auto blu.
I soldi sono sempre un problema relativo. Quando una cosa si vuol fare, i soldi si trovano.
Non so voi, ma a me questa brillante invenzione israeliana non fa certo dormire più sereno di notte ...
Possibile che non possano fare di meglio ??
L'idea di marcogiov non è male ma ugualmente inutile nel caso B, comunque non andrebbero spedite a terra le immagini: ci sono software molto validi nel comparare immagini quindi basta mandare a terra l'esito del confronto.
Possibile che non possano fare di meglio ??
L'idea di marcogiov non è male ma ugualmente inutile nel caso B, comunque non andrebbero spedite a terra le immagini: ci sono software molto validi nel comparare immagini quindi basta mandare a terra l'esito del confronto.
Nell'ipotesi che un auto blu costa 50.000 euro con 18 miliardi ti compri il 15% del venduto in Italia in un anno. Un po' troppi credo (spero!).
Certo che gli israeliani sono proprio stupidi! Con tutti i metodi più banali per garantire la sicurezza dello spazio aereo si vanno ad incasinare con quei giochini!
--
Dimifox
www.dimifox.it
Born to be!