Cutting off cell phones to prevent bombings? Dumb!
So it appears that the New York City transit authority cut off cell phone coverage last week to several tunnels with the hopes of "preventing remote-detonated bombs".
There are sooo many bone-headed things wrong with this it's hard to know where to start.
- It's far, far more effective to simply use a $1 digital alarm clock for detonation rather than a cell phone. For maximum effect, multiple charges should be set off simultaneously in the least acessible tunnels during peak commuting times. Fortunately, timing this is simple due to the very nature of the fixed schedule of public transit systems. Historically, cell phone detonators have been used for assasinations and/or sniper-like strikes on civilian targets when maximum effectiveness is achievable only through direct or indirect observation of the target. The more random your target's movements, the more you need to depend upon human intelligence and observation to effect maximum destruction.
- With suicide bombers, remote detonation isn't even an issue.
- A sufficiently high-powered "spark-box" resonator could broadcast the detontation signal w/o the help of cell-phone repeators. Such a system can be constructed from common everyday elements and carried in a backpack or shoulderbag.
- Monolithic defense strategies always fail against a mobile, networked, and highly organized offense (Maginot Line anyone?). Especially on today's urban combat battlefield where anything that can be targeted can be killed by a man-portable system.
- By blacking-out cell phone coverage they lost the most reliable and accurate intelligence channel with which they could assess damage and manage rescue/triage operations should an attack occur.