It’s been a week or so since the events at Boston took place. It’s been labelled by the press as the most significant terrorist act since 9/11.

The unspoken and usually under-reported counterpart to this tragedy, if we can callously disregard the human aspect for a while, is the effect this will have on sporting/community events in the future.

In the aftermath of events like this, security is stringently reviewed for weaknesses. But what can be done that hasn’t already been put in place? The Boston event had adequate security which included bomb sweeps not once, but twice and included a large contingent of the National Guard, sniffer dogs and police through the crowds. The 2 terrorists were able to sail in with bombs in backpacks, detonate them and leave with ease.

The fact is, security is an arms-race. Even with every precaution and every good measure, any well designed security program can only cover known threats. This is how the Boston terrorists ‘succeeded’. Not through ineptitude of the security, but the fact that terrorists by necessity are one step ahead of the game. To have a ‘successful’ hit requires planning, foresight and resourcefulness and being able to effectively counter every countermeasure to hit an intended target. In a way it is very similar to the computer malware problem. New exploits are found through research (or luck) and then applied as an attack vector. The payoff comes from the first wave of infection, the time before a fix is applied. Similarly, traditional weapons that do make it through and cause damage generally have a 1-opportunity use, which is all the terrorists are interested in in the first place.

As terrorists find novel ways to evade detection, the general public are effectively treated as the ‘potential terrorist’ by default. Airports are notorious for this kind of thinking. After the shoe bomber was caught, all passengers were made to take their shoes off and any liquids needed to be either destroyed or inspected, including bottles of water, just in case one person happened to have bad intentions. One regulation is piled upon another upon another. And rarely do we ever see things reset.

The model seems flawed, but it’s the only one that seems to be adopted. Terrorists slip through the cracks while the majority are inconvenienced. It’s like a compulsory opt-in model, except those with enough cunning can “opt-out” by beating the system or exploiting overlooked weaknesses. The outcome: lines are longer, check in times are substantially greater and security is mitigated slightly. But I guess there can be no real solution to this problem, so we are stuck with things as they are, slowly becoming more and more invasive and impractical and offering only “security theatre” in return.

In a few months there will be a fun run from City to Bondi. I sincerely hope that the organisers do not go overboard and turn it into a quasi military state at the finish line. The actions of 2 madmen (with particular grievances) does not mean that the rest of the world is now of imminent threat. If we buckle in to the silliness without being reasonable and level headed about these things then the terrorists will have won in more ways than one.

In the words of Franklin “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”