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PROFESSOR: There can be
a temptation, a tendency

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for technical people, for
scientists and engineers,

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to constrict their
definition of a problem.

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So they redefine
a problem around

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what can be solved technically.

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So first, they determine
what they, as technicians,

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can solve.

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And then having done that,
they define that as the problem

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that has to be solved.

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So it's tempting to define this
particular problem left behind

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by the attacks of September the
11th as a technical problem.

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And then, you can start to
talk about some of the things

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that [INAUDIBLE] was talking
about just now, increasing

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security at airports, increasing
surveillance of people's email

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messages, making sure
cockpit doors are much harder

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to break down,
putting surveillance

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cameras inside planes, giving
pilots their own weapons

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technology so that they could
potentially subdue hijackers

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and so on.

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And I want to point out that
while these changes would not

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be useless, there
are two problems.

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First of all, they don't
address the root causes

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of terrorism itself, which
are political, not technical.

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And second, they may
raise the obstacles.

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But you can never raise the
obstacles to such a height

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that people can't jump over
them or work around them.

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So the problem for
terrorists will be

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like the problem for burglars.

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Every time there's a new car
burglar alarm or a new alarm

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system in homes, they
just have to figure out

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a new way around it.

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But eventually, they do.

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So you can use technical
fixes to minimize the danger,

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but never to eliminate it.