Now that a minor group of quasi-religious lunatics led by the world’s oldest, richest and most dangerous juvenile delinquent has declared that lying to and killing non-Muslims is acceptable in the name of “religion,” they have eliminated the possibility of trust, even among their own friends, families and co-religionists. With the possibility of trust went the possibility of peace. So as San Antonio’s own Buckner Fanning said, Praise the Lord and Pass the ammo.

Since this publication deals with technology, our “ammo” takes the form of bits and bytes and the hardware that houses them. Undoubtedly technology will and already has played a central role in this conflict. It was our own technology in the form of our air transport system that struck the first blow.

I was on my way to work when I heard about the crash of the first plane into the World Trade Center. Incapable of envisioning the worst, I pictured some inept pilot in a Cessna. When the second plane hit, I still had hopes that it happened because a second small craft pilot was blinded by the smoke from the first crash. It was not until reports of the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crashes that I was forced to acknowledge that the hits were intentional.

Many other Americans were similarly fooled. But never again.

Thomas E. Weber, a Staff Reporter for The Wall Street Journal, in E-World lists several technologies that may contribute to foiling or tracking down terrorists.

The first technology he mentions is the FBI’s Carnivore, which is the Internet equivalent of a phone tap. To use Carnivore, the FBI places a special computer at the site of an Internet service provider. The device monitors data flowing through the ISP, looking for traffic to and from a subject under surveillance.

Controversy over Carnivore arises from the fact that the Internet doesn't work in the same way as the phone system. Phone conversations are "switched," meaning that a direct connection is made between two parties. Internet communication is broken up into tiny packets, meaning that the pieces of many conversations are intermingled -- and that pulling a suspect's data from that stream requires, at some level, inspecting the data of many other people as well.

Another Technology, Enhanced 911, or E911 allows the user to fix a cellular phone’s physical location to within 100 yards or so. In addition to assisting emergency-response efforts, the technology could conceivably be used to track movements of criminals using cell phones.

Visionics is one company that offers a third technology, called Face Recognition, to scan airport lobbies and check passengers' images against databases of suspected terrorists. It works by isolating faces in photographs and identifying key facial structures to create a faceprint that can be compared against those in a database.

Earlier this year the National Institute of Standards and Technology reported that one of its labs was working on a Remote Search system that could surreptitiously scan through clothing at a distance.

All the preceding technologies present the possibility of infringement upon our civil liberties. In the interest of safety, however, especially in the case of air travel, we’ll have to determine where a happy medium between the two exists.

Wireless e-mail technology coupled with the decentralized Internet was a vital form of communication that held up well during this national emergency. In contrast, phone systems had important nodes damaged or overwhelmed in the attacks. Many survivors of the New York disaster used BlackBerry pagers to e-mail friends and family that they were safe.

David Coursey, AnchorDesk’s Executive Editor, describes a couple of technologies invented by his friend Steve Kirsch (founder of Infoseek) and described in detail on www.skirsch.com. The first is “brain fingerprinting.” Kirsh’s technology provides a brainwave profile supplied by administered test results. This technology would be used on those seeking to immigrate to the U.S. as part of their entrance requirements. Every few years, each immigrant must return to be tested. To take the test, the subject puts on a headset and watches video images for 10 minutes. The person is attached to sensors that record brainwaves. Unlike lie detectors, brain waves don’t lie.

The description of this procedure was quite vague, so I can’t comment on its possibility of effectiveness. If we actually did put it into operation, however, we would still eliminate only part of the problem. Not all terrorists are immigrants. Timothy McVeigh was a home-grown boy.

The second Steve Kirsch suggestion uses mostly proven, off-the-shelf technology to make airplanes hijack-proof. Because all modern-day planes have GPS (Global Positioning Systems) and are capable of landing on autopilot, we could install 'safe mode' panic buttons that put the plane on forced autopilot that cannot be overridden, except in special circumstances. He'd have them mounted in the cockpit, one for each side, with additional optional buttons in crew areas on each side of the plane in both the forward and aft cabins.

Once a plane is in safe mode, suggests Steve, it would randomly select one of the 10 nearest airports capable of accommodating that plane type, and automatically land the aircraft there.

There's no more motivation to hijack a plane. All that the hijacker could accomplish is causing the plane to land at a randomly selected airport. Then the hijacker is completely locked up and ready to be directly transported to a random jail location.

The big benefit of Steve's proposal is not necessarily that it is ever used, but that just a belief that it exists and works would be enough to prevent skyjackings.

Commentary on the “talk back” section of AnchorDesk brought up some legitimate arguments against such a plan. Eric Schneider warns us,

I have to admit that my experiences in the software industry would make me leery of getting on a flight if a computer program might become the only safety device between me and the ground.

Carmen Nobel, Caron Carlson, and Paula Musich of eWEEK are of a similar mind. “The greater the security measures we erect, the more sophisticated and spectacular will be the measures taken to breech them.”

Michael Pollard, systems support technician at Market Touch in Alpharetta, Ga. said:

So perhaps Technology cannot serve as the panacea that will prevent or protect us from terrorism, although it certainly might help. As Carmen Nobel, Caron Carlson, and Paula Musich of eWeek ask, can we ever feel safe again? I think so. I feel confident that the greatest threat to our security is already gone. The highjackers’ single most important advantage was not their ability to turn our Technology into diabolical weapons. Their greatest advantage was the element of surprise. That advantage is gone now. . .forever.