New technology promises to keep terror at bay

OUTSMARTING TERROR: Inventors race to design new anti-terror technologies to protect unsuspecting civilians.

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Post 9/11, as the world learns to live in a state of heightened paranoia, scientists are quietly working on cutting-edge technologies that can push the limits on the war on terror. There are now ‘bomb-sniffing’ buses that can potentially stop suicide bombers, buildings that can brace for impact and ‘smart’ guns that can shoot around corners. But can technology really help keep attacks at bay by outsmarting terrorism?

CNN-IBN and National Geographic investigates these possibilities in a Special Series, 'Combating Terror', in the run-up to the September 11 anniversary.

Read on...

New Delhi: The 9/11 terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York demonstrated how planes can turn explosive.

Director, Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Israel, Dr Boaz Ganor says, "Airplanes are an easy target from the point of view of a terrorist. One can hi-jack an airplane, one can bomb an airplane."

Another scenario is attacking aircrafts with shoulder-launched missiles. These heat-seeking missiles can help a terrorist down an aircraft in totality.

Says former director general, National Security Guards, Nikhil Kumar, "A warning was issued to concerned authorities that any aircraft landing into or taking off from the air funnel could be targetted by a missile."

While heat-driven missiles target a plane's red-hot exhaust, new anti-missile technology like antennas on a plane that detect a missile attack and launch a volley of flames to misguide the missile.

Jet planes are the most vulnerable at the time of take off and landing, when they are flying low and slow.

The anti-missile technology — already popular with the Israeli airline El Al — however, doesn't fool missiles using radar for guidance. And the system is rather expensive, a million dollars a plane.

Since these days, an ounce of explosives can bring down an airplane, X-Ray machines — the sole defense in many airports — can no longer be the only technology to combat terror threats at airports. An X-Ray machine cannot detect plastic, which is a common ingredient for most explosives.

Now, new technologies take detection far beyond X-Rays, including machines that can literally "see through" people or "smell out" what terrorists might be trying to smuggle onto an airplane. One of them is called the Millimeter Wave Technology or Tadar.

Says Software Design Engineer, John Mc Naboe, "You can see a person's wallet, his keys and mobile phone and if he's got a big piece of metal or a ceramic knife, it can be spotted easily."

Tadar scans the body, detects body heat energy and spots objects blocked from it, no matter what they are made of — like a belt, or a bomb using microwaves to read body heat energy.

However, Tadar isn't fool-proof either. Cleverly concealed explosives can escape the notice of a less attentive security guard.

Every year, more than a billion people fly on the world's airlines and around the world, inventors race to design new anti-terror technologies.

The safety of the unsuspecting civilians needs to be ensured, and so in modern technology, lies the hope of outsmarting terror.