It’s not a particularly controversial statement that most of what we go through at the airport in the name of “security” is in actuality, “security theater,” as security expert Bruce Schneier wrote in “Beyond Fear.” Security theater measures are measures that don’t actually have any real effect or purpose towards keeping us safe, but they seem like they might, so we go through them anyway, and pay for them.

Whether or not the theatre creates a discouraging effect on attack attempts is debatable, and how much restriction on people’s behavior without any actual tangible benefit is acceptable to maintain the psychological discouragement, if any, is also very controversial.

What isn’t debatable is that airport travel is annoying as hell. The No Fly List has expanded tremendously, even for those of us lucky enough not to be on the list, we have to take our laptops out of our backpacks or briefcases and scan them separately, even taking off our shoes. Some airports are using a backscatter X-ray which means you’re essentially posing nude for the camera every time you walk through.

To quote Janice from The Muppets, “Listen, I don't take my clothes off for anyone, even if it is ‘artistic.’”

Anytime I quote the Muppets, it’s a sure sign I’m starting to get off-track. Anyway, where there’s annoyance, someone will try to make money by selling convenience, and airport security is no exception. In this case, it was the “Clear” lanes at airports, where you would pay $99 per year for a card that signified that you were a minimum security risk, and therefore you could be processed through airport security more quickly.

(Apparently, the main qualification for being a “minimum security risk” is being rich enough to blow $99 on a membership that gets you through lines faster. It also helps if your name isn’t Al Kyder or Terry Wrist.)

Despite some snags, such as “Clear” passengers unable to keep on their shoes or jackets, as they had hoped when Clear launched, Clear continued and it is the business success that it is today because of a savvy—

--Hold on, someone just handed me a note.

Ah. They failed, and are shutting down today.

Which brings me to the idea of doing QoS incorrectly. Yes, QoS priorities can help with making sure mission critical data gets there first, but stuff that isn’t mission critical, merely “mission nice-to-have” can get bogged down as well. If there is some external reason why every packet on the link seems to be performing slowly, maybe it’s a good idea to figure out what that reason is.

One of the reasons for long lines at security in airports (which themselves are a security risk – a suicide bomber could take out a planeload of people without even purchasing a ticket if he blew himself up in the security queue) is because of this security theatre. If that can’t be shown to be effective, maybe it’s time to do something different.

On the network, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to prioritize packets until you look at the entire network, from end-to-end, and figure out why the network is slow. Sometimes QoS prioritization is the answer. Other times, it may just be an expensive mask to a more deeply rooted problem.