I am curious to find out how many reports they got from riders who saw the researchers. I know that if I saw someone releasing gas like in the picture in the article, I'd quickly find someone to talk to about it.<p>That said, hopefully they can validate models which will provide optimum locations for detectors, as well as action plans once a detection occurs, such as kill all cars near the detection and change venting airflows.
In terms of the potential for economic damage, a full-fledged bioweapon attack is not all that much more effective than a low-sophistication attack (or several, staged at the same time).<p>So while it is useful to understand the way subway systems may disperse particles, this kind of research does not reduce the risk of economic damage from low-sophistication attacks targeted at the subway system.<p>It is difficult to obtain Anthrax or similar chemical agents, and the number of people needed to pull off a successful attack is fairly large. Machine guns or simple explosives (like those used in the Boston Marathon attack), however, are 100x more likely to succeed and cause the intended economic damage, so long as they either create a fear of traveling by subway or lead to security checkpoints that drastically reduce the subway's throughput.<p>The key takeaway, in my opinion, is that nobody with access to the NYC subway really wishes to harm it or do terrorism.
This is super important research, due to what the article calls, "low security threshold and high passenger count".<p>I wish the research results would be given to the public, though I understand why we won't see the results for some time, or possibly never.<p>It's also kind of scary that their only listed "remediation" is to have more accurate contamination maps. It really hits home the concept that, once a bad guy actually gets a weapon to a crowd, there's not much more that can be done.
I appreciate the research, but I'm not sure what could possible be done to change the situation materially. "Making more accurate contamination maps" strikes me as only useful in a really best case scenario.
They did something similar in the 1950's - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray</a>
My understanding was this was done before. The main take-away was that anything spread by air in NYC subway wouldn't get too far as there is enough mixing with the outside.<p>Still, this may be more thorough.
For something that involves the US gov, anthrax, and a crowded public place, that was remarkably ethical.<p>Clickbaity title IMO, but I'm not sure what to suggest. I think the current title suggests malice on the part of the US gov, but they were actually just doing some interesting research.
...man, I was all ready to get out the pitchforks in response to "bioterror" research in a public place, but it turns out it's more "fluid dynamics research prompted by the risk of particulate bioweapons". It's not a clickbait title, but it asymptotically approaches one.