Find your weakness
It is often the silly details that turn out to be the weakness in what appears to be a strong perimeter protection system, says AECOM's Richard Clarke.
The trend is moving away from chain link fences to anti-climb welded fences with wires very close together so you can’t get your feet in, or vertical wires. These are generally topped by barbed wire or razor wire.
“However, very often a contract is awarded at lowest cost to put the fence up and nobody with an enquiring mind actually goes and checks the fence afterwards. Even on a non-climbable fence, there might be a right-angle corner.”
Just as there are professional computer hackers employed to test out the resilience of big corporations’ IT systems, the ports sector could do with a few specialists in breaking and entering, he suggests. “They could keep trying until they eliminate all the obvious things; then come back six months later when everyone is bored with looking at the screens.”
As for his preferred solution, it would be an anti-climb fence with razor wire on top and an infrared beam going through the middle of the razor wire coil.
