Yesterday, a TV comedy team succeeded in driving a fake motorcade with Canadian flags right through all the security barriers and weren’t stopped until right outside President Bush’s hotel. Inside their motorcade was someone dressed up as Osama Bin Laden.

— APEC Conference in Sydney Social Engineered, Bruce Schneier, Schneier on Security, September 07, 2007

It gets better.

The pranksters say they expected to be stopped as soon as they enountered security, but they were waved right through.

“The police only detained the Chaser motorcade when it was turning around and after Chas Licciardello emerged from a car dressed as Osama bin Laden.”

— APEC pranksters ‘could have been shot’, AAP and Marcus Casey, Rhett Watson and Joe Hilderbrand, Herald Sun, September 07, 2007 11:33am

Could have been shot? Yeah, and security could have been competent.

So, if the most powerful nation on earth and one of its best allies can’t keep out pranksters carrying badges that say “Insecurity,” “Joke,” and “It’s prettyobvious this isn’t a real pass,” maybe this whole fortified perimeter idea needs rethinking. Not only for physical security; also for IT and network security.

Meanwhile, here’s what it looked like when the Queen visited Sydney last year.

-jsq