Although I’m sure this is old news by now (I apologize – I have been extremely busy the last couple of months), I did want to post briefly to say that I was announced as the winner of Bruce Schneier’s Third Annual Movie-Plot Threat Contest. As I posted in that thread, I am surprised and pleased to have won. And honored. It’s nice to get a hat tip from people whom you respect and admire.

I encourage you to check out the other entries, which are extremely good. When the finalists were announced, the comment-based voting was very, very close. Here are the other entries:

Lastly, my winning entry: Toothpaste test strips.

Ravan, one of the commenters in the announcement thread, pointed out that the FDA has a FAQ on toothpaste, which is rather interesting. Obviously, I based my entry on the fact that there was a recent scare and actually quite a few deaths related to contaminated toothpaste. I think these peripheral fears are exactly the kinds of things that can cause a lot of unnecessary terror on the part of the average person who simply doesn’t have time to keep up with the myriad of things out there that can cause harm. Even though no one in the United States died, the story about the contaminated toothpaste received extensive coverage.

The whole thing had a sort of Tylenol murders feel to it. What is it about human psychology that makes us so afraid of this type of threat when statistics can show other threats are far more dangerous? Bruce Scheier has been investigating this pretty regularly on his blog and I encourage you to read his essay on the topic if you are curious.