Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Most Electronics Being Banned on Certain US-Bound Flights

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 488 posts

Re: Most Electronics Being Banned on Certain US-Bound Flights

#441

Post by Karlozkiller »

GuiA wrote: post #425
samirillian wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing about leaving Japan: it's always way more dangerous than staying in Japan. US homicide rate is like 10x higher. I'd bet your "upstanding" friends have layers of reservations about visiting.

Japanese crime rates are underreported, and in reality most likely very similar to northern European countries in term of safety (and many other things, such as birth rate, another oft repeated misconception). Popular culture likes to portray Japan as a weird outlier country- but that's only if you compare it to the US. If you include the aforementioned European countries in the comparison, the US is the weird countr…

I dno about comparable to northern Europe. Stockholm, Sweden has recently had a huge burst in deadly shootings, and a Swedish official got caught in trying to lie to the BBC saying that rape is decreasing in Sweden. Official statistics show an increase between the last two data points, the last one being from 2015 or 2016 if I recall correctly.

I have bit heard anything of the like in Japan, but as you say it could be because they don't have the same measures/report rate we have, or that I don't check Japanese statistics as much.

Re: Most Electronics Being Banned on Certain US-Bound Flights

#442

Post by dang »

Svexark wrote: post #39

Thank you for your reasonable comment. You're going to get down voted into oblivion for it though. The right to privacy, drone strikes, budgets, Russia, etc. aren't issues until the D after someone's name turns into an R. Get with the program or lose all your internet points, man.

You've been breaking the HN guidelines by posting uncivil and unsubstantive comments, and by abusing the site for political battle. We ban accounts that do these things, so please stop doing them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13918493 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Most Electronics Being Banned on Certain US-Bound Flights

#443

Post by ddalex »

DrJokepu wrote: post #323
andygambles wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wipe devices before packing. Arrive in country then restore backup remotely.

This is bad advice I'm afraid. If you're an alien seeking admission to the United States it's your responsibility to prove that you don't have immigrant intent, not the CBP's responsibility that you do. By showing up at the border with a wiped device you will make it a lot easier for the CBP to build a case against you and put you on the next plane heading back.

That's why you don't wipe your device. You have a normal laptop with a nice FB profile and Google history to show, and when you're in, you cab download the VM image and continue work.

Re: Most Electronics Being Banned on Certain US-Bound Flights

#444

Post by exabrial »

I'm waiting for media to spin this as "anti Muslim" yet again.

I wonder if the true reason is because USA does not trust overseas security (which doesn't make a lot of sense, you have to recheck your carry-ons/luggage after customs), or if it's a means to get a closer look at your electronics when you're not there, or just because there's been an incident (the TSA actually managed to catch a threat) that we're not privvy to. From what I understand, laptops are a bit harder to xray which is why they're screen separate from other items.

Re: Most Electronics Being Banned on Certain US-Bound Flights

#445

Post by nameless912 »

wildmusings wrote: post #362
ocschwar wrote: post #131

What utter bullshit. If they allow phones at all, then the threat cannot be an issue of a passenger sending a command out of one of these. The threat has to be the device itself. Now, a standard issue iPad is no threat, so we're talking about a customized device made to look like on. Except, if terrorists are going to the trouble to do this, they can just as easily put whatever bad thing they want to put into the cas…

That's some strong criticism, especially since you're not even considering that someone already successfully detonated a laptop bomb on a plane. From the CNN article on this new policy: > The official said the move is partly based on intelligence that they believe indicates Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is close to being able to hide explosives with little or no metal content in electronic devices in order to tar…

I think you've posted this like 15 times in this comment section. This is a terrible argument: what happens when next month someone hides a bomb in a bottle of liquor, or a child's toy, or an iPhone? This kind of reactive security is a sure way to inconvenience everyone and not actually improve security in any meaningful way. Every security professional knows that if you only "fix" the narrow cases that have caused problems in the past, you will never prevent another attack. I don't know what a better solution looks like, because I'm not an expert on counterterrorism or explosives detection, but this certainly isn't it.

Re: Most Electronics Being Banned on Certain US-Bound Flights

#446

Post by thrillgore »

razzaj wrote: post #271
KirinDave wrote: post #199

I see many people here trying to puzzle out why electronics are under a partial ban from cabins but not from checked baggage . It's a good question, since if there is a fire or explosion hazard on a plane the last place you want it is wrapped in a wad of flammable cloth and synthetics, even if it is oxygen starved. The only motivation I can imagine is: They want these devices in checked luggage because checked luggag…

Makes sense. However, how is that going to protect the US? The moment such information is public, perpetrators will not transport any digital devices with incriminating data. What you re left with are people being harrassed over a digital copy of "how to make a potato launcher" on their laptops. Frankly, it seems the US policing practices have been looking more and more USSR like. And i dont just mean since trump arr…

The answer is simple: It doesn't protect the US at all.

Re: Most Electronics Being Banned on Certain US-Bound Flights

#447

Post by exabrial »

abandonliberty wrote: post #237
KirinDave wrote: post #199

I see many people here trying to puzzle out why electronics are under a partial ban from cabins but not from checked baggage . It's a good question, since if there is a fire or explosion hazard on a plane the last place you want it is wrapped in a wad of flammable cloth and synthetics, even if it is oxygen starved. The only motivation I can imagine is: They want these devices in checked luggage because checked luggag…

>I'm going to start putting a USB nuke stick in my luggage in an envelope. Just for fun. Maybe I'll label the envelope something nonsensical like "12-16" just to make sure people know it's useless. I love the idea but I can't help but think that even with a completely airtight reason to be traveling with that item (e.g. you're a security researcher) you would be accused of terrorism. Somehow.

That's the problem with Authoritarian (Liberal and Conservative) interpretations of the Constitution. USBkill sticks are non-regulated items, so you don't NEED the government's permission or a "good reason" to possess them.

Unfortunately, Liberals have weakened the 2nd Amendment to mean "only if you have a good reason", and weakened the 1st Amendment to mean "as long as you don't offend someone", while Conservatives have weakened the 4th amendment to mean "we suspected it without good cause and it turns out we were right which made the whole search ok."

I think if we stop weakening the ammendments we'll stop seeing violations of our basic civil liberties. But when California passes laws that regulate firearms you can wrap a thumb around (yes, this is a real thing), and Arizona passes a law that allows police to stop you if they suspect you're an illegal immigrant, we'll be in a slow spiral with decreasing rights.

Re: Most Electronics Being Banned on Certain US-Bound Flights

#449

Post by rpmcmurphy »

KirinDave wrote: post #199

I see many people here trying to puzzle out why electronics are under a partial ban from cabins but not from checked baggage . It's a good question, since if there is a fire or explosion hazard on a plane the last place you want it is wrapped in a wad of flammable cloth and synthetics, even if it is oxygen starved. The only motivation I can imagine is: They want these devices in checked luggage because checked luggag…

If this was actually about a security risk, they would be doing this on all airlines, not just airlines originating from Muslim majority countries. If you take Royal Jordanian to a European hub, then hop on a US carrier, you'll be able to take your gear on board. So this does exactly what to mitigate a security risk?

It does however force business travelers to rethink flying Emirates, Etihad, etc and fly United, etc instead. I'll be interested to see if these airlines sue.

Re: Most Electronics Being Banned on Certain US-Bound Flights

#450

Post by linkregister »

Const-me wrote: post #311
linkregister wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm ignorant of Russia's historical role in sponsoring terrorism; I'm only getting recent Ukraine / Syria links. Can you share some resources to learn more about it?

They are doing that at least since foundation of USSR. Russians ordered bombings in Warsaw, Poland in 1920-s. Shipped weaponry to Irish Republican Army and Palestine in 70-s. Speaking about Palestine, some say Russians have invented plane hijacking as a terrorist tactic: http://web.archive.org/web/20130102051626/http://www.nationa... Killed many political opponents abroad, Alexander Litvinenko in UK, Sulim Yamadaev i…

Thanks! I'm not sure why you were down voted; maybe the down voter could publicly dispute your statement instead.
Post reply on HN