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Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

bbc.com

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Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#131

Post by hosteur »

chihuahua wrote: post #54
Fervicus wrote: post #35

How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over security theater at airports? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?

No successful terrorist attacks on planes going to/from western countries after 9/11/2001, that's a pretty good record. Maybe we can't prove that the security theater was responsible for that, but still, the only planes that were bombed after 9/11/2001 were inside Russia or going from Egypt to Russia.

I have a rock that keeps tigers away. For 30 years I have not encountered any tigers. That’s a pretty good record.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#132

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

bleepblap wrote: post #101
bleepblap wrote: post #83

there is actually a science change that happened, and it's not (entirely) just politicians changing their mind. The big thing going from X-ray (2d) to CT (spin an X-ray machine around and take a ton of pictures to recreate a 3d image) did a lot to let security people see inside of a bag, but the hitch is that if you see a blob of gray is that water, shampoo or something else? The recent advance that is letting this h…

There's a whole ton of people taking about MRI -- MRIs are a completely universe than CT/X-rays

I think if an MRI was ever used for airport security screening it would cause more damage and disruption than the terrorist bombs it purports to detect.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#133

Post by purpleidea »

Heathrow is still a bullshit airport:

1) Bodyscanners: body scanners are a scam 2) They took away my 100ml contain that clearly had less than 1 cm of liquid in it because it wasn't clearly labelled as "100ml". Any idiot could know it was like 10ml full. 3) They used to do actual xray basically on people. 4) You have to re-security to transfer on connections! You already could have blown up the incoming plane, why does this even matter?

I don't go there anymore. Waste of time and all security theatre without common sense.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#134

Post by al_borland »

On my last trip I bought some different deodorant, because my usual brand was .2oz over the limit. Not sure why the brand wouldn’t just go with the TSA limit to make life easy for everyone. The new stuff ended up staining all my shirts. I largely blame the TSA for having to buy all new shirts. Next time I’m going to less of a stickler for the rules and hope for the best, as following the rules yields poor outcomes. Hopefully by that time the new rules will filter out to more airports.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#135

Post by bsimpson »

terribleperson wrote: post #50
darth_avocado wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3-1-1 is rarely enforced. I always got confused why the 100ml limit existed, since I could just take multiple bottles of 100ml of whatever I wanted and it was okay. Then I realized that technically I only could take 3 bottles but I’ve been getting away with more for decades.

It's not 3 bottles, it's 3.4 oz or 100 ml.

isn't it whatever fits in a quart-sized ziploc? i presume that's where the other poster estimated "only 3 bottles."

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#136

Post by bleepblap »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #132
bleepblap wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a whole ton of people taking about MRI -- MRIs are a completely universe than CT/X-rays

I think if an MRI was ever used for airport security screening it would cause more damage and disruption than the terrorist bombs it purports to detect.

It wasn't -- was just noting that people keep saying "MRI", when there's no 5T fields around most security checkpoints

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#138

Post by hackingonempty »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #71

This just adds confusion as to the purpose of all this. The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids. Average people have never heard of them because they aren’t in popular lore. There has never been an industrial or military use, solids are simpler. Nonetheless, these explosives are easily accessible to a knowledgeable chemist like me. The…

> The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids.

The limits were instituted after discovering a plot to smuggle acetone and hydrogen peroxide (and ice presumably) on board to make acetone peroxide in the lavatory. TATP is not a liquid and it is not stable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_pl...

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#139

Post by jandrewrogers »

HNisCIS wrote: post #121
jandrewrogers wrote: post #71

This just adds confusion as to the purpose of all this. The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids. Average people have never heard of them because they aren’t in popular lore. There has never been an industrial or military use, solids are simpler. Nonetheless, these explosives are easily accessible to a knowledgeable chemist like me. The…

OP is talking about (mostly) TATP here. It's very easy to make, harder to detect with traditional methods and potent enough to be a problem. It's also hilariously unstable, will absolutely kill you before you achieve terrorism, and if you ask people on the appropriate chemistry subreddits how to make it you'll be ridiculed for days.

Yes, peroxide chemistries famously don’t show up on a lot of explosive scans. TATP is an example but not the only one and far from the best one. They are largely missing from common literature because they are too chemically reactive to be practical e.g. they will readily chemically interact with their environment, including most metal casings you might put them in, such that they become non-explosive.

That aside, TATP is a terrible explosive. Weak, unstable, and ineffective. The ridicule is well-deserved.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#140

Post by bruce511 »

unclad5968 wrote: post #112
edm0nd wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled. It's all security theater. TSA Chief Out After Agents Fail 95 Percent of Airport Breach Tests "In one case, an alarm sounded, but even during a pat-down, the screening officer failed to detect a fake plastic explosive taped to an undercover agent's back. In all, so-called "Red Teams" of Homeland Security agents posing as…

> In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled. It's all security theater. This matches my experience. I recently flew out of a small airport that flies 2 fairchild metro 23 turboprop planes up to 9 passengers. There were four TSA agents to check the 5 of us that were flying.

You gotta love the TSA. They serve no real purpose, but its a monster too big to kill, staffed by people who desperately cling to the notion they're doing something important.

They don't stop hijackings (locking the cockpit door does that), they don't stop bombings (there are much better targets for that, which don't involve killing the bomber), they don't stop weapons (lots of airports outside the US have simple metal detectors for that.)

They do however cost the govt a lot of money, keep a lot of expensive-machine-makers, and in business, improve shampoo sales at destinations, waste a lot of passenger time and so on.

So... what's not to love?

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