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Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

bbc.com

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Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#251

Post by AndrewThrowaway »

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…

I believe the "theater" is needed precisely for this - to catch bad actors. There could just be a long queue with some blind dog and scary looking guy at the end. What it still does is makes a bad guy sweat, plan against it and etc. You just can't have free entrance for all. However you will never prevent state actors or similar with any kind of theatre because they will always prepare for it.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#252

Post by fc417fc802 »

kleiba wrote: post #226
grepfru_it wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A plastic water bottle isn’t triggering a tsa pre check metal detector. I’m totally doing this next trip

I've never done that yet I've never had any trouble finding water past security or even on a plane?!

When people say "water" here I have to assume they mean "vodka". Otherwise you can just bring an empty bottle and fill it on the other side. It's the toiletries that pose a problem.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#253

Post by londons_explore »

kleiba wrote: post #226
grepfru_it wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A plastic water bottle isn’t triggering a tsa pre check metal detector. I’m totally doing this next trip

I've never done that yet I've never had any trouble finding water past security or even on a plane?!

Some airports charge money for water after security.

Others disallow even empty bottles at security screening

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#254

Post by alexfoo »

And don't rely on the destination airport having the same rules when you fly back.

This used to get people doing EU -> London flights. The EU rules had already been relaxed, but you got bitten by the extra restrictions when you went to fly back.

Like most things, flying is a complete shitshow, but do it often enough and you get used to it and all of the foibles.

Regularly flying hand luggage only is a grind as you're at the mercy of the lowest common denominator in terms of rules on what you can carry. When I had to visit a string of customers with one or two flights a day I had to submit expense claims with various toiletries purchased several times over, it was questioned by the finance department and they asked about whether I should check in a bag next time, but they stopped pushing when I said that adding a checked bag to my tickets would have been about 10 times more expensive than just buying things as and when I needed them.

Hugely wasteful but then so is flying, and most of my trips could have been replaced with a video call if it wasn't for touchy-feely corporate politics.

Water: I use a generic cycling bidon for travel. I empty it before security and they're happy with that. Any sane airport will have places to refill it for free, if they don't I can just buy a bottle of water and refill it. No airport I've traveled through has wanted to confiscate an empty cycling bidon and if they did it's cheap to replace.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#255

Post by JasonADrury »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #252
kleiba wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never done that yet I've never had any trouble finding water past security or even on a plane?!

When people say "water" here I have to assume they mean "vodka". Otherwise you can just bring an empty bottle and fill it on the other side. It's the toiletries that pose a problem.

Disappointingly, in my case it's usually just water. I'm walking towards security with my bottle, I can either slip it in my pocket or put it in a bin. Not throwing it away saves a bit of time and quickly becomes the default choice.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#256

Post by lores »

closewith wrote: post #178
jandrewrogers wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This illustrates a point though. TATP you could synthesize on a plane is entirely inadequate to bring down a plane. It also requires a bit more than acetone and hydrogen peroxide. Pan Am 103 required around half a kilo of RDX and TATP is very, very far from RDX. The idea of synthesizing a proper high-explosive in an airplane lavatory is generally comical. The chemistry isn’t too complex but you won’t be doing it in a…

> TATP you could synthesize on a plane is entirely inadequate to bring down a plane Even a small fire can down a plane, especially when distant from diversion airports.

They don't block lithium batteries, so...

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#257

Post by 5d41402abc4b »

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…

Can this X Ray bit flip memory or damage NAND?

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#258

Post by gambiting »

kleiba wrote: post #232
WalterBright wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a road accident, but people don't fear that. They fear terrorist attacks far more. This can be traced to people in a car believe they can control whether they have an accident or not (and largely can). In an airplane, however, you have no control whatsoever.

> This can be traced to people in a car believe they can control whether they have an accident or not (and largely can). This is true. In France, about two thirds out of the people dying in a car accident are the actual drivers responsible for the accident, according to the 2024 Road Safety Report.

And if France it's anything like the UK, the absolute vast majority of these deaths are people driving drunk at night. If you are driving in city traffic at 20mph commuting to work your chance of dying is nearly zero - there's always a chance someone else might be speeding and crash into you, sure, but it's nowhere near the general rate of deaths in cars.

As a seque to this - knowing the above, I find it insane that various institutions are pushing for more and more aggressive driving aids.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#259

Post by VBprogrammer »

closewith wrote: post #167
bruce511 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 met…

> they don't stop bombings (there are much better targets for that, which don't involve killing the bomber), I think you should read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_airliner_bombing_a... The only reason you believe aircraft bombings aren't being stopped is because you live in a world where rigourous security has stopped all aircraft bombings.

Trains are a much easier target in most countries. Generally only the high-speed / cross border ones have any security at all. Until maybe 10 years ago you didn't even really need a ticket to get access to one (now ticket barriers are common).

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#260

Post by rdiddly »

palata wrote: post #227
dingaling wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's about making people feel safe. I don't think that's a common perception of airport security. Few people take reassurance from it, most consider it a burden and hindrance that could stop them getting their flight if they don't perform the correct steps as instructed. The lifting of this restriction is an example, the overwhelming response is "oh thank goodness, now I don't have to pay for overpriced water" and…

I disagree. It is a burden and hindrance, but I'm pretty sure that if you just removed all the checks and let people board like in a bus, there would be complaints.

They're not complaining on the bus...
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