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Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

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Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting to contrast this with my experience flying out of China. I was taken to a private room and shown the digital colored X-ray of my bag on which a box had been drawn around an empty lighter, I was asked to remove it myself and hand it over, and I went on my way. All in under 5 minutes, no pat down, no fuss, and no one physically rifled through my belongings. (Granted I was a tourist so that might w…

Once at a security checkpoint to a museum in Shanghai, they saw my water bottle, and then told me to take it out and drink from it.

In the 90's USA was sensible. I was flying with a thermos of hot coffee in my carry on. As soon as they took out the thermos and felt the heat radiating from the lid the agent said, "I don't think they would heat it", smiled and passed me thru.

Now when I fly I have to be careful. When they ask purpose of visit I say sightseeing. I used to say tourist, but with my accent that once caused alarm when the agent thought I said terrorist.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#352
post #181

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…

most of airport security rests on the notion of going over a series of long tests will elicit unusual (fear, stress) responses from malicious actors and these can then be flagged for even thorougher checks which will then eventually lead to discovery, banning or removal of luggage so it's not the test accuracy by itself but rather then the fact that these tests are happening at all

{{citation needed}}

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting to contrast this with my experience flying out of China. I was taken to a private room and shown the digital colored X-ray of my bag on which a box had been drawn around an empty lighter, I was asked to remove it myself and hand it over, and I went on my way. All in under 5 minutes, no pat down, no fuss, and no one physically rifled through my belongings. (Granted I was a tourist so that might w…

Once at a security checkpoint to a museum in Shanghai, they saw my water bottle, and then told me to take it out and drink from it.

[flagged]

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once at a security checkpoint to a museum in Shanghai, they saw my water bottle, and then told me to take it out and drink from it.

Was it just you? Or do they apply the same policy for every visitor with a bottle of liquid?

Just a guess but at a museum I assume they're looking out for vandals. If it's a water bottle the counterpart would be something like concentrated sodium hydroxide in which case a single sip is sufficient.

Not sure how they would handle dye in a paper coffee cup though.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they don't stop weapons (lots of airports outside the US have simple metal detectors for that.) There are 3D printed guns.

You still need metal parts, notably a gun barrel capable of holding extreme pressures until the bullet gets up to speed. That isn’t plastic. The grip and frame might be plastic, but not the barrel.

the handle on roll type luggage. not the actual handle but that is where you would hide a long piece of thick wall tube. not that a long piece of would be nessacery. a short one would do, the point being the metal detectors do not stop you from bringing metal into the airport.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and practicality - short of forcing everyone to travel naked and strapped in like cattle, with no luggage. And even then, what about the extremist who works for the airline? This is said as an axiom, but we have protected against the motivate…

Have we protected against the motivated terrorist, or only the motivated terrorist on an airplane?

Is your contention that there haven't been any terrorist attacks, therefore airport security isn't effective?

Because over the last 25 years, there have been a _lot_ of "successful" terrorist attacks in the West, and none of them were on planes.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#357

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…

it has been such a godsend flying out of Frankfurt where they have the new scanners and you don't have to empty out your bag anymore. So much smoother. Then I fly back and get all annoyed at the other airports. I was told Oslo airport is holding out until it becomes regulation to use the new scanners. Security-Theater is still what it is. It is super weak imho, despite never having seriously attempted a heist or tryi…

Germany has a very sad and weak airport security story. The security personal are hired and paid by the state (Land), and thus the state plans their capacity and workflow. The airport owner (i.e. FRAport) has no say in their internal work organization, as it is basically contracted out policework. For whatever reason, most german Airports I regularly use, use the same machine and broken workflow: There is only a limited amount of containers to put your stuff in to go through the x-ray, and the machine itself has an integrated container-return system using conveyors. As a result, each machine has only a single small table with a container dispenser to serve passengers. On that tiny table, only 2-3 people at the same time can get undressed, get water out of their handlugagge etc. Waiting passengers behind them are blocked.

I contrast that with my experience in Spain: Several meters before the machines, there is a large amount of unoccupied, huge tables with containers stacked everywhere, so everybody can get undressed and pack their stuff into the container trays at their pace of choice. Staff assists and tells the rules to individuall travellers. Once you are done sorting your stuff into the containers, taking off your belt etc - only THEN you take the containers towards the x-ray conveyor line. So there is hardly any blocking the line. Instead of a container-return system, a single human stacks the containers past the scan and returns them to the beginning. This is so much more effective.

Classic example of government run workflows: No one cares to optimize the workflow, and the one who would benefit from a speedup (the airport and the airlines) in terms of increased sales, have no say in the process.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#358
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not up-to-date on the bleeding edge but that explanation doesn’t seem correct? The use of x-rays in analytical chemistry is for elemental analysis, not molecular analysis. (There are uses for x-rays in crystallography that but that is unrelated to this application.) At an elemental level, the materials of a suitcase are more or less identical to an explosive. You won’t easily be able to tell them apart with an x…

> FWIW, I once went through an airport in my travels that took an infrared spectra of everyone’s water! They never said that, I recognized the equipment. I forget where, I was just impressed that the process was scientifically rigorous. That would immediately identify anything weird that was passed off as water. Something like 10 years ago, I had my water checked in a specialised "bottle of water checker" equipment i…

Cynically, it's so they can sell you another bottle on the secure side. If they spend money to give themselves a working mechanism to distinguish water from not-water, they lose the ability to create retail demand.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. The "security theater" absolutely does play its part in stopping attacks. Without it, airplanes would be an extremely easy target for any nutjob to commit mass murder in. They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic. Over past few decades many airliners have crashed because out of control fire in the cabin / cargo hold. I real…

Did you drop a sarcasm tag? Anyone can make a fire on a plane as they allow lighters on a plane, and batteries, and any number of flammable objects. None of that is facing any scrutiny nor stopping crazy people from being crazy.

Flammable liquid and all high temperature lighters are forbidden, as are Li-ion batteries over 100kWh.
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