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Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

bbc.com

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Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#321

Post by graemep »

kstenerud wrote: post #148
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…

It's about making people feel safe. We're not rational beings, so what do you do about an irrational fear? You invent a magical thing that protects from that irrational fear. 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. You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many…

It reminds be of how after a fire at a tube station a lot of people decided to commute by motorbike because of fear of fire.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#322

Post by sfn42 »

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.

To add to this, here's a piece of anecdotal evidence. I've watched a lot of traffic accident videos in my life, and in the vast majority of the videos including two vehicles, both drivers are at fault.

They may not be legally at fault, I don't really worry too much about that, but by my judgement they could have avoided the accident by paying attention or driving slower or driving less aggressively etc.

Same goes for pedestrians by the way. The absolute vast majority of pedestrians who get hit by cars could have avoided it by paying attention and taking some responsibility for their own safety.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#323

Post by sokoloff »

MikeNotThePope wrote: post #298
ivanjermakov wrote: post #289

Wonder what effect it's gonna have on duty free economy. I'm sure selling beverages is the big chunk of airport's revenue.

Doesn’t duty free shopping typically happen after one goes through security?

If you confiscate my Diet Coke at security, you have created demand for Diet Coke on the other side of security.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#324

Post by grishka »

kstenerud wrote: post #148
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…

It's about making people feel safe. We're not rational beings, so what do you do about an irrational fear? You invent a magical thing that protects from that irrational fear. 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. You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many…

Airport security never makes me feel safe. It makes me feel violated and anxious.

I haven't really flown before 9/11, but I have used the subway in my city daily both before and after they installed metal detectors and started randomly asking people to put their bags through a scanner. I'm deeply nostalgic for not having to deal with this utter bullshit.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#325

Post by burner420042 »

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.

None the less, this is still effectively an entrance checkpoint to a 'secure area' aka the large airport you're flying to, as you've now already gone through security.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#326

Post by graemep »

gambiting wrote: post #258
kleiba wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

My perception is that drink driving is now pretty rare in the UK.

The biggest dangers I see regularly on the road is simple aggressive driving. Overtaking too much, tailgating, multiple lane changes in one go (on motorways), not driving slower in bad conditions.....

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#327

Post by vidarh »

wiredfool wrote: post #283
5d41402abc4b wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can this X Ray bit flip memory or damage NAND?

It's a specific liquid scanner that's done on bottles that have been pulled aside for extra scanning (at least, that's what Frankfurt was doing a couple weeks ago)

As far as I know, it's not. You're now specifically told to not take liquid out of your luggage.

At least that was the situation when I flew out of London Gatwick last time - they had people going up and down before the scanners admonishing people to leave everything in their bags to avoid delay.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#328

Post by sbsnjsks »

wedog6 wrote: post #267
breppp wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You have surprising faith that the system is well designed. Malicious actors don't get as stressed as normal people who don't want to miss their flight about the long series of obviously pointless tests. Why would they? And there isn't anyone who surveils the queues and takes the worried looking for further checks. This can happen around immigration checks. It happens for flights to Israel. But not in routine airport…

[dead]

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#329

Post by jillesvangurp »

dkersten wrote: post #61
nlawalker wrote: post #15

Let me get this straight. If the article is correct, the new capabilities are related to better detection of large liquid containers, not determination of whether or not the liquid is dangerous. So - you couldn’t take large amounts of liquids previously because some liquids in large amounts might be able to be weaponized. If you were caught with too much liquid (in sum total, or in containers that are too large) they…

Dublin has been relaxing their restrictions for a while now, and when I travelled two weeks ago, had also completely dropped the rules. You no longer need to remove liquids or electronics from bags, and the liquids per bottle limits are much higher (don’t remember exactly, maybe 2 litres) with no restriction on total number of bottles. I watched a YouTube video about it a few months back and apparently the new device…

Berlin had a mix of modern scanners and old scanners last time I flew. I had one flight where they were using the modern scanners. And then a few weeks later I used a different security gate and I still had to remove everything from the bag. If you fly from there, the security at the far end of the terminal has the new machines and is usually also the fastest because people generally use the first security gate they see. Good tip if you are in a hurry. The last few times I was through in a few minutes.

At some airports, you can now check your own bag using a machine that weighs it and prints a sticker. Then you drop it on a belt yourself and you walk through security scanners; all without having to talk to anyone. And finally you board using your phone. Lots of automated checks. I've boarded a few times now without anyone bothering to look at an id now. It seems that with self check in the id check at the gate disappeared. And inside the Schengen zone, nobody checks ids at security either.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#330

Post by PeterStuer »

edm0nd wrote: post #87
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…

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."

Over here, it's G4S pork barrel contracts.

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