41–50 of 90 posts
I always assumed the x-ray machines would show operators if a phone or notebook seems to be tampered/modified. If looking at a boot screen makes the process more secure, we should really be concerned by the airport security in general.
My guess is that they have intelligence that someone is working very hard to do something that I've long worried someone would do, which is to make explosives look like the cells in Li-on batteries on x-rays. If you look at an x-ray of a laptop or tablet, it's obvious where the batteries are, they're regular shaped objects much denser than the circuitry in the rest of the device. If you mixed explosives with somethin…
That's a Hollywood movie plot.
If you wanted to mask it on X-rays, put it in a Play-Doh canister. It's not that damned hard to fake things out.
The terrorists, so much as they exist, aren't doing these things. Laziness? Uncleverness? I don't know why. But protecting us from imaginary threats by making our lives miserable is disgusting and intolerable.
> This way, they can verify that at least some of the batteries in the device are real.
If they can do that, what prevents them from putting a small battery in that will power it for a minute to get it past the check point?
Again, it's fucking stupid to try to protect the airlines from Hollywood movie plots. First, they never seem to happen, and second the misery the protection causes outweighs any possible benefits.
More people died in bathtubs that year than on September 11th. If they wanted to save lives, we'd have a war on bathtubs, not a war on terrorism.
My guess is that they have intelligence that someone is working very hard to do something that I've long worried someone would do, which is to make explosives look like the cells in Li-on batteries on x-rays. If you look at an x-ray of a laptop or tablet, it's obvious where the batteries are, they're regular shaped objects much denser than the circuitry in the rest of the device. If you mixed explosives with somethin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be obvious on an x-ray.
Not necessarily. Since the Macbook Air doesn't have a hard drive, you could disguise some kinds of contraband as the batteries, hard drive, and CD drive. Newer X-Ray machines might have the configurations of known laptops known by the software, but I doubt the personnel would be able to tell the difference if some effort is made to disguise the x-ray images.
Given the sheer quantity of hardware thats ever existed and the workflow I don't think this is a serious possibility.
I know pretty much every piece of ham radio gear every constructed has at one point gone thru the xray for "dxpedition" people. Along with pretty much all consumer electronics. It would be a heck of a lot simpler to mod a COTS radio from Radio Shack.
From what I remember, Firewire used to have direct hardware access to the RAM. Does the iOS lightning charger have something similar? I may be paranoid, but I could imagine the TSA offering little charging stations so you can get enough juice to turn the phone on, and from there it's a short leap to imagine that the other side of that "charger" is going to be something that sucks down as much information as they can…
http://int3.cc/products/usbcondoms
A laptop with a fully charged battery can cause a lot more havoc over the Atlantic ocean than one with the drained battery. Presumably you could bring in a couple of extra batteries as well, because it's going to be a long flight.
If they're worried about someone building a bomb into the insides of a laptop that you can't turn on, then hasn't that been pretty much the core of airport security since its inception -- and pretty much a problem solved to all practical extents since several decades ago?
I mean, that's why they've been scanning all cabin baggage for decades to see if there are guns inside radios or tanks of interesting liquids inside some suitable item. They've been looking at the x-rays of laptops for twenty years, and now they suddenly start worrying about bombs being built into one?
And why aren't they worried about the cargo baggage which also contains electronic devices that are potentially uncharged? If they can spot bombs in the electronics in your big baggages without checking if they boot up, then why can't they do that for your cabin bags?
Unlike water bottles that you can dispose, this is going to be a big problem. You just don't leave your laptop or phone at some airport: you simply don't fly.
This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and the sickness spreads to airports outside US. This means we soon can't fly with uncharged electronics in Europe either because the same security gates can allow someone to board a flight the USA.
I'm just wondering who is it that benefits from all this? Where does the money go, who are the people who can push these endless rules and regulations for their own gain because there sure as hell isn't a gain for anyone else?
My guess is that they have intelligence that someone is working very hard to do something that I've long worried someone would do, which is to make explosives look like the cells in Li-on batteries on x-rays. If you look at an x-ray of a laptop or tablet, it's obvious where the batteries are, they're regular shaped objects much denser than the circuitry in the rest of the device. If you mixed explosives with somethin…
As other people have pointed out, the only use this order has is to prevent uncharged batteries from stopping the inspection of the data on a device.
Well, good thing that after long days of traveling we never arrive at the airport with any of our electronic devices empty -_- Also... does anyone know how many people were caught trying to smuggle explosives on a plain until now?
The somewhat more realistic problem is steal one of the zillions of fake plastic cellphones from zillions of cell phone retail stores, fill it with coke (the sniffing kind, not the drinking kind) and carry it across. Well, the drug sniffing dogs might get agitated about that. Prescription pills, perhaps.
Since when has the angle of terrorist attack shifted back to blowing up planes instead of flying them into strategic targets? A laptop with a fully charged battery can cause a lot more havoc over the Atlantic ocean than one with the drained battery. Presumably you could bring in a couple of extra batteries as well, because it's going to be a long flight. If they're worried about someone building a bomb into the insid…
Whelp. Better ban shoes too. Otherwise terrorism.