Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 88 posts

Re: US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines

#51

Post by waqf »

leesalminen wrote: post #36
tehlike wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is making me worried. When i was a student at mit, we had trips to boeing facilities in seattle. One time, i was again selected randomly for explosive trace sample collection from hands. I dont know what it was, but when they put the tissue in the machine, the machine showed a blinking text saying explosive detected. The tsa agent(iirc) paniced, tried to call out his supervisor while trying to keep an eye on me.…

Happened to me about a year ago flying DEN to LGA. I had one of those thermal receipt printers in my carry on. Those set off the bomb swab machines. Luckily Mr. TSA knew that thermal printers could set the machine off so nobody panicked and I was allowed through.

So now all a terrorist needs to do is carry a thermal printer!

Re: US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines

#52

Post by yellowapple »

bogomipz wrote: post #44
grenoire wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why that information is not disclosed is not because they don't want their citizens to know. They don't want others to know; that's when it would actually compromise the security.

Yes that's the official "war on terror" party line you are parroting - "we can't tell you for your own good." Please provide one single example where communication and sharing of information with one's fellow citizens made them less safe.

"Loose Lips Sink Ships"

In other words: this sort of logic is by no means unprecedented in American history, for the simple reason that gathering information from the general public of a nation is a basic and common element of espionage against that nation. Whether or not such espionage is actually useful is a different story, but especially in this day and age of ubiquitous near-instantaneous and effectively-permanent public (or at least less-than-private) communication, there's every reason to believe that there are "enemy spies" among the general population, and therefore that the less information the general population receives, the less information the enemy can gather (at least through that particular avenue).

I feel that this current instance of information-concealment is excessive, but it's not unreasonable to suspect that the likes of ISIS are collecting information from the American public, and thus not unreasonable to want to limit the information going out to the public in order to prevent hostile agents from obtaining that information.

Re: US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines

#53

Post by cft »

bogomipz wrote: post #42
wildmusings wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government has made pretty clear over the last few months that the reason for the ban was intelligence that jihadist groups had made progress towards developing a laptop bomb. It is pretty reasonable for them to withhold details in order to protect sources and intelligence-gathering techniques.

No they haven' made it pretty clear that "jihadist groups had made progress." Please provide a citation for that. The official TSA website states: "Evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation and are aggressively pursuing innovative methods to undertake their attacks"[1] It says nothing about them making progress. Also that's a pretty nebulous statement. "Evaluated in…

The analogy with food is flawed: the food does not deliberately cause cancer, and the would be announcement by the Surgeon General would not help the food to evade anti cancer treatments.

Having said that, i am glad thst the ban is lifted.

Re: US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines

#54

Post by waqf »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #41
paulpauper wrote: post #40

Laptop bans are such a horrible idea. Yes, entrust a $2000+ dollar piece of hardware (with important software and files) to someone who is barely paid enough to care what happens to it.

Not just don't care, also deliberate theft. It's been a big problem with TSA agents in the United States.

That doesn't necessarily mean it would have been a problem with middle-eastern airlines. They knew that the entire profitability of their US routes depended on well-off business travellers continuing to trust them — and unlike the TSA, they operate in a competitive market.

Re: US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines

#55

Post by yellowapple »

waqf wrote: post #51
leesalminen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happened to me about a year ago flying DEN to LGA. I had one of those thermal receipt printers in my carry on. Those set off the bomb swab machines. Luckily Mr. TSA knew that thermal printers could set the machine off so nobody panicked and I was allowed through.

So now all a terrorist needs to do is carry a thermal printer!

Soon: "Serengeti In Uproar As U.S. Travel Ban Extends to Zebras"

Re: US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines

#56

Post by cft »

tyingq wrote: post #47
sleepybrett wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, have you seen the "gaming" laptops out there, if you even replaces half of the battery with something like c4 it could easily blow a hole in a plane. That said I'm not advocating this ban at all, I think it's yet another in a long series of overreactions. But to imply that it couldn't be done is asinine.

> to imply that it couldn't be done is asinine That isn't called for. Clearly you disagree, which is fine, but there's no need for a personal attack. Here's what happened with a laptop bomb that was placed against the hull on a Somali flight: http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160203180228-plane-... As it happens, it only killed the bomber.

They could allow Ultrabooks in the cabin and ban laptops say heavier than 2.5 lbs. They could publish a list of the heavier models that needed to be checked in.

Re: US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines

#57

Post by bogomipz »

jeremymcanally wrote: post #48
bogomipz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they haven' made it pretty clear that "jihadist groups had made progress." Please provide a citation for that. The official TSA website states: "Evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation and are aggressively pursuing innovative methods to undertake their attacks"[1] It says nothing about them making progress. Also that's a pretty nebulous statement. "Evaluated in…

I don't get the aggressive tone here? I think the ban is stupid, but they actually have had significant intelligence that (a) they have stolen scanning equipment they are using in the development of explosives so they can avoid detection and (b) they have developed newer laptop bombs that are more dangerous and harder to detect. It took me literally 30 seconds on Google to find an article detailing it with links: htt…

I didn't think my tonality was in any way aggressive. It certainly wasn't meant to be.

Yes I read that story on heavy.com back in May. And heavy.com is not part of the DHS, the TSA or any other US government agency.

Also the story on heavy.com is reporting about an unnamed source who reported it to another publication(the Washington Post.)

So in effect you have - someone saying that someone told someone else this. That's hardly counts as a credible intelligence. That's what I would third-hand news. It's like the children's game of "Telephone."

Re: US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines

#58

Post by bogomipz »

cft wrote: post #53
bogomipz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they haven' made it pretty clear that "jihadist groups had made progress." Please provide a citation for that. The official TSA website states: "Evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation and are aggressively pursuing innovative methods to undertake their attacks"[1] It says nothing about them making progress. Also that's a pretty nebulous statement. "Evaluated in…

The analogy with food is flawed: the food does not deliberately cause cancer, and the would be announcement by the Surgeon General would not help the food to evade anti cancer treatments. Having said that, i am glad thst the ban is lifted.

Food was not the point. The point is government agencies withholding information that helps their people:

1) think critically

2 allows them to make informed and rational choices

3) quantify risk

Re: US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines

#59

Post by urethrafranklin »

leesalminen wrote: post #36
tehlike wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is making me worried. When i was a student at mit, we had trips to boeing facilities in seattle. One time, i was again selected randomly for explosive trace sample collection from hands. I dont know what it was, but when they put the tissue in the machine, the machine showed a blinking text saying explosive detected. The tsa agent(iirc) paniced, tried to call out his supervisor while trying to keep an eye on me.…

Happened to me about a year ago flying DEN to LGA. I had one of those thermal receipt printers in my carry on. Those set off the bomb swab machines. Luckily Mr. TSA knew that thermal printers could set the machine off so nobody panicked and I was allowed through.

Make bombs out of thermal printers, got it.

Re: US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines

#60

Post by avn2109 »

wildmusings wrote: post #23
bogomipz wrote: post #19

>"The department of Homeland Security initiated the ban in March. It came into effect covering all flights to U.S. destinations from 10 airports in the Middle East, including major travel hubs like Dubai, Abu Dabi and Dohar." So how would a ban at flights originating at these airports prevent someone from exploiting this on a flight with a layover in this airport i.e while the plane was in route to one of these 10 ai…

The government has made pretty clear over the last few months that the reason for the ban was intelligence that jihadist groups had made progress towards developing a laptop bomb. It is pretty reasonable for them to withhold details in order to protect sources and intelligence-gathering techniques.

>> "...the reason for the ban was intelligence that jihadist groups..."

The reason for the ban has nothing to do with jihadists and everything to do with protecting domestic business.

Emirates and Turkish Airlines were eating US flag carriers' lunch on profitable routes by offering reasonably priced service that doesn't suck. So the domestic airlines called their friends in Washington and asked them to tip the scales.

You'll notice that the laptop banned routes were cash cows for the foreign airlines while being wholly unimportant to Delta, United et al. This tells you everything you need to know about the actual security impact of the laptop ban. It's just regulatory capture of the "security" agencies.

Post reply on HN