Los Alamos is developing these cool resonance based detectors
https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/1224-fighting-f...
Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
621–630 of 839 posts
Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
#622Earlier 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…
I don’t think it’s just the TSA tbh. A couple of years before the pandemic I managed to make it all the way from London Heathrow to Auckland, New Zealand, passing through Dubai and Brisbane on the way, with one of those USB rechargeable plasma lighters and a Gerber multitool in my hand luggage. Completely unintentional, of course, but due to #reasons I had packed in some haste and made the mistake of not completely u…
I no longer keep multitools in random bags that I sometimes also use for travel. I figure it's just a matter of time before I forget it's there when I'm packing in a hurry. (I don't travel as much any longer but still.)
Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
#623This 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…
On one hand, I think it's a valid criticism to say it's security theatre, to a degree . After 9/11, something had to be done, fast! , and we're still living with the after effects of that. On the other hand: defence in depth. No security screening is perfect. Plastic guns can get through metal detectors but we still use them. Pat downs at nightclubs won't catch a razor blade concealed in someone's bra. We try to catc…
One little know crazier example of how things linger around for decades is how the H1B program actually allowed for renewals of visa stamps within the US.
After 9/11 the only reason people were made to go to another country to do it is because the US State department wanted people 10 printed and face scanned at places that had the equipment to do them: the embassies outside the US.
Now all airlines are basically human cattle-herding boxes at 35K feet for the metaphorical H1B cows.
Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
#624Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
A lot more people I've talked to about it say the theatre makes them feel uncomfortable and intimidated rather than making them feel safe. Airport security staff being so gruff and expecting people to know what to do (which casual travellers often don't), then not being able to properly explain what to do and shouting at people... I really don't buy that the illusion of safety is high on anyone's priority list, it's…
> Airport security staff being so gruff
More of a issue that power goes to their heads.
Do not get me started on airport security staff in the Netherlands that cracked some insulting jokes about my nationality. I was not amused...
Or the idiotic "remove your shoes" so we can x-ray them... What next, go naked? O, that is what those new scanners are for that see past your clothing.
If i can avoid flying, i will ... Its not the flying, its the security. You feel like being a criminal every time you need to pass and they do extra checks. Shoes, bomb test, shoes, bomb test ... and you do get targeted.
The amount of times i got "random" checked in China as a white guy, really put me off going anymore.
Arriving, 50% chance of a check. Departing, 100% sure i am getting 1 check, 50% i am getting two.... Even won the lottery with 3 ... (one in entrance in Beijing: "Random" bomb check, one for drop-off luggage, and one for security) .... So god darn tiring ...
And nothing special about me, not like i am 2m tattoo biker or something lol. But yea, they see me, and "here we go again, sigh"...
Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
#625This 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…
> It's all security theater.
It’s so much worse than that. Because the department of homeland security was formed in the panic following 911, many of the laws meant to protect our civil liberties (which have existed decades/centuries before the DHS was formed) haven’t been amended to explicitly apply to DHS staff as well.
So what ICE is doing right now could only happen with the loopholes that apply only to DHS staff.
So if not for the security theater of the TSA, Stephan Miller might not have had a mechanism to get the ball rolling on his murder squad that is ICE.
Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
#626Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can still do that if you check a bag instead of carrying it on, of course.
That is a significant amount of hassle over something so small.
It’s really not too bad - not having to fight for overhead space and thus being able to board last makes it worthwhile even if you don’t have items prohibited in carry-on bags.
Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
#627Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>1 US liquid quart is about 946.353 milliliters. Why not just say 1 litre and have the same limit as the rest of the world.
Because we have quart-sized ziplock bags here, liter bags not so much.
...the rule wasn't implemented because you have quart sized bags, it's the other way around. Also it's not like 1 litre bags would be difficult to make and procure.
Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
#628Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't -- was just noting that people keep saying "MRI", when there's no 5T fields around most security checkpoints
Isn't the world of MRIs moving towards lower teslas instead of higher?
I know nothing about the "industry" of MRIs, but from the physics side, (everything equal) more Tesla is better - at the end of the day, harder magnetic field gets you a stronger signal
Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
#629How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over security theater at airports? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?
No successful terrorist attacks on planes going to/from western countries after 9/11/2001, that's a pretty good record. Maybe we can't prove that the security theater was responsible for that, but still, the only planes that were bombed after 9/11/2001 were inside Russia or going from Egypt to Russia.
The main benefit from post 9/11 security is locks on the cockpit doors. And no longer telling passengers to do whatever a hijacker says.
Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
#630Earlier quoted context omitted.
Flying back from Beijing, I had bought a lot of books. I filled my bags with it, so they were very heavy. When the agent came to try to check my backpack, he casually grabbed it, and fell on the conveyor belt trying to lift it. He looked at me with shock. "I'm done", I thought. He opened the bag, and saw a box of zongzi the university gave me, on top of the books. He instantly became radiant, gave me a pat on the bac…
If I were him, I'd have let you bribe me with a zongzi. Those look delicious!
I know it's a joke, and they probably get only a tiny minority of cases... but the Chinese government makes a huge show of executing people that do stuff like this.