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Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

bbc.com

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Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#651

Post by marcosdumay »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #106
scq wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding, the new CT machines are able to characterise material composition using dual-energy X-ray, and this is how they were able to relax the rules.

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…

There's still no evidence that peroxide-based explosives are stable enough to be practical. And nobody every explained why the few liquid ones are so dangerous, but the solid ones get a pass when they are more stable.

It's a good thing that airport brought some machinery to apply the rule in a sane way. But it's still an insane rule, and if it wasn't the US insisting on it, the entire world would just laugh it off.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#652

Post by CGMthrowaway »

JasonADrury wrote: post #165
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…

I routinely conceal large bottles of liquids on my person while going through airport security. I've probably gone through airport security in various places with a 1.5L bottle of water more than a hundred times now. Haven't been caught once, although of course the US-style scanners could presumably defeat this. Same with hot sauces, perfume and the occasional bottles of wine. I really don't like to travel with a che…

Where do you put the water bottle?

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#653

Post by [deleted] »

grepfru_it wrote: post #208
JasonADrury wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I routinely conceal large bottles of liquids on my person while going through airport security. I've probably gone through airport security in various places with a 1.5L bottle of water more than a hundred times now. Haven't been caught once, although of course the US-style scanners could presumably defeat this. Same with hot sauces, perfume and the occasional bottles of wine. I really don't like to travel with a che…

A plastic water bottle isn’t triggering a tsa pre check metal detector. I’m totally doing this next trip

[deleted]

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#654

Post by Wiles_7 »

kebman wrote: post #461

Going to Edinburgh Airport, I was reminded that the tiny water bottle I forgot in my bag could be a bomb. I just went "Oh jeez I'm sorry... Here, have some water! You look like you need it!" Then I opened the bottle and drank it. He grabbed it out of my hands and said it had to go to some lab. So I went "Ok then, the chemical compounds in there are ... H2O and perhaps some carbon...? Idk. I'm not a chemist, but I'm f…

Thankfully, Edinburgh airport has relaxed it liquid rules. You are now allowed up to 2 litres, across one or more containers and they stay in your bag while going through security.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#656

Post by marcosdumay »

breppp wrote: post #181
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…

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

> going over a series of long tests will elicit unusual (fear, stress) responses from malicious actors

Oh, man. Let me tell you what kind of response going over a series of long tests by armed authority figures elicits on normal good-intended people...

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#657

Post by runarberg »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #177
mcmoor wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been way less terrorism in general too. I'm always curious whether the war on terrorism is that effective, or there's major socioeconomic factor that matters most (or there's just less lead in the air).

It's not "less terrorism". Back in the day you needed to get onto TV and into newspaper headlines to get any attentions besides your neighbours. Today you can do that with a Facebook page and send your ideas worldwide. And that works the back way too: instead of the news of bombing in some remote country you can't even find on the map you can get a funny cat videos to fill in.

In the 1970s everyone and their grandma was a member of some left wing revolutionary group, and half of them were working on some terrorist plot, bombing an embassy here, taking hostages there, hijacking an airplane, etc. etc. And in the 1980s every right wing reactionary had joined a right wing counter-revolutionary group, and 99% of them were plotting terrorist attacks (most of them targeting minorities).

Today the cops are doing the job of the right wing counter-revolutionary groups, and relatively rarely do we get the right wing counter revolutionary terror attacks (but we definitely still do; just not as much). Meanwhile the left has pretty much abandoned terrorism as a viable tactic. It is mostly employed as part of an anti-colonial struggle of an oppressed minority sometimes under literal occupation of their colonizer’s military. But alas we only have a fraction of colonies today relative to the 1970s and the 1980s.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#658

Post by Dylan16807 »

sfn42 wrote: post #343
Dylan16807 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"largely" is true, but because planes are more than 3x safer people are still being wrong when they fear plane travel. People try to treat "largely" as "fully" and that fails.

It's not about statistics. It's about control and knowledge. I know if a car I'm in is driving safely. I can ask the driver to calm down or let me off. In a plane I have nothing. I'm just sitting in a tin can, no idea whether the pilot is flying responsibly or not. No idea whether the landing is routine as hell or kinda sketch. Even if i could talk to the pilot the only thing we can do is land. And have you thought a…

If you're in a commercial plane, the driver is acting immaculately, with a margin of error so small you'd never be able to notice any problems. So you'll never need to ask the driver to calm down or let you off.

(But it's worth noting that all the control in the world won't keep you safe in a car. You can have/be an inhumanly perfect driver and it's still pretty dangerous to be on the roads.)

And then every other complaint you list is irrational. "how a rational person" avoids being stressed out is by knowing it's safe. The bouncing on tarmac is safe. Ball of fire is less likely than in a car. Bumping and jerking happens in lots of safe situations. The sounds are normal.

I'm not saying it's wrong to feel fear, but do not pretend the fear is rational.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#659

Post by labcomputer »

morpheuskafka wrote: post #498
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…

> Correct. In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled. This is oft repeated, but as a federal job, the bar is at least slightly higher than those typical AlliedUniversal/Andy Frain/Etc mall cop guards you see all over the place. I have no doubt that many are incompetent, but I think it is a big unfair that it gets singled out as a "jobs program" given that the bar is on th…

> This is oft repeated, but as a federal job, the bar is at least slightly higher than those typical AlliedUniversal/Andy Frain/Etc mall cop guards you see all over the place.

Cool. So the TSA sucks up all the people slightly overqualified to be mall cops, which prevents them from outcompeting all the barely qualified people for those roles. And thus the barely qualified can have a job as a mall cop.

So, sounds exactly like a jobs program.

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