
U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe - benevol
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/10/u-s-to-ban-laptops-in-all-cabins-of-flights-from-europe?n=1
======
cornstalks
Previous discussion from 10 hours ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14311073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14311073)
(56 points, 19 comments)

------
pleasecalllater
OK, fine, so I just won't travel to the USA anymore. I'm sure I don't want my
laptop to end like my suitcase (which has been seriously damaged somewhere
between the Europe and the USA airports).

There are so many more interesting places in the world. If the USA doesn't
want my money, I think that's not my problem.

~~~
nhebb
The only relevant quote in the article is:

> _DHS said in a statement to The Daily Beast: "No final decisions have been
> made on expanding the restriction on large electronic devices in aircraft
> cabins; however, it is under consideration. DHS continues to evaluate the
> threat environment and will make changes when necessary to keep air
> travelers safe."_

The ban may happen, but at this point we don't know.

------
jasonkester
No worries. For a few hundred dollars, I'm sure you'll be able to register as
a certified patriotic laptop carrier. Everything will go back to normal and
the airline will get to collect yet another fee for something we used to get
for free.

And we're totally safer from terrorists as a result.

~~~
gnicholas
Don't forget about the extra revenue for the airlines from selling more movies
on seatback displays.

~~~
inferiorhuman
What seatback displays? Many airlines (the US3 at least) are moving towards
the WiFi+bring-your-own-device model.

~~~
daemin
The ones that you fly long distance with, like say from Europe to Australia.

~~~
inferiorhuman
The US3 (American, Delta, United) are moving towards BYOD even on long haul.
Some foreign carriers are as well.

[http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1358839](http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1358839)

------
flexie
Flying is already such a dreadful thing. Even a one hour flight takes 5-7
hours when you count in all the extras. In my experience, a 1 hour flight like
London - Brussels, is not much faster than a 7 hour flight like London - New
York. Airports are a text book study in what monopoly and fear mongering
politicians do.

\- On the day of the flight you go from your departure city to the airport
somewhere far away in the outskirts. That's easily an hour, in places like New
York or London it can be significantly more.

\- Depending on whether it's a domestic flight or an intercontinental flight,
and depending on the airline, you are asked to show up anywhere from 30
minutes to 3 hours before the flight.

\- In the airport, you sometimes go through four or five or six lines where
you are checked; There is a check in, might be baggage drop, there is
security, passport check by, check at the the gate, and sometimes even again
when entering the airport.

Once you are through security you are forced to spend time in what is
basically an overpriced shopping mall but dragging around your coat and carry-
on.

If you fly with a budget airline, or if you fly to America, you are often
forced to wait in crowded waiting areas at the gate, usually without seating
for everyone.

Sometimes you are stuffed in a bus that takes you from the gate to the plane.
These busses are literally stuffed like a Japanese metro.

On the plane, you often wait in your chair before takeoff because a connecting
flight with passengers has not arrived on time or because the runway is too
full.

The flight itself is rarely comfortable, but that's the necessary part of the
trip. Most flights could not be much faster than they are, except on long
distance flights if supersonic planes were allowed.

At the arrival, you sometimes wait again at the tarmac.

Then you go through passport control again.

You warit for luggage.

And you need transportation from the airport into the destination city.

Upon arrival, you have spent what amounts to a full working day or more, even
for short flights, and you are exhausted. If someone could take away all the
assaults on passengers that the whole airport experience is packed with,
flying would be much better, with or without your laptop.

~~~
Treegarden
What do you think could be improved/changed in the future?

I agree that the process is overly tedious to an unnecessary degree. I have
read that test have shown that TSA security( or check-in security in general)
is more for show (providing sense of security) then actually being effective.
In addition to that the statistics even say that risks of airplane failures
are far lower then other risks.

Yet there seems to be a trend in banning and restricting more and more from
airplane travel. And many people, that I know, think these restrictions are
good.

~~~
flexie
Given that today's airplanes need several km runway to take off and to land,
and that people often need to transfer from one plane to another, we are
probably not going to have many more airports per city than we already have in
a foreseeable future.

But if an airport terminal could just be a series of small waiting rooms, one
for each plane, sort of like today's gates but where where you met up directly
at the gate with your luggage 30 min before. Then everything from passports to
tickets, to body scan and luggage, was checked once, just once, and then you
boarded the plane through at least two jet bridges (front and back on a normal
plane). End of story. Those who wanted could show up an hour before, and they
would get a small rebate and not have to wait in line, and those who wanted
could show up 30 min before, and they would pay a little more and wait in
line. And the plane should not wait for anyone who's not there 30 min before
takeoff.

Could you board a standard narrowbody plane with 150-200 passengers in 30
minutes (if none of them opted for early boarding)? Two jet bridges, each with
at least 2 security lines with scans/pad downs of passengers, a couple of
luggage dumps with scans of luggage (I imagine it could largely be done
automatically). A normal narrowbody plane with 150-200 seats means each line
should handle 75-100 passengers in 30 minutes. That's around 3 passengers per
minute or 20 sec per passenger. Should be possible. But I think many would opt
to meet up shortly before and save a bit of money.

Same in the other end. You would pick up luggage directly at the plane, and
have your passport checked immediately as you enter the terminal.

Much of the waiting in airports is because airports want passengers to mix up
in the shopping mall before check-in and takeoff.

~~~
ubernostrum
There are airports which have something like this, but generally it's very
expensive to maintain so many separate security checkpoints.

In the US, the Kansas City airport was originally designed and built before
any type of security checkpoints were present in airports, as a series of
horseshoe-shaped terminals. Now, each terminal is internally divided into
groups of a few departure gates each, and each one has its own security
checkpoint. This is extremely convenient for people coming to the airport --
when I lived there, I could arrive 45 minutes prior to my flight, knowing I
would get through security and be at the gate by 30 minutes before departure
(which is when boarding begins). On the other hand, there are very few
amenities beyond the checkpoints; toilets had to be installed, and there are a
few counters selling food, but only one area that I know of has a real
restaurant available inside.

And it will almost certainly be torn down and completely rebuilt with a
centralized single security checkpoint, because operating it in the current
setup is too expensive.

------
gjjrfcbugxbhf
Yet another reason not to visit the US... I wonder how many billion dollars
the current administration will cost the states.

~~~
ohthehugemanate
At this point it's not about the current administration, it's about the trend
line over 3 administrations. In choosing to do business in the US, I'm
introducing a dependency that will last for several years at least.

For my own work I've had a preference for non-US clients for several years
now.

~~~
pluma
The most shocking thing to me personally is that Americans seem to think these
developments are new, radical changes to the course of American policies.

I wonder how many of these things would have been possible without all the
groundwork laid since 2001 (e.g. the Sept 2001 changes allowing the POTUS to
call military strikes without Congress approval, the PATRIOT Act enabling mass
surveillance, the ridiculous growth of the TSA security theatre, the creation
of the Department of Homeland Security, etc etc). I guess it's easier to just
blame the status quo on the elected buffoon than to acknowledge the overall
trajectory of US politics.

~~~
r00fus
That's been building for 50 years. Lookup the "Project for a New American
Century"... and that's from the nineties.

At the backbone of all of this is the military Industrial complex and security
complexes that defeat any sane measure to remove their stranglehold over
political discourse.

------
lordelph
Any of you that follow Bruce Schneier might remember he has these "movie plot"
contests, to come up with plausible threats which would incur another bit of
security theatre.

The winner in 2007 was a plot where _water_ would have to be banned...
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/06/second_moviep...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/06/second_movieplo.html)

~~~
IshKebab
TL;DR, take some sodium metal onto a plane, drop it in water. As one of the
first comments said, it's not plausible:

> Not plausible. I've seen a half-pound of reagent-quality sodium dropped in a
> river. The sodium burned violently; the chunk shattered; the expanding gas
> launched broken bits out of the river, which landed back in the water and
> kept on burning. Nothing, however, with enough force to make me believe it
> would cause a full-on explosion.

> Further, sodium oxidizes in air; sodium metal fashioned into any innocuous
> item and exposed to air (as any innocuous metal item I can think of would
> be) would have reacted away a great deal of its mass in the air between
> packing and getting on a plane. There's a reason sodium is normally stored
> in kerosene or some other liquid it won't react with. Dropping oxidized
> sodium into water is a far less interesting reaction.

------
demarq
So what happens if the terrorist first flies to canada... Then the US? Or what
if they are already in the US? Is there something so special about the bomb
that it can't be made anywhere?

I'm just wondering how this does anything but ensure that battery fires will
never be put out.

~~~
bartread
The logical conclusion of all this is that in the foreseeable future laptops
will be banned from the cabins of _all_ flights, regardless of origin or
destination. :/

(Of course, the decision to ban laptops on flights from Europe has not yet
been finalised, so this is all still speculation at this point.)

------
luisivan
So they can backdoor them without you even noticing. Wonderful

~~~
danieldk
Even if this is not the current ulterior motive and the reason is really a
terror threat, this will eventually happen. It's just all to convenient if a
foreign diplomat or businessman is coming to your country to take out the
laptop and quickly insert a firmware backdoor.

Why would we expect a country that bugged the German Chancellor or provided
malware that was inserted by another five-eyes partner into the telephone
system that the EU administration used, not to (ab)use this opportunity?

Once this is in effect, don't travel to the US with a laptop.

------
captainmuon
Who enforces that ban? It's a bit sad that the European countries will go
along with the ban. If they were a bit more confident, they could say "nope".
Or give out a directive that every passenger must be sternly reminded that
Laptops are banned, and they the (EU) security personel shall turn a blind
eye. Europe doesn't have to go along with every crazy idea, it is (at least
still) stronger than it thinks.

~~~
frisco
The airlines enforce it, who must if they want to keep being allowed to
operate flights to the US.

~~~
openplatypus
Yet they also operate under EU law so it would be enough to make this practice
illegal.

I am afraid that EU goverments will bow to US rules. Or maybe this will be the
final straw?

~~~
pluma
The US could deny airlines which don't implement the ban entry into US
airspace. The US could also forbid them from landing in the US. The US could
also raid the planes after landing or arrest anyone carrying a laptop bag that
wasn't checked in as luggage. The US could do any of these things and there
would be nothing the EU could do about it because they all would happen
outside EU jurisdiction.

As a European citizen I'm not sure what you believe the EU could practically
do to prevent such a ban as long as it is only about flights into the US or
within the US. It's literally none of our business.

------
tim333
That's a bit of a pain. I wonder why a laptop bomb would cause problems in the
cabin but not in the cargo hold.

~~~
cstejerean
A laptop bomb would presumably be fairly small in size and would probably have
to be placed directly against some sensitive part of the plane in order to be
effective. The cargo hold meanwhile is already reinforced and any bomb would
most likely end up in a middle of a lot of baggage that would absorb most of
the blast. It would probably force the plane to make an emergency landing but
it's unlikely to be catastrophic.

~~~
enraged_camel
The risk with laptops in the cargo hold isn't the blast force of explosions
causing a hull breach, but fires. Now any terrorist who wants to bring down a
plane simply needs to rig their laptop batteries to catch on fire, which is
much, _much_ easier to do than rigging it to explode.

~~~
ulrikrasmussen
Doesn't planes have automated extinguishers in the cargo hull? I actually
don't know, but it is something I would assume.

~~~
manicdee
Batteries contain their own oxidiser and fuel, so the only way of
extinguishing a better fire is to remove the heat (fire triangle: fuel,
oxidiser, heat).

The best lay-person's method for extinguishing battery fires is flooding with
cold water, which will be hard on an airplane at the best of times.

------
clamprecht
So all the terrorists have to do is convince the USA they've figured out how
to hide bombs in humans and they'll ban humans from flights.

~~~
stevenwoo
I know you're joking but it seems like it is possible that Richard Reid the
shoe bomber could have inserted the explosives inside a plastic bag and then
put that inside himself (either swallow it or in the rectum) and then remove
the explosive in the airplane bathroom and ignited it. Not sure why they have
not done this already.

~~~
mirimir
In Gibson's _Count Zero_ , Turner was almost killed by a "Slamhound", an
exploding dog trained to find him. I vaguely recall that the dog's liver was
replaced by explosive.

~~~
arethuza
Sounds vaguely like the Soviet anti-tank dogs from WW2:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
tank_dog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog)

~~~
mirimir
Wow. That's crazy. And it didn't work, either. But humans arguably wouldn't
get confused so readily.

Even so, they'd just X-ray all passengers.

~~~
zkms
There already exist commercial _transmission_ (not backscatter!) full-body
x-ray security scanners. They are used in prisons now, but there's no reason
they can't be used in airports.

------
koonsolo
The September 11 attacks were domestic US flights of US airlines. So why only
target flights coming from Europe?

~~~
runholm
Honestly, I suspect this might be a convenient way to be able to spend more
time breaking into the laptops of travelers without the travelers noticing.

~~~
pluma
Again, why not include domestic flights?

...

Actually I think this will be extended to domestic flights sooner rather than
later.

------
NightlyDev
What, is it so much better if a bomb goes off while in checked in luggage?
What about fires? Stupidest thing ever. We do have security checks, oh wait,
they are just for show and to annoy everyone.

"Oh no! It's dangerous, terrorists might do that! Let's make a rule that has
no positive effect!"

Arriving in the US and being asked to give up all your keys and passwords is
nothing new. "It's because we need to check for illegal content".

Cause that makes sense, if someone had something to hide nothing would stop
them from downloading it over the thing called the Internet... /s

Americans are damn stupid, and other countries are doing similar stupid
things.

------
janoc
I do wonder how many laptop bombs have endangered planes so far - vs. actual
Li-ion battery fires.

Force laptops in the holds and watch planes crash when the inevitable battery
fire happens. This policy will likely kill more people than the terrorist
menace it is meant to protect against.

And that doesn't even consider the loss of business, because people simply
won't fly without a laptop (or put it in the hold - considering how checked
baggage is routinely treated). Not everyone is traveling for leisure and for
business people a laptop is essential.

~~~
italicbold
I don't agree that a laptop on a flight is "essential" for business people.
While I always notice very few people using laptops on business class flights,
after all the point of flying business class is so that you can get some rest
to arrive fresh to work, one area where you do see laptop use is in business
class lounges. Unfortunately this ban will affect that as you cant check-in
hold luggage after departing the lounge.

That said I think people are blowing this way out of proportion, the point of
your business trip should not be to do work on your laptop during the flight..
Surely you are making the trip to do something important and relevant on the
other side. If your company wants you in a meeting on Monday morning on the
other side of the Atlantic then I am sorry but not being able to use your
laptop on a flight has nothing to do with the business justification for your
trip. God forbid you actually get a break from working 24/7 on your flight.
Why are people complaining about this..

~~~
teddythetwig
I think you are missing the point. It isn't that business travelers need their
laptops during the flight, but that most don't check any luggage at all. When
I was flying for business, I only traveled with hand luggage. No need to deal
with the hassle of checking a bag, when all my clothes for the next few days
can fit into a carry on bag.

~~~
italicbold
Ah yes, that is true. My trips tend to be longer in nature so I normally have
checked in luggage.

------
achamayou
This is a major pain if you're flying with small children. On long flights,
tablets are an absolute godsend...

------
agumonkey
> Laptops and tablets denied access to the cabin and added to checked baggage
> means that devices with a history of lithium-ion battery fires could set off
> a deadly conflagration in a cargo hold — where no one can put out the fires.

Very funny.

We get the message "Europe is a terrorist breeding soil".

------
joelthelion
Is "thedailybeast" a reliable source?

~~~
nebabyte
Nope

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14311758](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14311758)

 _edit_ maybe, given the child comment's claim.

------
IdontRememberIt
We have been scanning laptops separately for years... I am surprised that the
scanners have not a common database of laptop scans to detect all the
differences. So all the original laptops (no part modified) would get a
clearance.

------
FullMtlAlcoholc
Yes! Next up, as a pedestrian, I am twice as likely to die unintentionally
from a railway crossing than terrorism. Let's ban trains. We need a catchy
slogan to sell it, so let's ban planes, trains, and automobiles!

------
hexane360
Good job, xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/651/](https://xkcd.com/651/)

As a bonus, here's what the TSA thought about laptops in 2009:
[http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?t=46966](http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?t=46966)

------
cyphunk
That anyone still carries a laptop to the US suprises me, considering any
client data you have on it they already have the right to demand an
unencrypted copy of.

~~~
wrappertool
No they don't have "right". Just because a government does something doesn't
mean they have the right

~~~
cyphunk
The right they have is to deny you entry if you refuse to hand over passwords
for your devices. If you are US citizen I think they cannot deny you entry but
can take your devices for a period of days.

[https://www.eff.org/press/releases/digital-privacy-us-
border...](https://www.eff.org/press/releases/digital-privacy-us-border-new-
how-guide-eff)

[https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/03/the-border-patrol-can-
ta...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/03/the-border-patrol-can-take-your-
password-now-what/)

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/bill-rights-border-
fif...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/bill-rights-border-fifth-
amendment-protections-account-passwords-and-device)

------
mcv
Considering your laptop was already going to be searched and probably have all
your data copied, I'm not sure this ban is terribly harmful anymore. You're
probably better off leaving the laptop at home (or securely locked, encrypted,
etc in checked luggage) anyway.

~~~
janoc
It is not harmful - until the battery in one of those laptops fails and sets
the plane on fire. With nobody to catch and extinguish it in the hold (the
common halon suppression systems are ineffective against battery fires).

It will probably kill more people than those terrorist laptop bombs it is
supposed to protect from.

------
diegoperini
Goodbye cppnow, you were my most precious yearly enjoyment.

------
RangerScience
One of the advantageous to living in California is that when I go overseas, I
can tell people I'm Californian, rather than American.

Because people's ideas of CA is 1) LA/Hollywood, 2) SF/SV, 3) Yosemite /
Tahoe, you get a pretty different response.

~~~
arghwhat
If you told me you were "Californian", I would give you a really weird stare,
think for a moment, and then reply with "Oh, American?", while wondering if
you thought California was a country.

And even then, very few will know the cultural difference between, say,
California and Tennessee or Alabama. Just like an American might think of
China as one thing with one culture, we generally view USA as one thing with
one culture.

~~~
ethagknight
Total anecdote, but I'm from Tennessee and went to Auburn University (AL), so
I guess I'm exactly that, but when I travel abroad (Europe, Middle East,
Ukraine) I always tell people "I'm from Memphis, TN" and, almost invariably,
the response is "oooohh! Elvis!" It's a fun conversation starter, providing a
humanizing connection beyond 'America'.

~~~
arghwhat
Ah, yes, Elvis. Everyone knows Elvis.

It's actually quite relevant - You can be absolutely sure that people know the
connection between Elvis and Memphis, but they're just names to most people,
and unless Memphis is full of Elvis replicas (well, it probably is), they'll
know nothing about the city or the state from that bite of information.

------
easilyBored
In x years we will all get undressed and proceed to board wrapped in the
airline issued sheets.

If this is what it takes to defeat terrorists, I'm all for it...and more :)

------
nodesocket
Before jumping to conclusions we should acknowledge perhaps that US
intelligence is hearing increased "chatter" or intel thus the reason for this
policy.

~~~
Oletros
Terrorists are not dumb, if laptops are banned from flights from Europe whey
will use other flights, like domestic flights or flights coming from Canada.

------
vivekd
A lot of comments very critical on the ban. America has intel - and good intel
from a raid - that shows that ISIS has the capability and intent to hide a
bomb inside laptop batteries to blow up passenger planes containing lots of
people. Don’t the American people have the right to take steps to protect
themselves from this?

This is a simple requirement that laptops be checked baggage and not carry on.
That hardly seems draconian or extreme by any measure. I realize that this
will inconvenience some people but against the very real and imminent threat
of an actual discovered terrorist plans to use a laptop to blow up a plane,
this seems like a very reasonable and rational step.

If certain people don’t want to visit or do business with America for that
reason . . . I don’t think it’s such a terrible loss to lose dealing with
people who are so self centered that they would demand that Americans risk the
very real threat of deadly terrorist attacks rather than suffer the minor
inconvenience of being required to check their laptops during flights.

~~~
schtitt
I think the core of the issue here is that at some point, the nuisance
outweighs the risk. How long will this ban be in place? Until the terrorists
forget how to make laptop bombs? In the meantime, how many hours of productive
work is being lost?

To put it another way, let's say the US got intelligence that terrorists now
are able to make bombs out of, say, shoes. Should everyone be forced to remove
their shoes before boarding? A silly and contrived example, to be sure, but it
is meant to illustrate a point: Where do we draw the line between safety and
inconvenience?

~~~
janoc
Uh, didn't we have the mandatory shoe removal for a while already after the
shoe bomber? Shoe removal is still commonly demanded if the metal detector
gets triggered and many places have special shoe scanning devices too.

And we still have the liquid ban, thanks to one plot that wasn't even
realistic to start with.

So sadly "safety" and security theater where you get to show to your
electorate that you are "doing something about it" will always win over
inconvenience and common sense.

