
US considers banning laptops on flights from UK airports - Matt3o12_
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/25/us-considers-banning-laptops-on-flights-from-uk-airports?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
======
tptacek
_The bans sparked criticism from technology experts, who said the new rules
appeared to be at odds with basic computer science._

 _Nicholas Weaver, researcher at the International Computer Science Institute
at the University of California, Berkeley, said last month: “It doesn’t match
a conventional threat model. If you assume the attacker is interested in
turning a laptop into a bomb, it would work just as well in the cargo hold.”_

I'm not sure what this has to do with computer science, unless computer
science includes "the science of things shaped like computers", or why you
need Nicholas Weaver to tell you about how bombs in cargo holds work.

~~~
thesmallestcat
Something something combinatorial explosion.

~~~
donquichotte
Nothing like calling Ack(8,8) on a transatlantic flight.

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no1youknowz
There is no way I would ever stow a macbook pro in my luggage, only to see
someone from baggage handling throw it around and be damaged or arrive at the
destination and find it missing.

With everything else that is happening in the industry. I'm now starting to
seriously consider JetSmarter.

I'm genuinely interested to know of experiences traveling from outside the US
to the US using them. Were you subject to the same security screenings, would
this ban be subject to JetSmarter as well and finally, are you able to board
your own luggage?

Thanks.

~~~
hattar
I'd never heard of JetSmarter so I went to their site to learn more. The
website is a scroll hijacking mess that's really unpleasant to use. I didn't
make it past the landing page.

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quantum_state
Imagine if some source indicates that explosive fibers can be woven into
innocent looking clothes, would all passengers be required to be naked before
they are allowed to fly? I believe we can do better than this outright banning
...

~~~
username223
I sometimes wonder if "the terrorists" have a twisted sense of humor. They put
a bomb in a shoe, so now we all have to take off our shoes at the airport.
Learning from this, they put a bomb in some guy's underwear. Fortunately we
don't have to take off our underwear at the airport now, but we do have to be
gawked at essentially naked by underpaid TSA rent-a-cops.

It's only a matter of time before they think of the "butt-plug bomber," and we
get cavity searches before boarding planes.

~~~
tyingq
There's a similar situation waiting to happen with OFAC regulations. They have
a blacklist of people's names[1]. They compel banks and companies like Paypal
to do loose/fuzzy string matching for any money transaction and block it. The
string doesn't have to match just in the payer or payee field. It can match
anything, like a memo field. It already affects people with popular common
names that are similar to the real person on the list[2].

Waiting for some suspected terrorist on the list to legally change their name
to "THANK YOU" or "PAYMENT FOR" or similar.

[1] [https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/SDN-
List/...](https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/SDN-
List/Pages/default.aspx)

[2] [https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/About-Business-
Archive/T...](https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/About-Business-Archive/The-
Secret-Paypal-Blacklist/m-p/925329#U925329)

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JamesMcMinn
(Edit: it seems it's all of Europe, not just the UK) So you fly to Amsterdam
or Dublin, then onto the US instead.

This isn't going to protect anyone, it's just stupid and inconvenient to its
very core.

I'm already apprehensive about potentially having to visit the US because of
everything from asking for social media accounts to copying data off of
phones. All this is doing is making sure that I'm not going to travel to the
US for business or pleasure.

~~~
johansch
From the Times article that has more details:

"British security chiefs have been put on alert that the US is planning to
impose its laptop ban on incoming flights from some parts of Europe — a move
that could be implemented within weeks. They are waiting to see whether
Britain is included, according to a senior Whitehall source."

[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/trump-considers-
bann...](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/trump-considers-banning-
laptops-on-planes-from-uk-airports-5rbxgm67m)

~~~
dx034
As long as there's one country in Schengen which is not affected it doesn't
make sense. You could just drive to that country and fly from there. Unless
it's based on different security procedures. But in that case the US could
give that information to the affected countries so that they can act instead
of being banned.

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leecarraher
United and American Airlines suggest that we ban cell phones with
cameras(probably shouldn't have to make this distinction) too, for umm safety.

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iuguy
This is insane and will not end well. I suspect it'll not be nearly as
damaging as it should be for the US, though.

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whack
So what's stopping them from flying to Canada and taking a connecting flight?

Or putting the device in the cargo hold, landing in the US, and detonating it
at any sports event or concert?

This whole thing smacks of Security Theater more than anything else.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater)

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rodionos
The hit to in-flight productivity will be enormous.

Then again, this falls into the same 'collateral damage' category as speed
bumps - saves lives but also shortens lives with air and noise pollution,
interferes with paramedics, increases commute time etc.

~~~
joekrill
Except we have studies showing that speed bumps actually do save lives.
There's nothing indicating that this ban would prevent bombs on planes in any
meaningful way.

~~~
rodionos
I'm for speed bumps, but the equation is life years saved minus years taken.
The subtraction part comes from shorter life spans due to increased air
pollution, from deaths caused by speed bumps, from emergency vehicles having
to drive slower in time-critical situations etc.

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hectorr
Isn't this why we pay for all those fancy color scanners?

~~~
dovdovdov
We pay for fear. ;)

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tonyedgecombe
My life improved so much once I decided to stop flying.

~~~
croon
While it might be environmentally friendly to fly, or cosmically irrelevant,
my life is enriched by visiting places. You don't like far off vacations?

I'd love some Matrix-like virtual reality in the future though.

~~~
13of40
Last flight I was on, I took my friend's mini-geiger-counter, and the
radiation level at 35,000 feet (over Oregon, not the Arctic or anything) was
fifty times the background radiation at the airport. Obviously it's not
acutely dangerous, but you have to wonder how many, say, cigarettes that's
equivalent to as far as cancer risk.

~~~
draugadrotten
Answer: For each flight, you get 2.3 cigarettes worth of radioactivity.

You would need to fly 4572 East-West coast flights per year to reach same dose
as from smoking 1.5 packs of cigarettes per day.

\---

Data points:

Smoking 1.5 packs of cigarettes per day is equivalent to between 60 and 160
milliSievert per year [http://mathscinotes.com/2014/01/radiation-exposure-
from-ciga...](http://mathscinotes.com/2014/01/radiation-exposure-from-
cigarette-smoking/) With 20 cigarettes this means 10958 cigarettes. At about
160 milliSievert, we get 0,014601205 milliSivert per cigarette.

You would be exposed to about 0.035 mSv (3.5 mrem) of cosmic radiation if you
were to fly within the United States from the east coast to the west coast.
[https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/air_travel.html](https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/air_travel.html)

~~~
moioci
I think that's 345 banana equivalents. (Since you can't smoke on the plane.)

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dx034
They already use these bomb detectors on some bags with random checks.
Apparently these scanners can detect any residue of explosives. Why not make
it compulsary for all laptops? Should be impossible to transform a laptop into
a bomb without creating some residue.

Or are they concerned that people use batteries as bombs? In that case you
could just use several phones instead.

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kingexe
if they ban anything larger than a smartphone how do they figure that the
terrorists won't just use smartphones?

