Do Not Flush Your iPod 510
realjordanna writes "Clearly the bar for what is deemed as a security threat has had to be lowered — but should it be this low? When a rather embarrassed passenger loses his iPod in the lavatory — even admits to the crew his mistake, the plane is diverted to Ottawa and a bomb squad is brought in to investigate. Read the iPod owner's story and take one lesson from this kid's plight — clearly the iPod is not flushable."
Watch what you drop in the toilet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Watch what you drop in the toilet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Watch what you drop in the toilet (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Turbine. Fans are soooo yesterday tech.
Fast foward the history tape... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Watch what you drop in the toilet (Score:4, Funny)
Only Thing Missing Was A Cavity Search (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to be that they need to look at their mechanisms again. I can see landing the plane and evacuating it while the item is retreived and verified to be an iPod, but it shouldn't be any more than that.
The hostile treatment...what ever happened to innocent until presumed guilty?
This is what crap like the Patriot Act gets us!
"Government, like fire, is a fearsome servant and a terrible master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." - George Washington
Harassing some poor kid who dropped his iPod in the toilet is pretty irresponsible. How many of you have doused cell phones, pagers, PDA's, or other more esoteric devices in a similar manner? Sheehs, if they're going to call the bomb squad out for that every time....
Let's just say that isn't the best use of my tax dollars.
2 cents,
QueeB
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Except this was Canada.....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
High Alert (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Funny)
But the person was up front about what happened. And you have to admit, being forced to Ottawa should be punishment enough.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He stole some of the exlax-laced brownies from the other story, and couldn't help letting it pass.
Re:High Alert (Score:4, Insightful)
Is a would-be terrorist going to tell the flight-crew that the dropped his bomb-laden i-pod in the toilet?
"Pardon me, ma'am, I dropped my i-bomb in the toilet. Can someone help me retrieve it so I can put it where I really wanted it?"
We could all go around with giant styrofoam bubble-suits to keep us from getting hurt when we fall down and sure, it would be "safer"... but I think most of us would agree that it would be "too safe", and rather ludicrous.
When security people don't use common sense when it comes to security then the populace ends up with a general disregard and disrespect for what security people are doing.
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's really impossibly to be reasonably certain that something is harmless without all this performance, then we should shut down the entire commercial airline industry at once, and for ever, because it is clearly impossible to make it safe.
On the other hand, if it is possible to discover that this ipod is safe just by passing it through an xray machine and giving it a cursory examination (as is done with every other ipod taken on a plane), then all this theatrical performance of questioning the passengers has got to have nothing to do with security: it is just the police and customs having a power trip.
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
If he'd noticed at the time that he dropped it in the toilet and reported it straight away then sure, it seems obvious that little investigation is required. But what he reports is very different to that. He didn't realise that he'd lost it until after he'd watched them having whispered conversation and examining the toilet. Then he approaches them and says not to bother calling anyone about it because he's just realised he lost his ipod.
From their perspective, they started investigating and then someone who'd seen they were aware of something wrong approached them with a story to allay suspcicions. They pretty much had to investigate further. Some of the stuff on the ground, especially with the customs guy after the ipod had been removed is another matter.
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
What part of this whole story is actually security measures and what part is just annoyment...?
I've said it before and will say it again; being plain paranoiac just made things worst. There is no security justification over such acts. Even the whole interrogation should have stopped when (or waited until) they found the object and made sure it was harmless (or not).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you've just planted a cunningly-disguised bomb, and someone finds it, you don't jump up and say "it's mine".
Of course, the police had their own reasons to behave as though they did not believe it was an ipod. If you've been stuck in a boring job like that all your life, suddenly being given the exc
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not just let them blow up a plane once in a while, I say, and perhaps we can get rid of some of these increasingly absurd security procedures.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's hard to imagine why they should pick on planes in particular apart from the challenge of beating the security anyway. A train or a supermarket or a road junction or the airport checkin area would be as good a target for just killing people. Presumably some other motive is involved. Beating the security seems like the obvious one.
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
Shock value. Drop an aircraft or two in the ocean, and you screw up air traffic worldwide. Plus, some people are just naturally scared of flying anyway. This plays on those fears.
And then we have the talking heads on TV, who cream their shorts every time there is a crash. Like this morning.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
you just got yourself a nice device to pressure the pilot to give you his seat.
No. The rules changed starting with flight 93 and the will probably stay changed. If they tell the pilot to fly someplace, the passengers *might* cooperate, but if they try to take the cockpit the passengers and crew will assume that they are a missile and are dead anyway. If you're dead anyway, you're not going to let them pick their target; at least I wouldn't.
Re:High Alert (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Interesting)
The questions were completely irrelevant, uncalled for, and he was under no obligation to answer such crap. I'm terribly upset at the pompous security asses and my government
Grrrrr.
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
The rules change quite a lot in this situation. He could do what you said, but I guarantee you he'd be instantly thrown out of the country and would likely be looked on with extreme suspicion if he tried to get in again (read: he wouldn't).
Customs officers effectively have complete authority when they're dealing with non-citizens.
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Interesting)
Two points about this.
First, just FYI, hate propaganda is not "protected speech" in Canada. Indeed, the concept of "protected speech" is not part of Canadian constitutional or rights laws; "protected speech" is a concept that comes from American court cases related to free speech laws and the First Amendment. In Canada, there is a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that protects one's "freedom of expression", but that same document also protects people from discrimination based on race, gender, religion, etc. Generally, freedom of expression is protected in Canada only within such reasonable limits as can be justified in a free and democratic society. Within this framework, the Canadian Criminal Code has laws against "hate" crimes -- primarily in cases where one's activities can be described as an "incitement to violence". In Canadian law, therefore, the individual right to free expression does not trump the group right of protection from hate speech. Both are present and both may apply to the same speech at the same time, so the question of whether "hate speech" is illegal or not depends upon the specific circumstances of the communication and on a localized intrepretation of events connected to the use of those words.
Second, if I'm not mistaken, border guards from both Canada and the U.S. are indeed empowered to make decisions on the spot about what or who can come into either country. There is little difference between Canada and the U.S. about this. In both cases, customs officials are given sweeping powers that allow them to make choices without having to justify those choices to a court. There is a long history of abuse of this power on both sides of the border that has led to the improper seizure of literature associated with radical, leftist, or communist causes (as well as fascist hate propaganda) and of pornographic material associated with gay, lesbian, or BSMD lifestyles (as well as child porn or other clearly objectionable materials). Lots of brown-skinned muslims travelling these days will be quick to confirm from experience that when you are at the border, you really don't have any rights at all, and you have very little recourse if you are mistreated. It's only people who have never run into problems at the border who live under the illusion that their "rights" are robust and in full force at the border. This does not mean one should not object to mistreatment, but border guards really are empowered to make decisions about what comes into your country, and if you are going to dispute their choices, you had better be ready for a long, miserable experience...and you had better be sure that you know the law of the particular country you intend to object to!
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
http://lois.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/ [justice.gc.ca]
Summary of Hate Crime Legislation
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/hatecrimes/ [www.cbc.ca]
Re:High Alert (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
BSMD -- is that where people get sexually excited by listening to doctors talk authoritatively about things they don't know?
Re: (Score:2)
boxlight
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got to be kidding! In theory, the readers, and by extension the posters, of /. are better educated than the run-of-the-mill sheep in this country, but I really doubt that now. Does anyone actually read stories like this, [washingtonmonthly.com] this, [theregister.co.uk] or this. [schneier.com]
People, let's start using that grey matter for once. Yes, there are definitely people who would want to blow up planes, and yes, there are ways that it could be done. The War on Moisture isn't going to make anyone safer. Beyond the huge inconvenience and expense factor (read Schneier's Wired essay [schneier.com] (I posted the link to his blog rather than the Wired article due to updates), a simple question of proportion should come in here. According to the US government's own statistics [washingtonpost.com], fewer than 2,000 people were killed WORLDWIDE in 2004 by terrorists. Even if you add in the thousands of people killed on 9/11, you're still talking about 10,000 people, tops. Compare that to the number of people killed each year in car crashes (38,000 US fatalities in 2004 [dot.gov]), malaria (1,000,000 to 3,000,000 per year worldwide, mostly in Africa [wikipedia.org]), or heart disease (276 out of ever 100,000 people in the US in 1996, or 22,800 in New York City alone [disastercenter.com]). In fact, if the statistics are right, more people are hit by lightning each year (1 person out of every 600,000 per year, or 10,000 worldwide) than are killed by terrorists.
So, are you going to stop driving your car? Stop smoking/drinking? Stop taking romantic walks in the rain? (ok, so maybe not a good one on /.) Think of all the lives that would be saved if the billions of dollars that are being spent protecting us from push-up bras and shampoo were spent on finding a cure for malaria, or tuburculosis, or lung cancer, or AIDS.
Bah, the world is filled with nothing but sheep.
Re:High Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When the government says "we are going to give the police power to buttfuck anyone they suspect they might one day think could possibly want to maybe consider w
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Get over it. Instead of quivering like a 7-year-old because some national father figure says that we all need to be afraid of everything now, evaluate the situation for yourself and assess just how "terrorized" you really need to be. On a long soul-searching walk on September 12, I decided that I wasn't going to be afraid. Not of flying. Not of Ara
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Terrorists have killed about 6000 westerners in the last decade (including about 2500 soldiers on active duty in the Middle East, which are arguably just military deaths, not terrorist). Thats about how many people drunk drivers kill in 2 months. It's also the number of people that the Tob
I flushed my Zune the other day (Score:5, Funny)
Now buying it... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
bigger story (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
From TFA:
It was me and a gruff, humorless customs official. He unpacked my luggage entirely, ran the contents of my wallet through a bomb sweep, and carefully examined all of my belongings. He then asked me to turn on my laptop. I did, and he began using it. I saw him open Spotlight and begin searching.
the iPod (Score:5, Funny)
Not security, but MORONDOM (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans especially, and some other westerners are WAY too much indulged in their own well being that, EVERYTHING is taken as a disaster when the unbelievably minimal, almost non-existent threat to life occurs. (as if a flushed ipod by a kid can EVER be, and as terrorists DO tell that they flushed a bomb disguised as an ipod)
Also there's the morondom dominance question of the plane crew, unable to deduce that if the kid have been a terrorist, s/he wouldnt inform them of the action.
Re:Not security, but MORONDOM (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not security, but MORONDOM (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a time when bias is turned up so that we have fewer misses but more false alarms. This is what tends to happen when a miss is very expensive, which it is in the case of airplane security. The price of having fewer false alarms is greater potential for a miss. We are not as concerned with our accuracy in finding a terrorist as we are in making sure we don't miss one.
When is an Overreaction OK? (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point, YES, it is OK to overreact for everyone's safety "just in case"
But are ALL overreactions OK?
Does EVERY discovery of "powder" coming out of a parcel necessitate a two block evacuation and the hazmat team called out?
Does EVERY electronic device accidentally left somewhere necessitate the bomb squad being called out?
Does EVERY suspicious group of "arab-looking" people speaking their native tounge necessitate the police/FBI/air-marshals being called out?
C'mon...let's step back and accept some risks in our lives.
And don't use that old canard of "well, you wouldn't be saying that if it was your daughter on the plane"
YES, I would.
We ARE OVERREACTING. I'm sure I'll be modded down as a troll, but I am serious and I'm really getting ticked-off
Re:When is an Overreaction OK? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the terrorists have won in this regard.
Re:When is an Overreaction OK? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know what motivated this whole fiasco, but it doesn't seem that it can all be explained as a legitimate effort to protect public safety, or even slavish following of regulations.
Re:When is an Overreaction OK? (Score:5, Interesting)
Insisting on absolute safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world. [yarchive.net]
-- Mary Shafer, risks researcher, NASA
Re:When is an Overreaction OK? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:When is an Overreaction OK? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does EVERY discovery of "powder" coming out of a parcel necessitate a two block evacuation and the hazmat team called out?
Does EVERY electronic device accidentally left somewhere necessitate the bomb squad being called out?
Does EVERY suspicious group of "arab-looking" people speaking their native tounge necessitate the police/FBI/air-marshals being called ou
Well, it is an election year.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of the questions they asked were invasive and inappropriate... and the customs guy seemed to think it was up to him personally to decide what's legal and what isn't.
Lessons learned... (Score:5, Insightful)
2] If you end up doing something that a remotely paranoid security type would find suspicious, even by accident, do yourself a favor and DON'T tell anyone. No, really. They're just better off not knowing, and you'll be no worse off than if they discover something on their own later and have a paranoid fit.
It's not funny, don't laugh... (Score:2, Interesting)
Insane, paranoid shit like this is exactly why the fuck I won't be visiting the US-of-A or Canada in a hurry.
Kid admits to losing his toy in the toilet, bomb squad comes in and they interrogate him in that fashion? Fuck that for a game of soldiers...
Re:It's not funny, don't laugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It's not funny, don't laugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
... and down in Amsterdam, Netherlands (clearly, the most conservative city in Europe), they jail a bunch of travellers coz they were showing off their mobile phones [indianexpress.com] to each other. That, apparently, seemed suspicious enough to warrant an F16 escort back to Schipol, and overnight stay in jail for those poor shmucks.
If you think paranoia is limited to North America, you're badly mistaken.
Re:It's not funny, don't laugh... (Score:4, Informative)
Won't be long... (Score:5, Funny)
It had a timer display and a lithium ion battery?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Recalls still allowed? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Recalls still allowed? (Score:4, Interesting)
oh dear god the horror!!! (Score:5, Funny)
iPod = WMD (Score:2)
Actual quotes (Score:5, Insightful)
All this for something that can easily be identified as an iPod?
And how was the child porn and hate propaganda suspicions tied to an iPod in the toilet, exactly?
Re:Actual quotes (Score:4, Interesting)
What I wonder is what they would do if I did tell them that?
It would be interesting to see the response if he had done so.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No doubt to justify further surveillence of people's communications, but not just for public security, now for public safety.
Gotta love the spin.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That little bit irritated me as well, but I believe at border crossings you sacrifice most of your rights to privacy and freedom from search. If you don't want to be subject to arbitrary searches, the answer is "don't enter our country." The people policing the border have a fair amount of freedom to say, "No, I don't want you in our country." While it may be misapplied (as it was in this case), ultimately
Hate propaganda is illegal in Canada (Score:3, Informative)
See, for example: http://lois.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/41491.html [justice.gc.ca]
So the only surprising thing is that the customs official didn't know this.
Re:Actual quotes (Score:5, Insightful)
The same way Iraq was tied to 9/11, obviously.
Overreacting? Perhaps, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
- An iPod stuck at the bottom of an opaque blue liquid is not readily identifiable.
- The crew were just following procedures.
- The guy played dumb about it for a while and didn't say anything.
- When he finally did tell the crew, they had already called the incident in, at which point the wheels were already in motion.
Had he spoken up as soon as he'd discovered hi iPod missing and the suddenly strange behaviour of the flight attendants, they might have brushed off the inc
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Had he spoken up as soon as he'd discovered hi iPod missing and the suddenly strange behaviour of the flight attendants, they might have brushed off the incident.
He did. The problem was the flight attendants found the iPod before he discovered it was missing.
Two mistakes... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sir, please turn on your laptop... (Score:5, Funny)
Luckily for me, if he'd turned on my laptop all he'd of gotten would be a $ prompt:
Official: Umm... What's this $ mean? And why is it all text? Is this dos or something?
Me: Oh, that's just the bash shell, it means you're logged on as a user in a Unix system.
Official: And what exactly is unix? is it some sort of anarchist tyranny virus?
Me: Umm... No, it's just an operating system. Like Windows.
Official: I see, and where did you buy this "unix"?
Me: Well, actually it's called Ubuntu Linux, and I downloaded it off a torrent.
Official: (Into his radio) I think we have a software pirate here....
Me: Actually, it's free. Canonical will ship you free CDs.
Official: And who exactly is canonical? Are they some muslim extremist group trying to destroy the United States with computer viruses?
Me: Umm... No... Actually they're --
Official: Shut up! We're taking you into custody!
Omg (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
" They " won (Score:5, Insightful)
By making people behave like this
Everytime an airplane is diverted for an ipod
Everytime in your minds , a trace of powder on the pavement
is anthrax : they won.
Everytime a bag of groceries left in the tram or subway becomes
in the mind of someone a bomb that will " Kill us all " they won.
America
They now control you.They have changed your ways your ideas
your thinking
Terror owns you and that's what they wanted to do.
Time to bi*** slap yourself and start thinking clearly ?
I'd say .
Re:" They " won (Score:4, Insightful)
They will just look at you funny.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:" They " won (Score:5, Interesting)
I talked to a Bush supporter yesterday (Score:3, Interesting)
I just don't know how to deal with that. Remember those "weapons of mass destruction" supposedly located in Iraq? They never existed. And this guy is worried about a nuclear attack against the US? Delivered how, exactly?
In my thinking, if you want to go after terrorists, you investigate them, infiltrate them, and prosecute them. It
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
schools in England: the three little piglets is not a legal book to read
banks in Englsnd: piggy banks are banned
England is changing.
Should I be scared? (Score:4, Funny)
Should I be scared?
Over-reaction happened to me too. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've also discovered the joys of over-reaction. Read here: http://onon.org/asm/powder.html [onon.org]
This happened in 1996 - years before 911. The "white powder" was flour and I made pancakes for my kids with some of it for breakfast. I bought it at Safeway.
I got a call from a friend advising me of the issue. I was asked to drive to the fire station - which I did even though it meant I had to leave the kids unsupervised. I'm a single parent - my wife died.
I suppose there was a chance I could have been arrested.
When I drove to the fire station I pulled into the driveway and immediately two (2) firetrucks which were parked on the side of the road moved together to block off the driveway. So clearly they were waiting for me.
What happened is that I used the flour to mark the run. On part of the run I tossed a glob of flour on some old telephone poles...
The idjots swept up the flour from the telephone poles and tested it and found the creosote they also swept up was toxic. They were not smart enough to test another sample not on a telephone pole.
Next - some of the fire department personel run with us pretty much every Monday. In addition we have police officers who run with us. This was aired on the news. The person who reads the sports at the time has also run with us. All of our runs are published on the website. We have 1000's of pictures from former runs. We've been written up in several magazines. We're the largest running club in the WORLD and we have been doing this for over 60 years.
Yet - in spite of all of this - it happened again last year... another trail partly swept up by the same folks who tried to sweep up my trail in 1996 (and they missed most of it - it was a well marked trail and they were not able to follow it).
This has also happned in a number of other cities.
I do not know what we can do - I would think publishing what we are doing should be sufficient but it doesn't seem to be.
Questions (Score:4, Insightful)
Poster Has Basis for a Lawsuit here (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL- but I am a Constitutional Law scholar and I think poster may have a case for his rights being violated, namely with the laptop. Assuming of course this flight was aboard an American carrier and that customs official digging through his laptop was also an American. Poster was informed he would be released before the customs official went through his laptop looking for contraband. It is somewhat hazy but generally computers fall under the 4th Amendment's guarantee against undue search and seizure. If the guy wants to look- he damn well better have a search warrant from a judge. Seeing as he is to be released for lack of evidence- there is no basis for the search.
Now, if the customs official was Canadian, or an agent of the Canadian government it gets a lot more murky. True- what I am assuming are American and Canadian authorities have decided to let him go, but poster is passing through the customs of another country. However, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms also guarantees against undue search (Article 8) and puts forth the right to consul (U.S. Escobedo and Miranda) (Canada: CoRaF Article 10). Poster was clearly not given those.
Surely, the argument I have just made can be reconstructed by the other side of the argument- in the name of national security or some other erosion of rights. Allow me to quote Ben Franklin, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety". On that note- I encourage poster to contact the ACLU or its Canadian equivalent and bring suit (the ACLU will do all the work for you on a pro bono basis). Such a case has the possibility to clarify rights in the paranoid stripping of rights that is the War on Terror.
Today electronics; tomorrow ??? (Score:4, Funny)
Soon *the terrorists* my find a way to detonate their clothing and all clothing will be banned in the cabin. This sounds pretty cool at first, but keep in mind how often is the random person sitting next to you a slammin' hottie?
After that *the terrorists* will find a brilliant plot to set themselves on fire by rubbing their arms together REALLY FAST. Once this happpens, all PASSENGERS will be banned from being in the cabin. Very smart.
Terrorists win.
I'm the guy (Score:5, Informative)
Also, I'm noticing I'm not coming off very highly in some of your comments. Oh well
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't you have anything better to do? With your science knowledge did it ever occur to you to try to use those skills to do something more productive than lose yourself in endless hours of fantasy roleplaying? (I know what it's like; I used to do it and I wish I could take back all the time I pissed away playing Everquest). So can you do us a favor and maybe spend some
Based on a true story (Score:3, Funny)
Re:passing mobiles can have the same effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhm, I thought inciting fear was the whole point of terrorism.
Re:Why bring an iPod into the lavatory?!??!?? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll also add that I did some 'blue juice' aviation engineering while putting myself through university. There were several occasions that someone would ask if there was any way to retrieve a watch, wallets, or bracelet from the tank. (the answer was no in my case) It does happen. Most folks on the larger jets just write the stuff off as lost. The guy is lucky to get the ipod back!
Re:Why bring an iPod into the lavatory?!??!?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously not. He just had it clipped to his belt. If he'd been listening to it, he would have noticed when it went down the tube and yanked his earbuds out.
Re:Why bring an iPod into the lavatory?!??!?? (Score:5, Funny)
I particularly like the way you've deduced the kid's intelligence levels based on where he takes his ipod with him. A very succicent, rational and thought-provoking analysis; Sherlock Holmes would be proud.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)