It's virtually impossible to make a cellphone call from a plane in flight. Firstly, for all but a very small portion of its likely path, MH370 was over the open ocean (no cell towers out there). Secondly, even over land, a plane is a hollow metal cylinder and a rather effective Faraday cage. Unless you're flying low'n'slow (e.g. 9/11), holding a call is very diffcult. I've tried it before and while I might occasionally get a few bars worth of signal, it's not useable in the real world.

I wonder if they've thought through what all this spying on 'allies' is doing to them, long term.

The change in attitudes towards the US in friendly, allied countries - the UKs and Australias and Canadas and Germanys of the world - has changed noticeably in the last 20 years. We quite liked you guys in the 90s. The US had a positive image and was an popular place to visit. But now you have a whole generation who is really quite anti-American. This shift in attitude started with Iraq (II), particularly in the countries that, due to treaty or otherwise, committed (and lost) troops to that conflict for what was felt to be no good reason. It deepened when you started treating tourists like criminals (taking first two, and then all ten fingerprints of everyone who enters, even just to transit and connect to another flight elsewhere). And now, all this NSA stuff is compounding the situation.

Diplomats and politicians and businessmen won't see much of this shift in attitude. In the circles they roam in (educated, generally middle-aged to older people), nothing much has changed. But there is a ~significant~ anti-American streak, in supposedly allied, Western countries, among younger people (say, the under-25s). It's not (usually) a burning hatred or anything as dramatic as that, more a general feeling of resentment and 'screw those guys'. Not seen as a place to visit as much either - quite a few of my friends 'wouldn't visit me in the US if [I] paid them' (I live in the US currently ... I move around a lot for work). Just seen as too much hassle with the fingerprinting and the scary, rude border officers (though, I personally think that's just an LAX thing ... SFO and DFW seem a lot friendlier!)

Whether this or justified or not is somewhat moot - that generation will eventually occupy the positions of influence and power in politics and business, and attitudes formed in youth are often difficult to change (although, they will generally mellow with age). The US is big and powerful and could reasonably argue its allies need it more than it needs them; nonetheless, they rely on friendly countries in obscure corners of the world for a lot of their ability to project military power (bases) and collect intel (communications installations, listening stations etc.) I just wonder if they've considered what a general shift in attitude towards the US in the rest of the western world would mean, long term...

Heh, I had to read that in my head in an American accent before I 'got it' ... to me they sound nothing alike.

But yeah, given how crappy most GSM (or other cell phone) calls sound, I'd be surprised if any text to speech system could do this en masse with enough accuracy to make it useful.

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/5...

Yes that is interesting. Although we are just going on hearsay to an extent. Is there PROOF that passengers' phones were ringing (i.e. those phones were definitely on the plane, and definitely rang)? Or is it just a case of some relatives believing what they want to believe (which I don't blame them for, in the traumatic situation they are in).

Furthermore there are other potential explanations for that, including phones auto-forwarded to other numbers or diverted to a malfunctioning voicemail or answering machine system when not in range of a tower. This is especially possible for internationally routed calls (which sometimes do some pretty weird things).

If it is true, it certainly does suggest that the plane remained flying (and at a low altitude) for some time after 'disappearing', or at least that the plane crashed somewhere within range of a cell tower and some phones survived the crash.

Frankly, with the amount of conflicting and inaccurate information/speculation coming from all corners about this matter, I'm just tuning out for a week or two until something more concrete is discovered.

And that's saying something, considering the current Beast does 0-60 mph / 0-100 km/h in 14 or 15 seconds (due to its weight). It's not exactly the best performing thing on the road, that's for sure ;)

The Beast goes everywhere. They load it onto the plane and drive the President around in it when he makes any official visit to a country. So it's not just "on American soil" you need to worry about.

I strongly suspect it's the most-widely-travelled wheeled vehicle on earth actually :)

While I have no doubt that you could build a fully electric vehicle that would meet the specs required for the President's limo, I think the biggest hurdle will be charging it. The Beast is one of the only vehicles in the world that drives in countries all over the world without being registered, or modified in accordance with the local market. I've seen the Beast myself here in Canberra, Australia a couple of times. It is kind of a novelty seeing a left-hand drive vehicle with US license plates cruising around on the 'wrong' side of the road in Australia. :)

But I digress. Countries all use different shaped plugs, different voltages etc. and the charging infrastructure in some places the president might visit is not always reliable. Yes you can ensure that US embassies and the presidential plane/other vehicles have the right systems in place. But you never know what might happen ... one day they might be stuck somewhere with insufficient range and no charging options. Gasoline OTOH, you can find almost anywhere, and can carry a spare supply of it quite easily compared to lugging around some kind of backup battery. I think for that reason it'll be a while before you see a vehicle built for this purpose be fully electric. Maybe a hybrid would work. But I think all-electric vehicles need to become more widespread globally and another decade or two of track record behind them before they would fit the bill for this need.

It already weighs a LOT due to all the thick armor plating. In fact some places have issues with allowing it because it exceeds the design tolerances for the pavement. The added weight of battery packs wouldn't really be that significant, especially if they can save weight on the engine or other parts.

Incorrect - iPhone passwords can be alphanumeric, of any length you want. It ~defaults~ to a 4 digit PIN, but you aren't limited to that. Mine's 8 digits.

Furthermore, anyone who cares will have enabled the 'wipe after 10 failed attempts' option.

I dunno. Even if you have kids, for many people the phone is with them 24 hours a day, so kids would be unlikely to get their hands on it for an extended period regardless. My phone is in my pocket during any time I'm awake, and when I'm asleep it's 30 cm from me on my bedside table (at which point the kids are asleep anyway).

Keep in mind there's normally a delay on the "wipe after X failures" options on phones, such that the kid would need to have the phone for several hours in order to reach the limit. I'd notice if I was without my phone for a few hours...

Well I don't know about the Android version of this feature, but on the iPhone, the "wipe after 10 failures" option puts an increasing delay between attempts. Once you get to the last few attempts, the delay is pretty long (I think 30 minutes or an hour, per attempt), so it's pretty unlikely even a kid would trigger it, unless the phone was left alone with them for a long time.

That's not true, at all. Pre-paid is immensely popular here in Australia. Same in NZ and the UK. And Singapore. And possibly others ... but those are the countries I've lived in. Around half of mobile phone users are pre-paid - nothing to do with being 'unbanked', they just want control over their spending and to pay for only what they actually use. Also, people like it because it means you don't have recurring bills, don't have to give the phone company any credit card info, etc.

YMMV in different countries of course, but pre-paid is far from the domain of the poor or 'unbanked' here at least. Plenty of people on six-figure salaries with prepaid phones, because they are simply better value, and offer you more control and more freedom.

Indeed, which brings me to the other thing I see 'wrong' with the article (or at least the summary) - the statement "it's cheap enough for the pre-paid phones that are much more common than post-paid".

Outside the US (not just in third-world countries, but most other developed countries), this is a false dichotomy (suggesting that only 'cheap' phones can be put on pre-paid plans). Many people with 'high end' phones (Galaxy S4, iPhone 5/5S) are on pre-paid plans. Often quite cheap ones. Actually I'd say that's the norm in many places - many Asian countries, Australia/NZ, much of Europe. People caught on long ago that tying yourself into a 2+ year contract for a subsidized phone isn't worth it in the long run, because you miss out on being able to jump to different plans/carriers, who are in competition with each other and generally introduce new, better value plans a couple of times per year.

Yes, yes I know the market in the US is different. But in much of the rest of the world the phone and the plan are two unrelated purchase decisions. You can have a cheap-ass phone on an expensive post-paid plan, or the most expensive phone in the world on the cheapest $10 pre-paid...