pudge's Journal: Airplanes and Weapons

If I put a blade inside my laptop computer, how likely is it the TSA would find it?

Of course, there are also many sharp objects inside my computer.

Of course, I could also just explode my laptop's battery by short-circuiting it.

Does anyone here believe for a second that our prohibitions on scissors and tweezers are anything more than symbolic in the first place? I know many people "out there" believe it, but that's only because they are a lot less creative than the terrorists are.

And that's especially alarming coming from our elected officials, because frankly, it doesn't take much creativity to come up with ways to terrorize an airplane, even if you don't have a pair of scissors.

It’s all pointless anyway.

[BandwidthHog]

Now that people no longer believe that they will survive a hijacking, the only items we really need to prohibit on planes are those that can either destroy the plane or kill all the passengers at once. Hell, assuming you don’t believe that our military shot down Flight 93 over Pennsylvania, that dynamic had already been changed forever before the Sept. 11th attacks had even finished playing out. I frankly don’t think anyone could successfully hijack a plane even with a gun, unless they had more

You sir

[stoolpigeon]

are correct.
 
Within that same morning, people on the plane fought and crashed rather than willingly let the hijackers do what they wanted. It wont happen again. Not that way.

Re:It’s all pointless anyway.

[John Harrison]

There were two meaningful air travel security changes after 9-11. One is reinforcing the cockpit doors. The other is convincing passengers that if a plane is hijacked they're all probably dead anyhow so there is no reason to cooperate.

The rest has been an exuse for politicians to make it look like they are doing something and to spend money. Some of the changes have actually made travel less secure, for instance, putting 19 year olds with M-16s inside the terminals. Now why would you want to put automat

Re:It’s all pointless anyway.

[NeMon'ess]

What about bomb-scanning luggage, carry-on, and the passengers? We now know to fight back against a hijacker, but bombs are different.

Sad, but true

[Dark Coder]

One of the highest tenets of being an engineers (as many charter organization attest, i.e., IEEE, ACM) is we master the law of physics in a safe way.

The corollary to these tenets is not to advertise unsafe methods.

I know, I know... you're playing devil's advocate with the "blade theory" and there is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with that.

However, I do have a bone to pick about ADVERSTISING such unsafe methods. Engineers are pretty resourceful people and have ethics about revealing unsafe methods.

Wish you keep

Re:Sad, but true

[Zeriel]

I disagree--if everyone thought as you did, no one would ever fix the bug unless one of the people who noticed it was actively working for TSA at the time.

Re:Sad, but true

[Dark Coder]

Once a vehicle or delivery payload (laptop or nuclear weapon) has been devised by the engineering staff and made publicly available...

Shouldn't the general public be making effort to minimizing the risk without advertising its unintended effects?

The Internet is like a magnet of information. Once widely-disseminated, difficult to contain. A responsible and sane engineer should vet the bugs out as much as possible without public disclosure.

Much is at stake here.

Re:Sad, but true

[Zeriel]

Eh, I disagree. Once a vector or payload is determined, it oughta be publicized so people know to look for it.

That's only responsible. From the software world, I know too often an privately reported bug is an unfixed bug--I can't imagine in today's face-saving world it works any differently for real engineering.

Not implying anything bad about your ethics PERSONALLY, mind, but I know a lot of engineers who won't fix it if it's not affecting the bottom line. Public disclosure and castigation is one of the

Re:Sad, but true

[Dark Coder]

Interesting... Bottom-line for an engineer, like me, is about the money, time and resources.

So disclosure and castigation impacts all three (groan). No wonder companies makes an effort to keep this under wrap.

Re:Sad, but true

[Zeriel]

The real solution, of course, is to build it right the first time, and fix mistakes with alacrity (and graciousness to the person who pointed said mistakes out).

Re:Sad, but true

[pudge]

Wish you keep that and all other unsafe methods to yourself.

I said nothing that is not widely known. Remember the big hubbub (last year? earlier this year?) about exploding batteries? It was all over Slashdot and even much of the mainstream press.

And it's long been well-understood -- even before 9/11 -- that laptop computers were ideal places to hide illegal objects.

And even if some of the readers here didn't know these things, anyone thinking about actually trying such things certainly would already know

Re:Sad, but true

[Dark Coder]

Yes... Perhaps I am like a little Dutch boy trying to plug the leak of rising tide of information.

Is this making the world safer or less with making such dangerous information more widely available? Why do we take so much effort to keep nuclear know-hows a secret?

That is the slippery slope that I'm posing here.

Re:Sad, but true

[pudge]

Is this making the world safer or less with making such dangerous information more widely available?

Neither. It changes not a thing about the safety quotient of the world.

Why do we take so much effort to keep nuclear know-hows a secret?

An exploding lithium ion battery is not a nuclear bomb. However, if you must compare them, fine: I did not provide the "know-how" for actually exploding one, anyway. People know exploding batteries exist, as they know nuclear bombs exist.

That is the slippery slope that I'm

Re:Sad, but true

[Dark Coder]

Is this making the world safer or less with making such dangerous information more widely available?

Neither. It changes not a thing about the safety quotient of the world.

In attempt to get closure, can I get an agreement that repeating/reinforcing (via blogging/articles of) the same malicious methodologies increases the chance of someone with malicious intent encountering/finding and potentially utilizing these methods?

Re:Sad, but true

[pudge]

In attempt to get closure, can I get an agreement that repeating/reinforcing (via blogging/articles of) the same malicious methodologies increases the chance of someone with malicious intent encountering/finding and potentially utilizing these methods?

In theory, perhaps. In this case, no, because chances are anyone reading my journal would also have read the same information on the front page of Slashdot, CNN, MSNBC, and so on.

But it also increases the chances someone at the TSA will read it, be more aware

Airline Security

[Jhon]

Back in late September or early October 2001, I needed to fly to San Francisco for work (re-scheduled -- I was actually to go Sept 11th). I recall the anxiety I felt walking through Burbank Airport.

I'm hardly stupid. I *KNOW* the security measures they put in place were next to useless. No nail clippers? COME ON! However, I also noted how "calm" everyone appeared. How everyone suffered through the process in reasonably good spirits.

How can I explain it? When my daughter hurt her finger yesterday, sh

Symoblic?

[sr180]

Does anyone here believe for a second that our prohibitions on scissors and tweezers are anything more than symbolic in the first place?

The Australian Government Minister for Immigration recently admitted that it was exactly that: symbolic. She was shouted down by the rest of our parliament however.

True story

[Violet Null]

Two months ago, my family and I are flying down to Florida. I have a Swiss Army knife on my keychain. 1.5" blade, pretty dull. Oops. Since I put my keys into the little plastic tray to go through the x-ray, it gets noticed right away -- had to schlep back to the ticket counter, where the ticket agents were nice enough to box it up and put it through as luggage.

Anyways, get to Florida, get rental car, start driving. My wife digs in her purse, and starts laughing. Turns out she'd had a box cutter in there; you know, the thing the 9/11 hijackers used -- the thing the TSA is supposed to be actually looking for -- and her purse went through that x-ray machine just fine.

A week later, we get to the airport for our return flight. Having learned my lesson, I place my Swiss Army knife in the luggage. Wife had meant to do the same with the box cutter, but forgot; still in her purse, it goes right through the x-ray machine again and security does not bat an eye.