7 ms·

AQAP trying to hide explosives in laptops, official says

26 points by Gys 10y ago

Gys 10y ago
AQAP = Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda_in_the_Arabian_Peninsula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda_in_the_Arabian_Penins...
SpinningCode 10y ago
I'm sure it has nothing to do with this: https://theintercept.com/2017/02/09/airline-competition-trump/ https://theintercept.com/2017/02/09/airline-competition-trum...
- walterbell 10y ago
  From http://www.pcmag.com/commentary/352511/airline-electronics-ban-is-protectionism-not-security http://www.pcmag.com/commentary/352511/airline-electronics-b... "..business travelers assume they'll have access to their laptops on flights. A tech-free, or even a tech-lite flight isn't much of a flight at all in 2017. So by targeting our gadgets, the government can take an entire airline down." From https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/21/trump-wont-allow-you-to-use-ipads-or-laptops-on-certain-airlines-heres-the-underlying-story/?utm_term=.27c5dbb62f88 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/2... "These three airlines, as well as the other airlines targeted in the order, are likely to lose a major amount of business from their most lucrative customers — people who travel in business class and first class. Business travelers are disproportionately likely to want to work on the plane — the reason they are prepared to pay business-class or first-class fares is because it allows them to work in comfort. These travelers are unlikely to appreciate having to do all their work on smartphones, or not being able to work at all. The likely result is that many of them will stop flying on Gulf airlines, and start traveling on U.S. airlines instead. As the Financial Times notes, the order doesn’t affect only the airlines’ direct flights to and from the United States — it attacks the “hub” airports that are at the core of their business models. These airlines not only fly passengers directly from the Gulf region to the United States — they also fly passengers from many other destinations, transferring them from one plane to another in the hubs. This “hub and spoke” approach is a standard economic model for long-haul airlines, offering them large savings. However, it also creates big vulnerabilities. If competitors or unfriendly states can undermine or degrade the hub, they can inflict heavy economic damage."
  - valuearb 10y ago
    It's important to get these booby trapped laptops out of the cabin and into the hold because uh...
    - evgen 10y ago
      Because the useful volume of a laptop is somewhat limited and in the cabin you can ensure placement against the skin of the aircraft. In the baggage hold it will have been scanned better and by a process that is less susceptible to compromise by a single person, it will have been placed in a somewhat random position inside another container with a fragmentation blanket around it, etc. Yes, you can certainly bring down an aircraft by putting a bomb in luggage, but a lot of effort has been put in place to prevent this exact thing.
      - Gonzih 10y ago
        > In the baggage hold it will have been scanned better What information is this statement based on?
        gmarx 10y ago
        I've read that too. The scanners for luggage are much better than those for the security lines. They might even use machine learning to detect things. I don't remember the source. sorry
        evgen 10y ago
        In most modern western airports checked bags are scanned using a CT scanner rather than a 3 image x-ray that you see used for carry-on bags. This gives a much better image with more spatial clues regarding the contents and makes the resulting image much easier for automated detection assistance. Checked bags are also often passed by canine units for explosive detection.
        logfromblammo 10y ago
        In some airports, your technology will even be removed from your luggage by a helpful and diligent TSA or airline employee, and they will take it back to their own home for a very thorough functional check that may take years to complete. http://blog.tsa.gov/2008/02/tsa-our-officers-public-and-theft.html http://blog.tsa.gov/2008/02/tsa-our-officers-public-and-thef... CNN, Chicago Tribune, and ABC News ran a few stories about this "extra-special luggage screening" around 3-5 years ago, which I won't link because of autoplaying videos and/or slideshows.
obstinate 10y ago
Is this true or a fig leaf. Hard to know for sure, but the fact that the restrictions do not apply to passengers on American airlines certainly doesn't decrease my skepticism.
- mikeash 10y ago
  The ban applies to all flights from the cities in question. If it doesn't apply to American airlines, it's only because no American airlines have direct flights from those cities. Edit: this is only half right. Part of the ban is for specific cities, and part is for specific airlines: http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2017/03/21/what-fliers-need-know-airline-laptop-ban/99447660/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2...
ceejayoz 10y ago
Let's accept that for a moment, for the sake of argument. I want an explanation for why AQAP won't just hop on an airline unaffected by this ban, drive the bomb to a country unaffected by this ban, or put a timer/altimeter on the laptop bomb that's in the cargo hold.
- mikeash 10y ago
  The ban is not limited to certain airlines, it applies to all flights from certain cities. The ban is supposedly based on those cities' airports having sub-par security screening. I can't answer that last part, though. The ban could make sense up to the part where they say "so just chuck it in the cargo hold."
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    The ban has two parts. One targets airports, the other targets specific airlines. http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2017/03/21/what-fliers-need-know-airline-laptop-ban/99447660/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2... In a less serious vein, if you told me my kids couldn't have their Kindles or iPads on a seventeen hour flight, I'd probably want to kill someone by the end of it.
    - lb1lf 10y ago
      >In a less serious vein, if you told me my kids couldn't have their Kindles or iPads on a seventeen hour flight, I'd probably want to kill someone by the end of it. -Some of your co-passengers would probably beat you to it; you would likely be collateral damage.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      Ah hah, I only knew about the first part. Thanks for the link. Sounds to me like they're afraid of some sort of insider threat with those airlines. Maybe the other airports have sufficient screening for passengers but employees of those airlines might be able to sneak something on.
  - 10y ago
mkaziz 10y ago
No one's talking about that fact that the US trusts Abu Dhabi to have a customs port there[0], but not enough to let a passenger travelling via Abu Dhabi to put a laptop in their carryon ... 0. http://www.etihad.com/en-us/before-you-fly/us-preclearance/ http://www.etihad.com/en-us/before-you-fly/us-preclearance/
ouid 10y ago
Didn't Samsung already do this with their phones?
BugsJustFindMe 10y ago
Airlines and economic politics and terrorism threats aside, letting laptop batteries in airplane cabins at all has to be just the craziest hypocritical lapse in air travel safety ever. The very idea that your personal incendiary device is totes A-OK because it also plays movies seems completely bonkers. It's like a million hyperlocalized somebody-else's-problem fields wrap around portable electronics that we all just collectively ignore. Hell, continue to forget the explosive capacity of these commonplace electronic grenades for a moment. The chemical fumes produced by lithium battery fires are absolutely terrifying. You can quickly vent the storage compartment and nobody even has to know. In the absolute worst case you can dump the luggage and cover losses with insurance. You just can't do the same to the passenger compartment. I want the rules to be fair, and I want the rules to make sense, but damned if I don't find myself more and more wishing it were a complete ban.
- thedrbrian 10y ago
  People will know if you vent the cargo hold as it shares its atmosphere with the passengers. I'd rather the battery be easily accessible if it catches fire.
- JamesLeonis 10y ago
  As with any ban, I question if the response is proportional to the threat. Yes we have all these chemical devices with us (hell you're flying on a burning tank of jet fuel, make no mistake), but the actual number of exploding electronics is so low we don't bother thinking about it. Even the Note 7, which was outright banned on flights, had only a couple hundred incidents, in a market that transports millions of phones a day (not to mention other electronics) routinely for _years_. In fact, let's compare apples-to-apples how likely you are to die from some of these things in a given year [1]: * Air accident (any cause): 1 in 767,303 * Traffic accident: 1 in 8,938 * Fall from ladder: 1 in 752,688 In fact, I'm having a hard time finding statistics that indicate passenger consumer electronics are a threat at all. Nearly all plane crashes are some form of human error from the flight crew and mechanical failure. Even the Note 7 didn't bring down planes, despite actually exploding on them several times. Even that ban isn't about the lethality, but the inconvenience and delays suffered because they _must_ check for worse problems. So to reiterate my point: What is the threat you are trying to solve? EDIT: Formatting [1]: http://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/mortality-risk http://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/mortality-risk
everybodyknows 10y ago
The hardware workaround seems obvious enough: 1. Negotiate a "standard laptop" voltage, connector, and max current. Parties at the table: Boeing, Airbus and Lenovo, HP, ... 2. Redesign laptop packaging to function well with main battery detached. 3. Refit airliner interiors to supply "standard laptop" power to each seat. #3 could take a while -- retrofitting a few pricey front-cabin seats during the interim looks like a profit opportunity for someone.
- ghshephard 10y ago
  Many long haul flights of Tier 1 carriers already have AC power at the seats, so #1 and #3 have already been taken care of.

26 points by Gys 10y ago

Gys 10y ago

AQAP = Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda_in_the_Arabian_Peninsula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda_in_the_Arabian_Penins...

SpinningCode 10y ago

I'm sure it has nothing to do with this: https://theintercept.com/2017/02/09/airline-competition-trump/ https://theintercept.com/2017/02/09/airline-competition-trum...

walterbell 10y ago
From http://www.pcmag.com/commentary/352511/airline-electronics-ban-is-protectionism-not-security http://www.pcmag.com/commentary/352511/airline-electronics-b... "..business travelers assume they'll have access to their laptops on flights. A tech-free, or even a tech-lite flight isn't much of a flight at all in 2017. So by targeting our gadgets, the government can take an entire airline down." From https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/21/trump-wont-allow-you-to-use-ipads-or-laptops-on-certain-airlines-heres-the-underlying-story/?utm_term=.27c5dbb62f88 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/2... "These three airlines, as well as the other airlines targeted in the order, are likely to lose a major amount of business from their most lucrative customers — people who travel in business class and first class. Business travelers are disproportionately likely to want to work on the plane — the reason they are prepared to pay business-class or first-class fares is because it allows them to work in comfort. These travelers are unlikely to appreciate having to do all their work on smartphones, or not being able to work at all. The likely result is that many of them will stop flying on Gulf airlines, and start traveling on U.S. airlines instead. As the Financial Times notes, the order doesn’t affect only the airlines’ direct flights to and from the United States — it attacks the “hub” airports that are at the core of their business models. These airlines not only fly passengers directly from the Gulf region to the United States — they also fly passengers from many other destinations, transferring them from one plane to another in the hubs. This “hub and spoke” approach is a standard economic model for long-haul airlines, offering them large savings. However, it also creates big vulnerabilities. If competitors or unfriendly states can undermine or degrade the hub, they can inflict heavy economic damage."
- valuearb 10y ago
  It's important to get these booby trapped laptops out of the cabin and into the hold because uh...
  - evgen 10y ago
    Because the useful volume of a laptop is somewhat limited and in the cabin you can ensure placement against the skin of the aircraft. In the baggage hold it will have been scanned better and by a process that is less susceptible to compromise by a single person, it will have been placed in a somewhat random position inside another container with a fragmentation blanket around it, etc. Yes, you can certainly bring down an aircraft by putting a bomb in luggage, but a lot of effort has been put in place to prevent this exact thing.
    - Gonzih 10y ago
      > In the baggage hold it will have been scanned better What information is this statement based on?
      - gmarx 10y ago
        I've read that too. The scanners for luggage are much better than those for the security lines. They might even use machine learning to detect things. I don't remember the source. sorry
      - evgen 10y ago
        In most modern western airports checked bags are scanned using a CT scanner rather than a 3 image x-ray that you see used for carry-on bags. This gives a much better image with more spatial clues regarding the contents and makes the resulting image much easier for automated detection assistance. Checked bags are also often passed by canine units for explosive detection.
      - logfromblammo 10y ago
        In some airports, your technology will even be removed from your luggage by a helpful and diligent TSA or airline employee, and they will take it back to their own home for a very thorough functional check that may take years to complete. http://blog.tsa.gov/2008/02/tsa-our-officers-public-and-theft.html http://blog.tsa.gov/2008/02/tsa-our-officers-public-and-thef... CNN, Chicago Tribune, and ABC News ran a few stories about this "extra-special luggage screening" around 3-5 years ago, which I won't link because of autoplaying videos and/or slideshows.

obstinate 10y ago

Is this true or a fig leaf. Hard to know for sure, but the fact that the restrictions do not apply to passengers on American airlines certainly doesn't decrease my skepticism.

mikeash 10y ago
The ban applies to all flights from the cities in question. If it doesn't apply to American airlines, it's only because no American airlines have direct flights from those cities. Edit: this is only half right. Part of the ban is for specific cities, and part is for specific airlines: http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2017/03/21/what-fliers-need-know-airline-laptop-ban/99447660/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2...

ceejayoz 10y ago

Let's accept that for a moment, for the sake of argument. I want an explanation for why AQAP won't just hop on an airline unaffected by this ban, drive the bomb to a country unaffected by this ban, or put a timer/altimeter on the laptop bomb that's in the cargo hold.

mikeash 10y ago
The ban is not limited to certain airlines, it applies to all flights from certain cities. The ban is supposedly based on those cities' airports having sub-par security screening. I can't answer that last part, though. The ban could make sense up to the part where they say "so just chuck it in the cargo hold."
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  The ban has two parts. One targets airports, the other targets specific airlines. http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2017/03/21/what-fliers-need-know-airline-laptop-ban/99447660/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2... In a less serious vein, if you told me my kids couldn't have their Kindles or iPads on a seventeen hour flight, I'd probably want to kill someone by the end of it.
  - lb1lf 10y ago
    >In a less serious vein, if you told me my kids couldn't have their Kindles or iPads on a seventeen hour flight, I'd probably want to kill someone by the end of it. -Some of your co-passengers would probably beat you to it; you would likely be collateral damage.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Ah hah, I only knew about the first part. Thanks for the link. Sounds to me like they're afraid of some sort of insider threat with those airlines. Maybe the other airports have sufficient screening for passengers but employees of those airlines might be able to sneak something on.
- 10y ago

mkaziz 10y ago

No one's talking about that fact that the US trusts Abu Dhabi to have a customs port there[0], but not enough to let a passenger travelling via Abu Dhabi to put a laptop in their carryon ... 0. http://www.etihad.com/en-us/before-you-fly/us-preclearance/ http://www.etihad.com/en-us/before-you-fly/us-preclearance/

ouid 10y ago

Didn't Samsung already do this with their phones?

BugsJustFindMe 10y ago

Airlines and economic politics and terrorism threats aside, letting laptop batteries in airplane cabins at all has to be just the craziest hypocritical lapse in air travel safety ever. The very idea that your personal incendiary device is totes A-OK because it also plays movies seems completely bonkers. It's like a million hyperlocalized somebody-else's-problem fields wrap around portable electronics that we all just collectively ignore. Hell, continue to forget the explosive capacity of these commonplace electronic grenades for a moment. The chemical fumes produced by lithium battery fires are absolutely terrifying. You can quickly vent the storage compartment and nobody even has to know. In the absolute worst case you can dump the luggage and cover losses with insurance. You just can't do the same to the passenger compartment. I want the rules to be fair, and I want the rules to make sense, but damned if I don't find myself more and more wishing it were a complete ban.

thedrbrian 10y ago
People will know if you vent the cargo hold as it shares its atmosphere with the passengers. I'd rather the battery be easily accessible if it catches fire.
JamesLeonis 10y ago
As with any ban, I question if the response is proportional to the threat. Yes we have all these chemical devices with us (hell you're flying on a burning tank of jet fuel, make no mistake), but the actual number of exploding electronics is so low we don't bother thinking about it. Even the Note 7, which was outright banned on flights, had only a couple hundred incidents, in a market that transports millions of phones a day (not to mention other electronics) routinely for _years_. In fact, let's compare apples-to-apples how likely you are to die from some of these things in a given year [1]: * Air accident (any cause): 1 in 767,303 * Traffic accident: 1 in 8,938 * Fall from ladder: 1 in 752,688 In fact, I'm having a hard time finding statistics that indicate passenger consumer electronics are a threat at all. Nearly all plane crashes are some form of human error from the flight crew and mechanical failure. Even the Note 7 didn't bring down planes, despite actually exploding on them several times. Even that ban isn't about the lethality, but the inconvenience and delays suffered because they _must_ check for worse problems. So to reiterate my point: What is the threat you are trying to solve? EDIT: Formatting [1]: http://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/mortality-risk http://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/mortality-risk

everybodyknows 10y ago

The hardware workaround seems obvious enough: 1. Negotiate a "standard laptop" voltage, connector, and max current. Parties at the table: Boeing, Airbus and Lenovo, HP, ... 2. Redesign laptop packaging to function well with main battery detached. 3. Refit airliner interiors to supply "standard laptop" power to each seat. #3 could take a while -- retrofitting a few pricey front-cabin seats during the interim looks like a profit opportunity for someone.

ghshephard 10y ago
Many long haul flights of Tier 1 carriers already have AC power at the seats, so #1 and #3 have already been taken care of.