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U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe
- clamprecht 9y agoSo all the terrorists have to do is convince the USA they've figured out how to hide bombs in humans and they'll ban humans from flights.
- stevenwoo 9y agoI know you're joking but it seems like it is possible that Richard Reid the shoe bomber could have inserted the explosives inside a plastic bag and then put that inside himself (either swallow it or in the rectum) and then remove the explosive in the airplane bathroom and ignited it. Not sure why they have not done this already.
- mirimir 9y agoIn Gibson's Count Zero, Turner was almost killed by a "Slamhound", an exploding dog trained to find him. I vaguely recall that the dog's liver was replaced by explosive.
- arethuza 9y agoSounds vaguely like the Soviet anti-tank dogs from WW2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog
- mirimir 9y agoWow. That's crazy. And it didn't work, either. But humans arguably wouldn't get confused so readily. Even so, they'd just X-ray all passengers.
- zkms 9y agoThere already exist commercial transmission (not backscatter!) full-body x-ray security scanners. They are used in prisons now, but there's no reason they can't be used in airports.
- js8 9y agoGiven that flights are one of the leading sources of CO2 pollution, maybe this would finally be something where terrorists made a service to humankind. (I am not being against technology, I just believe that modern humans can live perfectly well with flying much, much less.)
- Inconel 9y agoI'm not knowledgable about this subject but do you have any sources for that? After some quick Googling the best numbers I could find state that air travel is responsible for somewhere between 2%-4% of all human induced CO2 emissions and somewhere around 12%-15% of the emissions from transport sources.
- panzer_wyrm 9y agoThose percentages have outsized impact because you are emitting them very high. So while they contribute to 4% of emissions, they may as well contribute to 8% of global warming. We don't reduce emissions just because. We want to stop the climate change. We should just optimize the planes. I do hope that in 10 years batteries will be good enough for electric fan engines.
- robin_reala 9y agoThe problem with electric aircraft is a bit like a mini Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. In a conventional aircraft fuel is burnt off as it flies causing it to lighten and become more fuel efficient as it travels. With battery aircraft this doesn’t happen so you need more batteries upfront to travel the distance.
- mathw 9y agoBatteries do get lighter as they discharge! Just not by enough to matter.
- robin_reala 9y ago
- willvarfar 9y agoIts the Daily Fail, but its actually got a pretty good list of some recent instances where bombs have been hidden in suicide bombers http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2387332/Nightmare-terrorists-bombs-surgically-implanted-INSIDE-bodies.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2387332/Nightmare-te...
- jasonkester 9y agoNo worries. For a few hundred dollars, I'm sure you'll be able to register as a certified patriotic laptop carrier. Everything will go back to normal and the airline will get to collect yet another fee for something we used to get for free. And we're totally safer from terrorists as a result.
- _ao789 9y agoOnly a few hundred dollars, What A Deal!
- sliken 9y agoA year, because of course you might turn into a terrorist.
- gnicholas 9y agoDon't forget about the extra revenue for the airlines from selling more movies on seatback displays.
- kalleboo 9y agoWhat airline makes you pay for the seatback IFE system? Any low-cost carrier that would do something like that forgoes the system entirely in my experience. Instead they're just going to lose out on WiFi fees.
- inferiorhuman 9y agoWhat seatback displays? Many airlines (the US3 at least) are moving towards the WiFi+bring-your-own-device model.
- daemin 9y agoThe ones that you fly long distance with, like say from Europe to Australia.
- 9y ago
- tim333 9y agoThat's a bit of a pain. I wonder why a laptop bomb would cause problems in the cabin but not in the cargo hold.
- cstejerean 9y agoA laptop bomb would presumably be fairly small in size and would probably have to be placed directly against some sensitive part of the plane in order to be effective. The cargo hold meanwhile is already reinforced and any bomb would most likely end up in a middle of a lot of baggage that would absorb most of the blast. It would probably force the plane to make an emergency landing but it's unlikely to be catastrophic.
- enraged_camel 9y agoThe risk with laptops in the cargo hold isn't the blast force of explosions causing a hull breach, but fires. Now any terrorist who wants to bring down a plane simply needs to rig their laptop batteries to catch on fire, which is much, much easier to do than rigging it to explode.
- ulrikrasmussen 9y agoDoesn't planes have automated extinguishers in the cargo hull? I actually don't know, but it is something I would assume.
- tgummerer 9y agoThe article goes into more details on that. Basically the fire extinguishers are not powerful enough against lithium-ion battery fires.
- manicdee 9y agoBatteries contain their own oxidiser and fuel, so the only way of extinguishing a better fire is to remove the heat (fire triangle: fuel, oxidiser, heat). The best lay-person's method for extinguishing battery fires is flooding with cold water, which will be hard on an airplane at the best of times.
- cornstalks 9y agoPrevious discussion from 10 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14311073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14311073 (56 points, 19 comments)
- joelthelion 9y agoIs "thedailybeast" a reliable source?
- nebabyte 9y agoNope https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14311758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14311758 edit maybe, given the child comment's claim.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y agoI heard this report also on NPR's planet money, a reliable source.
- nodesocket 9y agoBefore jumping to conclusions we should acknowledge perhaps that US intelligence is hearing increased "chatter" or intel thus the reason for this policy.
- gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y agoYeah i guess they are. Ever since the existing dumb as fuck laptop ban people have been commenting on how stupid it is. Maybe you should filter your chatter a little better? Or even can the mass surveillance programs that lead to such stupid decisions..
- Oletros 9y agoTerrorists are not dumb, if laptops are banned from flights from Europe whey will use other flights, like domestic flights or flights coming from Canada.
- demarq 9y agoSo what happens if the terrorist first flies to canada... Then the US? Or what if they are already in the US? Is there something so special about the bomb that it can't be made anywhere? I'm just wondering how this does anything but ensure that battery fires will never be put out.
- bartread 9y agoThe logical conclusion of all this is that in the foreseeable future laptops will be banned from the cabins of all flights, regardless of origin or destination. :/ (Of course, the decision to ban laptops on flights from Europe has not yet been finalised, so this is all still speculation at this point.)
- gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y agoYet another reason not to visit the US... I wonder how many billion dollars the current administration will cost the states.
- ohthehugemanate 9y agoAt this point it's not about the current administration, it's about the trend line over 3 administrations. In choosing to do business in the US, I'm introducing a dependency that will last for several years at least. For my own work I've had a preference for non-US clients for several years now.
- pluma 9y agoThe most shocking thing to me personally is that Americans seem to think these developments are new, radical changes to the course of American policies. I wonder how many of these things would have been possible without all the groundwork laid since 2001 (e.g. the Sept 2001 changes allowing the POTUS to call military strikes without Congress approval, the PATRIOT Act enabling mass surveillance, the ridiculous growth of the TSA security theatre, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, etc etc). I guess it's easier to just blame the status quo on the elected buffoon than to acknowledge the overall trajectory of US politics.
- r00fus 9y agoThat's been building for 50 years. Lookup the "Project for a New American Century"... and that's from the nineties. At the backbone of all of this is the military Industrial complex and security complexes that defeat any sane measure to remove their stranglehold over political discourse.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago> I wonder how many billion dollars the current administration will cost the states. Have you ever considered that they are trying to do this deliberately?
- captainmuon 9y agoWho enforces that ban? It's a bit sad that the European countries will go along with the ban. If they were a bit more confident, they could say "nope". Or give out a directive that every passenger must be sternly reminded that Laptops are banned, and they the (EU) security personel shall turn a blind eye. Europe doesn't have to go along with every crazy idea, it is (at least still) stronger than it thinks.
- frisco 9y agoThe airlines enforce it, who must if they want to keep being allowed to operate flights to the US.
- openplatypus 9y agoYet they also operate under EU law so it would be enough to make this practice illegal. I am afraid that EU goverments will bow to US rules. Or maybe this will be the final straw?
- dogma1138 9y agoThey operate under international and super national air safety authority regulations. EU law doesn't protect your rights to have an item on a flight, while they might not be banned in the EU when flying to the US they'll comply with FAA regulations. On board internet for example is turned off on flights to china from the EU per Chinese regulations as soon as the flight approaches Chinese airspace.
- pluma 9y agoThe US could deny airlines which don't implement the ban entry into US airspace. The US could also forbid them from landing in the US. The US could also raid the planes after landing or arrest anyone carrying a laptop bag that wasn't checked in as luggage. The US could do any of these things and there would be nothing the EU could do about it because they all would happen outside EU jurisdiction. As a European citizen I'm not sure what you believe the EU could practically do to prevent such a ban as long as it is only about flights into the US or within the US. It's literally none of our business.
- pleasecalllater 9y agoOK, fine, so I just won't travel to the USA anymore. I'm sure I don't want my laptop to end like my suitcase (which has been seriously damaged somewhere between the Europe and the USA airports). There are so many more interesting places in the world. If the USA doesn't want my money, I think that's not my problem.
- megapatch 9y agoNot only your money, maybe also your expertise, your friendship, your ideas. Maybe they don't want all that. The USA are shooting themselves in both feet nowadays, constantly.
- nhebb 9y agoThe only relevant quote in the article is: > DHS said in a statement to The Daily Beast: "No final decisions have been made on expanding the restriction on large electronic devices in aircraft cabins; however, it is under consideration. DHS continues to evaluate the threat environment and will make changes when necessary to keep air travelers safe." The ban may happen, but at this point we don't know.
- achamayou 9y agoThis is a major pain if you're flying with small children. On long flights, tablets are an absolute godsend...
- pulse7 9y agoYou can play non-electronic games with them...
- luisivan 9y agoSo they can backdoor them without you even noticing. Wonderful
- seansoutpost 9y agoThis
- sctb 9y agoNot here, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- danieldk 9y agoEven if this is not the current ulterior motive and the reason is really a terror threat, this will eventually happen. It's just all to convenient if a foreign diplomat or businessman is coming to your country to take out the laptop and quickly insert a firmware backdoor. Why would we expect a country that bugged the German Chancellor or provided malware that was inserted by another five-eyes partner into the telephone system that the EU administration used, not to (ab)use this opportunity? Once this is in effect, don't travel to the US with a laptop.
- hexane360 9y agoGood job, xkcd: https://xkcd.com/651/ https://xkcd.com/651/ As a bonus, here's what the TSA thought about laptops in 2009: http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?t=46966 http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?t=46966
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vivekd 9y agoA lot of comments very critical on the ban. America has intel - and good intel from a raid - that shows that ISIS has the capability and intent to hide a bomb inside laptop batteries to blow up passenger planes containing lots of people. Don’t the American people have the right to take steps to protect themselves from this? This is a simple requirement that laptops be checked baggage and not carry on. That hardly seems draconian or extreme by any measure. I realize that this will inconvenience some people but against the very real and imminent threat of an actual discovered terrorist plans to use a laptop to blow up a plane, this seems like a very reasonable and rational step. If certain people don’t want to visit or do business with America for that reason . . . I don’t think it’s such a terrible loss to lose dealing with people who are so self centered that they would demand that Americans risk the very real threat of deadly terrorist attacks rather than suffer the minor inconvenience of being required to check their laptops during flights.
- throwaway31445 9y agoOh dear god. Stop making me cringe.
- vivekd 9y agoSo lets get this straight: 1. Discovering a terrorist plot to hide bombs inside carry on laptop batteries - and then not taking any precautions at all and allowing laptops on planes as normal: A prudent and smart thing to do. 2. Discovering a terrorist plot to hide bombs inside carry on laptop batteries - and then taking purdent, minimal precuations by asking people to deal with the minor inconvenience of checking their laptops during flights: OH DEAR GOD THIS IS SOOO STUPID IT MAKES ME CRINGE AGGG
- Algent 9y ago> minor inconvenience Asking everyone in a plane to have nothing to do during a 8h flight (at best) is not a "minor inconvenience".
- 9y ago
- RangerScience 9y agoOne of the advantageous to living in California is that when I go overseas, I can tell people I'm Californian, rather than American. Because people's ideas of CA is 1) LA/Hollywood, 2) SF/SV, 3) Yosemite / Tahoe, you get a pretty different response.
- CalRobert 9y agoAnd 4) Deep, deep blue (even though the central valley negates this a bit). I do the same for the reasons you state. Also, because California makes me think of happy things, and the US makes me think of sad things.
- arghwhat 9y agoIf you told me you were "Californian", I would give you a really weird stare, think for a moment, and then reply with "Oh, American?", while wondering if you thought California was a country. And even then, very few will know the cultural difference between, say, California and Tennessee or Alabama. Just like an American might think of China as one thing with one culture, we generally view USA as one thing with one culture.
- arethuza 9y agoI've known people who said they were Texan when asked their nationality. However, I'm a Scot so perhaps I'm biased... ;-)
- pif 9y ago> If you told me you were "Californian", I would give you a really weird stare, I would as well! You'd immediately remind me of those people from Paris who introduce themselves as Parisian rather than French. By the way, I like Paris. But I love France because it is much more than Paris.
- skissane 9y ago> And even then, very few will know the cultural difference between, say, California and Tennessee or Alabama. As an Australian, I will say I think most Australians understand there are cultural differences between California and Tennessee or Alabama, and could probably even identify what some of the differences are (even if incompletely and overly simplistically). Australians would probably struggle to explain the cultural differences between Tennessee and Alabama, but then I imagine many Americans would struggle to explain that too. I expect that this very basic understanding of US cultural geography is common in some other countries also (such as New Zealand or Canada or the UK or Ireland). > Just like an American might think of China as one thing with one culture, we generally view USA as one thing with one culture. I would think that most educated Americans would understand that the culture in Beijing or Shanghai is quite different from that in Tibet or Xinjiang.
- koonsolo 9y agoThe September 11 attacks were domestic US flights of US airlines. So why only target flights coming from Europe?
- mcv 9y agoBecause it's important to blame this on foreigners. It's the symbolism that counts, not the actual effectiveness.
- runholm 9y agoHonestly, I suspect this might be a convenient way to be able to spend more time breaking into the laptops of travelers without the travelers noticing.
- pluma 9y agoAgain, why not include domestic flights? ... Actually I think this will be extended to domestic flights sooner rather than later.
- Corristowolf 9y agoBecause now we are "culturally enriched".
- mcv 9y agoConsidering your laptop was already going to be searched and probably have all your data copied, I'm not sure this ban is terribly harmful anymore. You're probably better off leaving the laptop at home (or securely locked, encrypted, etc in checked luggage) anyway.
- janoc 9y agoIt is not harmful - until the battery in one of those laptops fails and sets the plane on fire. With nobody to catch and extinguish it in the hold (the common halon suppression systems are ineffective against battery fires). It will probably kill more people than those terrorist laptop bombs it is supposed to protect from.
- lordelph 9y agoAny of you that follow Bruce Schneier might remember he has these "movie plot" contests, to come up with plausible threats which would incur another bit of security theatre. The winner in 2007 was a plot where water would have to be banned... https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/06/second_movieplo.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/06/second_moviep...
- IshKebab 9y agoTL;DR, take some sodium metal onto a plane, drop it in water. As one of the first comments said, it's not plausible: > Not plausible. I've seen a half-pound of reagent-quality sodium dropped in a river. The sodium burned violently; the chunk shattered; the expanding gas launched broken bits out of the river, which landed back in the water and kept on burning. Nothing, however, with enough force to make me believe it would cause a full-on explosion. > Further, sodium oxidizes in air; sodium metal fashioned into any innocuous item and exposed to air (as any innocuous metal item I can think of would be) would have reacted away a great deal of its mass in the air between packing and getting on a plane. There's a reason sodium is normally stored in kerosene or some other liquid it won't react with. Dropping oxidized sodium into water is a far less interesting reaction.
- agumonkey 9y ago> Laptops and tablets denied access to the cabin and added to checked baggage means that devices with a history of lithium-ion battery fires could set off a deadly conflagration in a cargo hold — where no one can put out the fires. Very funny. We get the message "Europe is a terrorist breeding soil".
- flexie 9y agoFlying is already such a dreadful thing. Even a one hour flight takes 5-7 hours when you count in all the extras. In my experience, a 1 hour flight like London - Brussels, is not much faster than a 7 hour flight like London - New York. Airports are a text book study in what monopoly and fear mongering politicians do. - On the day of the flight you go from your departure city to the airport somewhere far away in the outskirts. That's easily an hour, in places like New York or London it can be significantly more. - Depending on whether it's a domestic flight or an intercontinental flight, and depending on the airline, you are asked to show up anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours before the flight. - In the airport, you sometimes go through four or five or six lines where you are checked; There is a check in, might be baggage drop, there is security, passport check by, check at the the gate, and sometimes even again when entering the airport. Once you are through security you are forced to spend time in what is basically an overpriced shopping mall but dragging around your coat and carry-on. If you fly with a budget airline, or if you fly to America, you are often forced to wait in crowded waiting areas at the gate, usually without seating for everyone. Sometimes you are stuffed in a bus that takes you from the gate to the plane. These busses are literally stuffed like a Japanese metro. On the plane, you often wait in your chair before takeoff because a connecting flight with passengers has not arrived on time or because the runway is too full. The flight itself is rarely comfortable, but that's the necessary part of the trip. Most flights could not be much faster than they are, except on long distance flights if supersonic planes were allowed. At the arrival, you sometimes wait again at the tarmac. Then you go through passport control again. You warit for luggage. And you need transportation from the airport into the destination city. Upon arrival, you have spent what amounts to a full working day or more, even for short flights, and you are exhausted. If someone could take away all the assaults on passengers that the whole airport experience is packed with, flying would be much better, with or without your laptop.
- Treegarden 9y agoWhat do you think could be improved/changed in the future? I agree that the process is overly tedious to an unnecessary degree. I have read that test have shown that TSA security( or check-in security in general) is more for show (providing sense of security) then actually being effective. In addition to that the statistics even say that risks of airplane failures are far lower then other risks. Yet there seems to be a trend in banning and restricting more and more from airplane travel. And many people, that I know, think these restrictions are good.
- janoc 9y agoI do wonder how many laptop bombs have endangered planes so far - vs. actual Li-ion battery fires. Force laptops in the holds and watch planes crash when the inevitable battery fire happens. This policy will likely kill more people than the terrorist menace it is meant to protect against. And that doesn't even consider the loss of business, because people simply won't fly without a laptop (or put it in the hold - considering how checked baggage is routinely treated). Not everyone is traveling for leisure and for business people a laptop is essential.
- italicbold 9y agoI don't agree that a laptop on a flight is "essential" for business people. While I always notice very few people using laptops on business class flights, after all the point of flying business class is so that you can get some rest to arrive fresh to work, one area where you do see laptop use is in business class lounges. Unfortunately this ban will affect that as you cant check-in hold luggage after departing the lounge. That said I think people are blowing this way out of proportion, the point of your business trip should not be to do work on your laptop during the flight.. Surely you are making the trip to do something important and relevant on the other side. If your company wants you in a meeting on Monday morning on the other side of the Atlantic then I am sorry but not being able to use your laptop on a flight has nothing to do with the business justification for your trip. God forbid you actually get a break from working 24/7 on your flight. Why are people complaining about this..
- beojan 9y agoThe problem isn't being deprived of the use of the laptop in flight, it's that you're separated from the laptop, which increases the chance it will be damaged / stolen (especially given that bags can only be locked with TSA approved locks).
- teddythetwig 9y agoI think you are missing the point. It isn't that business travelers need their laptops during the flight, but that most don't check any luggage at all. When I was flying for business, I only traveled with hand luggage. No need to deal with the hassle of checking a bag, when all my clothes for the next few days can fit into a carry on bag.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- cyphunk 9y agoThat anyone still carries a laptop to the US suprises me, considering any client data you have on it they already have the right to demand an unencrypted copy of.
- wrappertool 9y agoNo they don't have "right". Just because a government does something doesn't mean they have the right
- cyphunk 9y agoThe right they have is to deny you entry if you refuse to hand over passwords for your devices. If you are US citizen I think they cannot deny you entry but can take your devices for a period of days. https://www.eff.org/press/releases/digital-privacy-us-border-new-how-guide-eff https://www.eff.org/press/releases/digital-privacy-us-border... https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/03/the-border-patrol-can-take-your-password-now-what/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/03/the-border-patrol-can-ta... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/bill-rights-border-fifth-amendment-protections-account-passwords-and-device https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/bill-rights-border-fif...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- NightlyDev 9y agoWhat, is it so much better if a bomb goes off while in checked in luggage? What about fires? Stupidest thing ever. We do have security checks, oh wait, they are just for show and to annoy everyone. "Oh no! It's dangerous, terrorists might do that! Let's make a rule that has no positive effect!" Arriving in the US and being asked to give up all your keys and passwords is nothing new. "It's because we need to check for illegal content". Cause that makes sense, if someone had something to hide nothing would stop them from downloading it over the thing called the Internet... /s Americans are damn stupid, and other countries are doing similar stupid things.
- diegoperini 9y agoGoodbye cppnow, you were my most precious yearly enjoyment.
- IdontRememberIt 9y agoWe have been scanning laptops separately for years... I am surprised that the scanners have not a common database of laptop scans to detect all the differences. So all the original laptops (no part modified) would get a clearance.
- easilyBored 9y agoIn x years we will all get undressed and proceed to board wrapped in the airline issued sheets. If this is what it takes to defeat terrorists, I'm all for it...and more :)
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y agoYes! Next up, as a pedestrian, I am twice as likely to die unintentionally from a railway crossing than terrorism. Let's ban trains. We need a catchy slogan to sell it, so let's ban planes, trains, and automobiles!