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I agree that you should fight terrorism using intelligence, but I don't agree with this statement: "If a passenger plane blows up, it affects a couple of hundr

I agree that you should fight terrorism using intelligence, but I don't agree with this statement: "If a passenger plane blows up, it affects a couple of hundred people" What about the scenario where a cargo plane is blown up over a highly populated area or the centre of a major city? I think he is forgetting that on 9-11 the planes were used as weapons, and the lives lost on the planes were a fraction of the overall total on that tragic day.

Symmetry 16y ago
If a cargo plane blows up over a highly populate area it will kill about a dozen people (see example in blog comments). This isn't nothing, but its pretty hard to get your bombs set to blow up at the exact right time. As to 9/11, that was a hijacking rather than a bomb and an entirely different attack vector.
- andysinclair 16y ago
  Fair point, I guess I over estimated the damage done by a plane exploding over a populated area. Like you say 9/11 was a hijack attack. I stand corrected.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > its pretty hard to get your bombs set to blow up at the exact right time. You can use GPS tracking and a program running on the phone. With this setup, you can guess when the plane will pass over a major city and blow it up according to population density. I would assume someone would already have sent the phones with their programs to acquire more information on signal strength, cell towers and all the data to make something like this work before attaching explosives to the devices. Someone probably is right now going over other packages sent by similar routes, possibly by associates of this guy and those who picked them up at the destination. I am quite sure this was not his first attempt.
  - Symmetry 16y ago
    GPS won't work inside a metal shell, which is what cargo compartments on airplanes are (passenger airplanes have windows).
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      Not sure about that (planes being radio-sealed). Planes are getting more and more composite materials to save weight. One of the key features of the 787 is the composite fuselage that I am not sure will effectively block GPS signals. Also, many cargo planes are remissioned or dual-use passenger planes that still have windows: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XMBDcG2dmr-Z1QoGBdXu2g http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XMBDcG2dmr-Z1QoGBdXu2g If all else fails, some phones are coming with gyroscopes...

Symmetry 16y ago

If a cargo plane blows up over a highly populate area it will kill about a dozen people (see example in blog comments). This isn't nothing, but its pretty hard to get your bombs set to blow up at the exact right time. As to 9/11, that was a hijacking rather than a bomb and an entirely different attack vector.

andysinclair 16y ago
Fair point, I guess I over estimated the damage done by a plane exploding over a populated area. Like you say 9/11 was a hijack attack. I stand corrected.
rbanffy 16y ago
> its pretty hard to get your bombs set to blow up at the exact right time. You can use GPS tracking and a program running on the phone. With this setup, you can guess when the plane will pass over a major city and blow it up according to population density. I would assume someone would already have sent the phones with their programs to acquire more information on signal strength, cell towers and all the data to make something like this work before attaching explosives to the devices. Someone probably is right now going over other packages sent by similar routes, possibly by associates of this guy and those who picked them up at the destination. I am quite sure this was not his first attempt.
- Symmetry 16y ago
  GPS won't work inside a metal shell, which is what cargo compartments on airplanes are (passenger airplanes have windows).
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    Not sure about that (planes being radio-sealed). Planes are getting more and more composite materials to save weight. One of the key features of the 787 is the composite fuselage that I am not sure will effectively block GPS signals. Also, many cargo planes are remissioned or dual-use passenger planes that still have windows: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XMBDcG2dmr-Z1QoGBdXu2g http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XMBDcG2dmr-Z1QoGBdXu2g If all else fails, some phones are coming with gyroscopes...