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If "older, banged-to-hell, third-rate Chinese knockoff against the oldest avionics in service" is, indeed, a threat scenario, then "Things which resemble a Game
by patio11 13y ago
If "older, banged-to-hell, third-rate Chinese knockoff against the oldest avionics in service" is, indeed, a threat scenario, then "Things which resemble a Gameboy" would rate at least as high as water on the "Stuff we will not let you take on a plane" list. Al Qaeda can procure old Chinese electronics, or custom-modded Arudinos in casings which resemble iPhones, for that matter.
[Edit for background:
The case against water is "Water is difficult to tell, by cursory visual inspection, from a binary explosive. We've never actually lost a plane to a binary explosive, but we know they were pretty serious about trying that, and we wargamed it out and it looks like one liter of binary explosive applied to the right part of the right airplane means we have a very bad day."
]
- wpietri 13y agoI don't think so. The threat scenario that worries me for cheap electronics isn't "flying along in the blue sky and suddenly the plane crashes". Its "distraction of pilot or minor technical disruption during a difficult landing at a moment that has become crucial because of other issues." Al Qaeda can't afford to put terrorists with custom electronics on an appreciable fraction of our 10m flights a year hoping they get one of the 10 most vulnerable ones. But those flights will have hundreds of electronic devices on them. Being 100% sure that there will be zero problems is tricky. And given that the tradeoff is, "people have to read a magazine for a few minutes" versus "fiery death for hundreds", I'm perfectly ok with them being conservative here.