3 ms·

I don't understand, what has the phone being charged got to do with anything?

• mahyarm 12y ago
  Uncharged phones could be hidden explosives. To prove it's a electronic device, you have to turn it on. But it's kind of moot if you just explode the battery directly right?
  • iriche 12y ago
    Charged phones ARE hidden explosives
• 14113 12y ago
  It's to prove that it's a genuine phone/laptop, and not one with the internals replaced with explosives.
• wging 12y ago
  If your device is charged you can prove it actually works; if it's not, you can say "Well, it works, but it happens not to be charged--that's why it isn't doing anything." Presumably the idea is that techniques used to convert a laptop or phone into a bomb would render the device inoperable. It certainly seems like a harder task to make a bomb that is also a phone, rather than a bomb that used to be a phone.
  • stcredzero 12y ago
    It would be much easier with a laptop.
• lemming 12y ago
  If it's not charged, you can't turn it on to show it's actually a phone.
• delinka 12y ago
  Presumably, when security asks random passengers at random times to activate their mobile devices as proof that they're not some incendiary device, this rule eliminates the passenger's ability to claim it doesn't work because it's not fully charged. Plugging Yet Another Security Hole that terrorists could use! How they plan to mitigate phones with bad batteries I have no idea- it's fully charged coming through security, but 30 minutes later, it's completely dead? Must be a terrerist [sic].
• jeangenie 12y ago
  Tin foil hat meme: they want the ability to surreptitiously power on and root devices. This only works if it's juiced.
  • ilikepi 12y ago
    To add to your meme, turning on a phone also gets the device to ping out for cell towers, adding a data point to a large database out in the Utah dessert...