| Since when has the angle of terrorist attack shifted back to blowing up planes instead of flying them into strategic targets? A laptop with a fully charged battery can cause a lot more havoc over the Atlantic ocean than one with the drained battery. Presumably you could bring in a couple of extra batteries as well, because it's going to be a long flight. If they're worried about someone building a bomb into the insides of a laptop that you can't turn on, then hasn't that been pretty much the core of airport security since its inception -- and pretty much a problem solved to all practical extents since several decades ago? I mean, that's why they've been scanning all cabin baggage for decades to see if there are guns inside radios or tanks of interesting liquids inside some suitable item. They've been looking at the x-rays of laptops for twenty years, and now they suddenly start worrying about bombs being built into one? And why aren't they worried about the cargo baggage which also contains electronic devices that are potentially uncharged? If they can spot bombs in the electronics in your big baggages without checking if they boot up, then why can't they do that for your cabin bags? Unlike water bottles that you can dispose, this is going to be a big problem. You just don't leave your laptop or phone at some airport: you simply don't fly. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and the sickness spreads to airports outside US. This means we soon can't fly with uncharged electronics in Europe either because the same security gates can allow someone to board a flight the USA. I'm just wondering who is it that benefits from all this? Where does the money go, who are the people who can push these endless rules and regulations for their own gain because there sure as hell isn't a gain for anyone else? |
Batteries on laptops and cell phones look like a big opaque block on x-rays[0]. And 6 grams of PETN can do a lot of damage[1].
New intelligence indicates that the AQAP bombmaker responsible for the underwear bomber and the printer bomber has figured out how to replace the battery with a bomb. It's not visible on x-ray, and it's sealed so it won't trigger the explosive trace detection equipment[2] either.
> And why aren't they worried about the cargo baggage which also contains electronic devices that are potentially uncharged?
Presumably these devices would need to be held directly against the fuselage as the underwear bomber failed to do[3], so they'd need to be carried by a passenger instead of in a random location in the baggage compartment.
And it's not about whether the battery is charged, it's about whether the device has power at all. Naturally TSA countermeasures are trivially circumvented. Replace the optical drive with a second battery, it still powers on even if the first battery has been replaced with a bomb.
Some reports say they're looking to surgically implant a device under the skin[4]. How do you screen for that?
[0] http://www.petergof.com/x-ray/images/profiler.jpg
[1] http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2009/12/28... (video)
[2] http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/img/photos/2012/08/11/8d/...
[3] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
[4] http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/418791/spotlight-on-qa...