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Vague and secretive order bans devices larger than a phone on certain flights to US
It looks like the TSA has finally got round to reading XKCD 651. They have quietly banned electronic devices "larger than a phone" from the cabins of all airlines from a list of 13 countries. It isn't clear whether the ban affects electronic devices used by the aircraft's crew, for example the "electronic flight bag" used by the flight crew, which typically include a tablet.
The affected airlines have just 96 hours to comply.
US Bans Tablets and Laptops on Flights From Eight Muslim-Majority Countries
The Department of Homeland Security today announced new carry-on restrictions for flights to the US from eight Middle Eastern countries, confirming reports from yesterday that such a ban would be implemented as soon as this week. The restrictions forbid electronic devices larger than a smartphone from being carried in the cabin of the airplane, including laptops, tablets, e-readers, cameras, portable DVD players, and handheld gaming devices (larger than a smartphone).
Those devices can, however, all be placed into checked baggage. Neither DHS nor the Transportation Security Administration provided a firm rationale for the ban, how it chose which airports would be embroiled in the new security measures, or whether the ban is in any way related to an active terrorist plot. News of the ban first began percolating online yesterday when the Royal Jordanian airline partially disclosed it in a since-deleted tweet, which was framed as a message for passengers.
"Evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation, to include smuggling explosive devices in various consumer items," reads a DHS press release put out this morning. "Based on this trend, the Transportation Security Administration, in consultation with relevant Departments and Agencies, has determined it is prudent to enhance security, to include airport security procedures for passengers at certain last point of departure airports to the United States."
The action will affect nine airlines in eight countries across 10 airports, senior administration officials confirmed in a press briefing Monday. The list of countries includes Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Morocco, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The list of airlines affected includes Royal Jordanian, Egypt Air, Turkish Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Kuwait Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Qatar Airways, Emirates, and Etihad Airways. The order is being issued as a security directive from the TSA. Airlines will have 96 hours to comply or the DHS will work with the FAA to revoke clearance for those airlines to land in the US, officials said.
Source: The Verge
Other outlets covering this story: Ars Technica The Register
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday March 21 2017, @10:11PM (14 children)
They want to prevent fictional 2 factor bombs like from Die Hard thus keeping people from bringing in substantial amounts of liquids.
But large quantities of hydrogen peroxide, a super-effective oxidizing agent(i.e. you could make a bomb from flour with it) can easily be made out of water(available post security), electricity(available post security), oxygen(available in stores now) and less than an ounce of catalyst.
Heaven help us if basic chemistry ever becomes known to the TSA. "Show us your bathroom use approval papers"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @10:54PM (1 child)
Please stop giving TSA ideas.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday March 21 2017, @10:59PM
This one is contingent on them actually understanding reality, so I'm not too worried.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NewNic on Tuesday March 21 2017, @11:03PM
Also, many people, each with their 4oz of liquid can meet and pool their supplies after going through security.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 21 2017, @11:22PM (2 children)
Citation needed.
No, seriously, I'd be grateful for some links - the way I know until now is electrochemically producing H2O2 in situ in low concentrations and with lowish current densities; maybe good enough to conduct electrosynthesis where the peroxide is used immediately, but useless for obtaining, say, 30% peroxide solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday March 22 2017, @12:38AM (1 child)
oh, right, you'd need a very high-energy way to evaporate off the water, huh? Guess I didn't think that one through.
And I doubt the TSA would be cool with me bringing a hot plate and a saucepan through.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:42PM
I bet the security crew wouldn't bat an eye. Airport security is not concerned about stopping future threats, they only worry about stopping attacks that have already happened (or have already been attempted). As far as I know hot plates and saucepans have not yet been used in such an attack, so you should be golden.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:53AM (6 children)
I call BS.
Back of a napkin calculations:
300 g equiv TNT has 1.25MJ.
At a specific energy for the Li batteries of today of around 0.8MJ/kg (for the most efficient ones), this translates into 1.5kg worth of batteries.
The above assumes 100% electricity->explosive conversion efficiency. Given the fact that you'd need to prepare the explosive at the board of a plane (with primitive equipment available), a 25% conversion rate is probable generous (and I'll ignore the time required for all the reactions).
So, you'd need to carry about 6kg worth of batteries aboard.
Now, a 8000mAh RC drone battery is somewhere around 200g mark.
6kg worth of batteries translates into 30 RC such batteries, with a length of about 100 mm and a thickness of about 20mm.
Plus equipment, plus other materials.
I really doubt nobody would suspect a thing looking into a hand luggage with all that stuff in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:08AM (3 children)
The thing to do with lithium batteries isn't to try and make them explode but just to have them catch fire. Once a lithium fire starts, your only recourse is to exit the area as quickly as possible, which isn't easy to do at 30,000 ft.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:44AM (2 children)
Actually it's very easy. Just open the door, and the pressure difference will get you out faster than you could get out on yourself.
You didn't say anything about surviving, did you? ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:54AM
You said "easy", though. The door opens against the pressure, so you'd have to open it before the plane gains height, thus losing the pressure difference that would make getting out so fast - and be pretty hard to explain to the flight attendants... "It's such a nice weather outside, let's leave the door open". That or bring a hydraulic jack to open it, and be prepared to be sucked out before the hole is large enough to fit comfortably through.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 22 2017, @11:57AM
A hot enough fire will make its own door, "china syndrome" like.
There are a couple problems in that planes get holes all the time from explosives, bullets, fires, metal fatigue, and it usually doesn't bring down the plane.
So a hard sci-fi alt-hist military-fic book plot would be a worst case scenario of middle of pacific flying over a hurricane at FL390 and the descent to 8000 feet or so puts the plane in a hurricane and due to fuel efficiency things Maybe (unlikely but maybe) the plane with a hole at 8K flying below max eff speed doesn't have the range to make it to land.
I don't think thats actually possible mathematically. Even pretty deep into stall I think a LA to Tokyo could divert to Hawaii or another island if it had more than half its fuel half way there. But not being mathematically possible usually hasn't stopped hollywood movies or military-fic book plots before, so ...
I think a better book plot or hollywood plot than taking out 250 people in some ocean in the middle of nowhere and maybe no one sees anything again via some ridiculous rube goldberg device, is the more likely take out 250 people in a crowded security checkpoint surrounded by cameras and soon news cameras, where you can roll anything you want into the line. Now all you need to do to prevent that is have a checkpoint before the checkpoint and then its turtles all the way down.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:30AM (1 child)
I really doubt nobody would suspect a thing looking into a hand luggage with all that stuff in.
In any reasonable security situation, you'd probably be right. With the TSA, you never know what you can get past them. They're really good about rooting out bottles of water, but in test cases roughly 95% of real guns and fake bombs make it through [washingtonpost.com].
Oh yeah, that was just 2015, so maybe that test was a fluke? Nope... it's been that way since the beginning. In 2006, most fake bombs made it through [cnn.com]. In 2010, the TSA Administrator himself basically admitted they let almost all guns and weapons through [economist.com]. In 2012, we were looking at multiple incidents where loaded guns were discovered on planes [go.com], and those are just the few that we know about basically because the passengers realized they had them by mistake and reported them! In 2014, we heard how weapons could easily get through the new body scanners [wired.com]. And you can easily find report after report after report over the years.
So, I don't know -- would something that crazy draw the attention of the TSA? Maybe... probably not. But you'd likely be better off just trying to smuggle a gun or actual bomb on board. Just to be clear, though most people on this site already know this -- the TSA does very little to protect anyone. The number of actual motivated terrorists is so utterly minuscule that they can't even be bothered to play the "get the bomb/gun/whatever on the plane lotto" with the TSA where they'd likely have a ~95% win rate.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:41AM
Oh, and one last thing to think about -- even despite their horrible failure rate, we know the TSA confiscates thousands of weapons [metrocosm.com] each year. If the test failure rates are anywhere near accurate, this likely means tens of thousands of weapons are likely carried successfully on American flights every year, maybe even hundreds of thousands. Frankly, given the stresses of cramped seating and limited motion on long flights (along with decreasing free amenities to make it even bearable), I'm surprised there aren't more random assaults on planes with all of these weapons available. Probably more likely to see one of those than an actual terrorist attack.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:34AM
The thing that made me laugh about the "two factor liquid bomb" thing is that they take all these bottles and things away from travellers, because the bottles may contain dangerous, volatile chemicals which, when mixed with other such chemicals will make a big boom. So what do they do with all these dangerous potential explosives?
They chuck them all in a big bin together. If these two factor bombs were a genuine threat, you could easily blow up the security hall by simply bringing in your components (in leaky bottles) and allowing them to be confiscated.