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Security Tips for Traveling with Tech Gear
securitas writes "Many Slashdotters will be traveling during the next week and PC World has an article about how to travel with tech gear with a minimum of security hassles. The Transport Security Administration maintains an allowable and banned items list (PDF) that you might want to check. Make sure that you have fully charged batteries for any tech gifts you received. I've had big hassles with all the tech gear that I routinely carry, especially when combining business trips with a vacation. One security screener even asked me to log in, decrypt and look at files on my notebook's desktop, which was unnecessarily invasive (not to mention against my then-employer's security policy). He settled for viewing the secure login screen 'to make sure it worked.' Any other horror stories out there?"
You allowed someone to look at secure FILES on your system? What on earth made you think they had the right, or the authority for that matter, to look at FILES? They can physically inspect your system, but they do not have any right to search your laptops electronic contents.
I've flown about 85 - 90 times this year from a base out of either Kansas City International, or Raleigh Durham International.
I've flown to Dallas, San Francisco, Oakland, NYC Laguardia, Des Moines, IA, Orlando, Miami, Chicago, Las Vegas, and other cities and have carried even two laptops, a cell phone/pda, a iPod, and between 3 - 7 paper back books.
At the most I've had my bag physically searched because the x-ray guy couldn't see something quite right because a few of my chargers were laying weird. I've even been told what caught them up a few times.
I've carried a backpak full of camera equipment (digital SLR body, three lenses, battery charger, extra batteries, video camera, two microdrives, and a Powerbook G4) through multiple times on vacation and never had a single concern.
If a screener *ever* asked to see the contents of my laptop they'd get the verbal equivalent of a polite middle finger. There is *no* way any TSA screener needs to look at the contents of anything I have that is beyond a cursory physical examination.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I mean, I flew, with my laptop, a week and a half after the Planes Hit, and didn't get any kind of ding from security. I've flown a bunch of times since then, and nothing. Four or five flights from Dulles in DC, and nothing at all like this.
The worst I had was in Denver, where I hadn't realized my ID card had expired two weeks before (hey, I thought they all expired at the end of the month), and they just had me go through a secondary search. At that point, they had me boot the computer (which was easy, as I'd had it on standby instead of having to power it up), and checked my shoes.
Since the TSA came in, I've been overall pleased with the situation - most of the people I've encountered have been pleasant, and the rest at least passable, and all of them have done their job with a minimum of stressing me out about it. While I'm not a big fan of 'add another federal agency', traveling by plane has actually gotten EASIER from Newark International since the TSA got up to speed, and I make sure to thank them for their help every time I go through.
Brazil has decided you're cute.
... Apparently one of the common methods is to use a shill to slip in before you so your laptop is sitting at the other end of the x-ray machine while you are still waiting to clear. Thief then takes off with it.
Last trip thru LAX, one of the "security" drones tried to get me to wait about 100 feet away from my work supplied laptop and other possessions, while he re-examined my shoes. Told him it wasn't gonna happen. He eventually agreed to me toting all my crap over, and then checking my shoes.
Honestly, this whole security thing wouldn't bother me too much if it was done with any common sense - and if it actually made me feel a little more secure.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Will airport scanners do any harm to CF/SD/Memory Stick cards?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
There'll not be an absolute hijacker-proof security policy in the US airports. Ever.
All that's being done right now is creating an illusion of safety, and gives people headaches.
What.....I can't bring my 1.5" swiss army knife on board? "Sir, please don't give me an attitude, or we'll have to step aside for a search" (actually happened).
Those who want to hijack a plane, can do so with things that CAN be brought onboard. Hell......I even think someone could simply grab a soda can from the stuardess (I don't care what they like to be called), rip it with their teeth, and voila....sharp instrument that can be put to someones' throat.
I think nowdays even if someone does have a knife on the plane and tries to take a person hostage, they'll be tackled by passengers. Everyone's seen what happens to them if they don't do anything.
We should still screen for bombs made deliberately, that have enough power to bring down an airplane. But please stop with the madness of searching everybody including little old ladies and 2yo kids.
It's mainly random idiocy. I travel 120,000 miles a year and see the same.
- In Vancouver they want me to REMOVE batteries. In Toronto they want me to turn the equipement ON and leave the batteries connected.
- In Toronto every first passenger boarding is searched. How long till the terrorists realise they should board as passenger 2 instead?
- I carry at least one ham radio. Big trouble when they see it. Big antenna. So before travelling I tune the radio to a public FM broadcast station and when they ask "what is that" I say "a radio" and turn it on to that broadcast station.
- Don't start me on the shoes.
- No cellphones in the cabin on some flights; OK on others. Random again.
- No cell phones while flying, I can understand. But all our PDA's and laptops with 802.11b are always on, blasting 2.4 GHz signals all across the pacific, and no-one cares.
- The thing with the shoes.. in Orlando the security person recently told me "all those with laptop PC's must remove their shows". Huh??
It's all very very silly but if you look respectable and smile, all is OK. I;ve never had anyone take anything and I am mr gadget: over a dozen electronics bits in my briefcase every time I travel. Actually enjoying to see the security propls sweat trying to understand what the equipment is...
Mike
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BDOS ERR ON A:>
I travel regularly on a large American airline. I sometimes get upgraded to First because I travel so much.
In first class they give me a plastic knife and fork. And then they hand me two _glass_ wine glasses. I've never tried smashing one, but I assume that they are not specially hardened and therefore would be breakable and usable as a weapon.
This seems like a bad idea.
John.
And that's really the core issue.
If you view anything with a reasonable hardness and a real or potential edge or point as a weapon (which, realistically, it is), then the only way to secure a flight is to not let anybody at all on it (and that includes the pilots).
Thing is, if you relinquish all trust, then you will end up with no travel at all. Oh, and "passenger profiling" is not trust - it is rather making "no-gooders" more, rather than less, likely on a given flight.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I've got sleep apnea, and so I travel with my CPAP machine. This is a device which keeps a constant air pressure flowing in my nose, which in turn keeps the tissues in my throat open while I sleep.
The machine looks like a very small bedside humidifier, only with an LCD screen, buttons and nobs. It also comes with a six-foot-long flex tube, a reservoir for heated water and a mask not unlike the one Dennis Hopper used in Blue Velvet.
It's become my 2nd carry-on bag, replacing my notebook computer, which now goes in my suitcase.
Screeners' reaction to this device has been mixed, to say the least. Some have said, "Oh yeah, that's a breathing machine. We see these those all the time." Others have asked me to assemble it and power it up, and don't appear to understand what it's for even after 3 or 4 attempts at explanation.
It's a real hassle, however, since not traveling it and using it could result in heart attack, stroke and/or death, I put up with it.
C'mon, baby, kiss The King.
Talking of the randomness of all this:
The sign I saw a couple years ago at New Delhi airport said it was forbidden to carry on the usual supsects (weapons, bomb, poison) plus "cricketballs" and "other round objects".
Go figure.
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BDOS ERR ON A:>
They even did this to my then-girlfriend when I took her to court one day. They made her take out her cuticle scissors....
I mean, come on, they've got armed guards. Cuticle scissors would hardly go through a layer of fat, much less do any real damage, plus that by the time they could be used, they'd have 17 bullets in the scissor wielder. I think they do it to feel like they have some sort of bullshit control, or feel more powerful, or something. It's retarded.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Depends on what you mean by confirmation. I have personally tested RMI/RFI on airplane electronics, and have seen noticeable interference from a running cd player in a computer. I have also seen deliberatly introduced less than random noise in a system and seen a rudder go hard over. The issue is really where the acceptable risk is. If a control surface fails due to interference at 30,000 feet, the pilot will in all likelyhood be able to compensate. If it happens while you are at 500 feet, you may end up with a controlled flight into terrain.
If at first you don't succeed, redefine 'success'
From Wikipedia:
He was killed by the Israeli Shin Bet in 1996 following a massive manhunt. They were able to compromise one of Ayyash's fellow Hamas members, who gave him a cell phone full of explosives. When they confirmed Ayyash was using it, the Shin Bet detonated it, killing him instantly.
Now, supposedly, the cell phone worked as well, and the last call he got on it was from the head of the Shin Bet, who told him "Goodbye."
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I created a homemade external battery pack for my iPaq a few years back. Pulled out the soldering iron and parted it together to run off a collection of rechargeable 'd' cell batteries. Apparently, someone in the security line freaked when they saw it - but only had minimal delays.
I occasionally go to a firing range and do a little pistol shooting. I was using a tradeshow laptop bag to hold my weapons and expended brass. My main bag broke, so I emptied the pistol bag (being very careful to not accidentally pack any ammunition) and ran to the airport. Missed the flight because my bag lit up when they swabbed it. No trouble other than talking to a bunch of people... but still, what a pain.
One of the things that seems to trip up the security folks - especially in EMEA - is how long I keep a laptop and how many people have access to it. I usually get to trade up laptops every quarter (and schlep off the older, but now fully configured box to one of the other Sales folks). Since these laptops are really mobile dev servers (IMHO), when I respond, "do you mean physical access to the laptop, or from a remote access standpoint?" Always gets them...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
In the past three months, I've been through Kennedy four times, La Guardia 2x, Newark 4x, times, Detroit, Chicago O'Hare, LAX, Tokyo Narita 4x, Singapore 2x... and never have I been asked to turn on my laptop. They never bothered me about my PDA. They checked my shoes a few times, my flip-flops a few times as well, deep searched my backpack a few times. Maybe since I was travelling business class they didn't give me as hard a time as others.
And yet, my daypack has four steel stays that make up the frame... pretty easily removed. Surprised they let me on with it. Aluminum uprights in pullman could also be used as weapons, broken duty free bottles of whiskey... I think the "security" measures are just to give travellers the warm fuzzys, I feel they're kinda worthless considering what you can bring on the flight..
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
It's an amature astronomers dream come true(too much equipment to carry around besides the scope).
I don't think so, considering that in order to reach the sensitivity of a well-trained human eye with current astronomy cameras, you need both long exposures and ideally electrically-cooled imaging chips.
If you think you can hold your eye rock-steady for 30+ seconds per exposure, while the peltier cooler in your eye is dumping several watts of heat into your bloodstream trying to cool the imaging chip to reduce the thermal noise, then go ahead.
I've listened to/read several interviews with people who have received the latest prosthetics. While many of them are happy with them, I've not heard one of them say it was a good trade; they'd all rather have their original equipment.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
"If you could just step behind this curtain, sir? Pants around your ankles please. And bend over this table. This'll only take a few minutes."
Point being, there are limits on what friggin' Mr. Security is allowed to ask you to do.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Most people here are talking about PC equipment and consumer technology. But I still remember years ago in the mid '70's when my father (an oceanographer) would travel on commercial aircraft with current meters (meters for measuring ocean data). At the time, these where a hardened metal cylinder about 10 inches in diameter and 18 inches long with some probes and a handle on top, the lid was held on with large metal clips. They still had a lot of mechanical components (for example the tape cartridge storage device that recorded the data), and occasionally would make ticking sounds. He would carry these onboard because even back in the '70's, they cost around $100,000. These days, the are yellow plastic balls full of solid state... I can not imagine being able to show TSA that these things where not bombs. I wonder about other non-consumer, non-PC electronic equipment...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
And of course you are still allowed to carry a walking cane. I don't know about you, but I think 3 feet of solid hardwood is a far more effective weapon than a razor blade.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
A friend got something similar with a Tascam DA-98 (multi-track professional audio recording device). Security was not at all sure of what to make of something in a large, hard, plastic and metal case with lots of odd controls and displays on it. He had anticipated this and had a power cord, tape with audio on it, and pair of headphones. Still it tool an explosive sniffer adn some time before security was convinced that it wasn't any kind of threat.
Several years ago (pre-War On Terror[TM]), one of the wires supplying battery power in my PDA (Psion Series3) came loose while I was travelling. I was waiting at the gate in O'Hare for a flight to London when it happened, and I would have been quite lost on my trip without the data in the device. The button cell that maintains memory when the main battery is dead had a limited life, and wouldn't last the flight. And what if someone demanded that I turn it on for them? So I spent my layover attempting repairs using my Swiss Army knife and a travel sewing kit from an airport newsstand... all the while thinking of the scene in a then-recent movie in which the bad guy uses a Psion Series3 as the detonator for a bomb on the plane. I half-expected to be hustled away by airport security (heck, I would've detained me, if I were them), but no one questioned me, and I managed to restore power to my PDA before they announced boarding for my flight.
The passengers likely have much more experience operating baseball bats than with tasers or stun batons.
(Note, substitute "baseball bat" with "hockey stick", "cricket bat", etc., for you non USians.)