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Wireless Devices Could Foil Hijack Attempts
ErikPeterson writes Flight attendants soon may be outfitted with wireless devices that would be used to alert pilots of attempted hijackings or other in-air security threats.
The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that it plans to require that airlines provide a way for the cabin crew to "discreetly notify" pilots "in the event of suspicious activity or security breaches in the cabin."
The proposed regulation, which is not yet final, grew out of an advisory panel that the Transportation Department created after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. That panel recommended that cabin crew have "a method for immediate notification to the flight deck during a suspected threat in the cabin" that would permit pilots to take appropriate action, such as beginning an immediate landing."
Cool. So this is the first real-world implementation of Wi-Fi-Fly-Hi-Ji technology!
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
I don't think this will be bad at all. The only thing I can see happen, is is there is a way to block the thingies. But all in all, if it keeps everyone safter, AND doesnt limit freedoms, OR makes airlines be any more time consuming.
Yay, I have a sig.
What about just having a security camera in the passenger cabin?
In other news, I recommend to Taco that he blow up this childish 403'ing of the w3 validator so we can actually, uhm, test your new layout as you have asked us to. Kthx.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
PS - the new slash code is ugly and still isn't standards compliant.
After all, I am strangely colored.
How long until someone hacks these devices and starts sending false alarms? Terrorists wouldn't have to actually hijack planes anymore! Just stuff the devices in someone's baggage with a timer on them. They're non-explosive, so they wouldn't be sniffed out, and I'm sure they could disguise them. All you need is a power source and the transmitter. Think of how easy it would be to freeze airlines. I hope they really make an effort to make sure that these things are secure.
Before you die, you see DoubleRing...
Yes, because in highly stressful situations you will be able to "subtly keying the (intercom) in a specific manner" as mentioned in the article. It amazes me sometimes that engineers and techheads don't factor in humans under stress.
...This could actually be a good use for a Clicker! A) Terrorists! B) IT'S A TRAP! C) Violent, drunken American redneck! D) STAB
A wise man once said, "wtf h4x."
Would it be possible to jam it? You can bring a laptop on a plane and use it. With enough smarts, couldn't you come up with something that could jam the signal?
It's about time. Of course, that still won't sto[ the hijacer with a spray bottle of chloroform, but every little bit counts.
So...we are going to hand out wireless radio transitters to flight attendants...and we ban passengers from using wireless radio transmitters to make phone calls because it "interferes with the airplane's radio."
This sig has not been evaluated by the FDA. It is not designed to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease.
Honeywell is developing a device that will take over the controls from the pilot if the plane is heading for a restricted area. If your plane is being hijack, you will not crash into a building for sure. But if the plane is fine and the computer takes over, pray that it won't crash the plane!
Excellent. About time I'd say. Even false positives would be better than what has been flying (nothing). Alert the cabin first, then see if it is false.
Being able to go up and talk to the pilots as a kid? and they gave you those little wings. that was so cool when i was like 8. too bad my kids probably wont be able to do anything like that.
...what is a pilot going to do when the alarm goes off? Go back there and check it out? Land the plane... right, because that's so subtle. You only have to take the plane down 30000ft, ding the searbelts and more often than not, notify the passengers because it happens to be very damn visible from all the windows.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
An AC posted the following in a thread on the recent Thoughts on the Space Elevator story:
A few seconds of warning would be enough to hit a Lockout button. There wouldn't be anything like enough time to land a plane or even change its position enough to bother a hijacker (terrorist or mere jet thief).
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Yep, I think you're right. Cold as buggery down here!
Graham
I keep seeing all these comments, but I hardly noticed until I tried to leave a comment myself. Wow.
"How long until someone hacks these devices and starts sending false alarms?"
How long till technology discovers the "man in the middle" attack? Seriously. Give people some credit for having a brain. We all can't be geniuses like slashdotters. But somehow we muddle through.
Wireless notification device? You mean like the hi-jacking transponders the 9/11 terrorists turned off after hijacking the plane? I never knew there was such a thing until I read the 9/11 commission report. I guess it was somewhat of a secret to allow pilots to subtly notify controllers of a hijacking until the hijackers found out. My point is that once this little "secret" is out, how are we going to stop hijackers from disabling it as well? Would it be something wore under the cloth? It should be easy to activate so that activation can be disguised. But if it is easy to activate, what's to stop someone from accidentally activating it? I guess it's better than the conspicuous[sp?] intercom system.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Air marshals putting bullets in the heads of potential hijackers can foil them, too. :)
:D
Why bother with potentially cranky technological solutions when extreme violence works better, and is much more satisfying?
Remember: violence is the last refuge of the incompenent... because the competent don't leave it until last.
Could this also notify the flight crew of impending airline bankruptcy?
i wonder if they have to turn off the devices when the plane is taking off/landing....
How many hijackings have there been since 9/11? My naive expectation is that hijackers would now have a short life expectancy, no matter how they're armed.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
why doesnt the government mandate LOCKING COCKPIT DOORS on commercial jets?
moi
"Hold up there skip, I.. i'm getting an email. Oh my god! we're getting hijacked! Wait. No, I got another one that says we're ok, it was a joke. Wait! another one! this one... hey skip? Can we drop by Nigeria? Aparently this guy has 10 million dollars and he'll give us half if we just help him get it out of the country. Ha! you gotta see this one, aparently Cathy stole Ausies lunch and is ripping her a new one via bluetooth! Hey is that a mountain ahead?"
Passengers kick terrorist ass. That's the most reliable way to stop a terrorist on a plane. Remember Richard Reid?
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
One good scream, and the flight deck will have been immediately notified of a problem of some kind in the cabin. Low tech. But pervasive. All the flight attendents already have the necessary hardware. Batteries won't run out.
"It amazes me sometimes that engineers and techheads don't factor in humans under stress."
I believe there's this new-fangled invention known as...training. It works on pilots, soldiers, rescue personnel, slashdot posters, and even flight attendents.
No door between cabin and cockpit!
Wow, no more problems. Hijackers can do what ever they want in the back but they can't get to the pilots.
For current planes, retrofit with impenetrable doors that can not be opened after take of. Even by the pilots.
Now with out control of the plane there is no reason to hijack and the skies are safe!
Remember KISS
Keep it simple stupid.
JM
Oink, Oink!!
and then the pilot can't land. I wouldn't expect a quick dip would be high on the pilot's agenda and so I would assume they would just have to keep flying or give in to the terrorists.
Foil Could Hijack Wireless Devices Attempts!
not because of any these dump security measures, but for the simple fact that all passengers will have to assume that they won't make it out alive and hence fight the hijackers (which is what happened with the 4th 9/11 plane).
the code to signal ground controller that there's a hijack is to set 7500 on your normal transponder(there's no seperate trasponder). after you set it, you probably want to hit ident couple times to make sure people notice it. and They'll confirm with you that you are indeed want to set it at 7500. I've accidentally set it at 75xx a few times by mistake when I want to set 55xx, but those mistake were caught easily and early (duh)
This action assumes that the pilot is still at the control and have access to transponder and radio. (in the event like 9/11, hijackers know how to fly the airplane, thus bypass the security measurement)
This is the best most economical solution so far... ALert and Wary... Just like defense.
Wireless Devices...Foil...Hijack!!!!!
This is a paranoid's worst nightmare.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
build a device similar to a Star Trek communicator badge, like in TNG. Should be easy to do with todays tech and the short range..
Coffee, tea or wireless G?
This is wonderful news! We can stop the wave of plane hijackings that are plaguing this country! This will make it much safer to fly into hurricane devastated wastelands and siphon gas from abandoned vehicles.
Man, those plane hijackings really have been dominating the news recently, haven't they?
[/sarcasm]
The ______ Agenda
. . . I saw this on the 10:00 p.m. local Los Angeles news (KTLA 5) last night!
I always thought that Slashdot and other internet news sources were a day ahead of the local news. They even had some stock video feed to spice the story up with!
Newt-dog
My Doctor prescribed daily nasal saline irrigation, hehe
I agree with this post.
I would blow up a boat, or a train, or something else. There must be lots of other potential targets. All the effort has been put into protecting the target that was chosen last time. That diverts resources from protecting the targets that haven't been tried yet.
And no effort at all has gone into the sort of political process that would make these precautions unneccessary. Exactly the opposite, in fact: the attacks on innocent coutries have strengthened popular support there for this kind of action.
Terrorists can't hijack an Amtrack train into the White House, now can they?
when I first read that topic on slashdot with the "Wireless devices could foil hijack attempts" I was thinking that they would have honeypot bluetooth/wifi devices and would detect hijackers.. but it occured to me "this doesnt make sense...."
What's wrong with using a camera and a microphone pick up? Something with enough sensitivity to pick up voices at a reasonable level, and a couple of cameras in strategic places, and you've got a good idea of what's happening in your plane.
On a side note though, shouldn't your security measures be somewhat secretive? I mean, tell everyone there are cameras/alarms in place, but not anything particular. Hard to beat a system if you don't know what it is. Of course, idiots still rob 7-11 without so much as a mask, but that's another story.
One more thing. I don't see why it's so hard to stop hijackers. PUT A BIG HEAVY DOOR IN BETWEEN THE CABIN AND THE COCKPIT, and tell the pilots not to open it during flight unless absolutely everything checks out, and even then, only for seconds at a time. Think lock on the inside only, nice little peephole, secret knocks, no handles, hinges, nothing on the outside. A nice big steal door can deter a heck of a lot of people. Maybe arm the pilots for those 5 seconds of open door time. If the bad guys have hostages, well, they might die. But the whole plane won't go down, and the hijackers (terrorists, whatever) will probably stop trying eventually.
I honestly don't the see the big deal. It's doable.
When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl
An advisory pannel formed after sept 2001 - it took them this long to come up with this - and it's not even final yet? I guess they're being paid 100k p.a. so didn't want to rush things.
Then again, the marines have been screwing around in the desert and havent even caught that bearded guy. (I'm not putting his name or the CIA will flag me - AC or not).
It seems like we're dealing with terrorism in EXACTLY the same way Microsoft deals with computer security. To wit: we patch and patch and patch the exploited breaches while ignoring likely targets simply because they haven't been exploited yet.
Retired from software... maybe. Sort of.
OK, so if I so much as think about turning on my phone during a flight the aircraft will immediately burst into flames and plummet to the ground killing all on board. I think maybe it also homes in on the nearest school bus. GPS or somethings. Everybody knows that, it's in the brochure.
And so in the unlikely event that the plane is overrun by terrorists I would say that for sure the moment a flight attendant activates the wirless warning device it's all over. Chalk up a win to the rising threat of international terrorism.
Now wash your hands.
If a terrorist wants to blow up the plane, he'll smuggle on a metal-free fuse-detonated bomb (like the shoe bomber) and he'll blow it up from the toilet (unlike the rather foolish shoe bomber.) This device doesn't matter at all if all the terrorist is trying to do is take down the plane. Indeed, nothing short of mandatory strip searches can stop this sort of attack.
As for hijackings, you don't need to worry about it because IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. I can't believe people still think that terrorists will try again to hijack a commercial airliner and use it as a missile--it was a one-time trick and it will NEVER work again. If you want proof of this, you need look no farther than United Airlines Flight 93. ONE HOUR after the first plane hit the trade center, the passengers of the Pennsylvania flight decided not to let the terrorists keep control of the plane. Despite the fact that the terrorists had already taken control in the cockpit and should have had a significant tactical advantage, the passengers were able to overwhelm them and force them to abort the mission. Had the passengers acted earlier, they would have never even made it to the cockpit. A few passengers may have died, but NO ONE can stand against dozens or hundreds of passengers stampeding them in close quarters.
Our mindset has changed now, and not a single person in the USA, from a seven year old boy to a ninety year old grandmother, is stupid or cowardly enough to let someone hijack the plane. This device is pointless, because no potential hijacker will ever made it to the cockpit ever again.
But, back to the point. Doesn't anybody remember the Moscow Theatre hostage crisis, when the Russian government ended up killing 120-odd hostages with their "sleeping gas"? And, guess who would be most likely to die? You guessed it - children and babies. It's likely in your scenario that that baby would die before its neck started to bend. There's reports that the US government is quietly working on less lethal varieties of knockout gas, but I'd be surprised if they managed to develop something that was effective and safe over a broad enough dosage range to be deployable.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Wow! For once wireless will be used to prevent Hi-Jacking rather than to cause it.
Too often, people look at the "oo-aah" factor, and leave the proven technologies behind.
It couldn't be too hard to provide CCTV into the forward cabin, back to the cockpit - whether an actual screen (does the cockpit need more clutter?) or as an input into an automated pattern-match system. Any manic activity in the cabin gets noticed; any attempt to gain entry to the cockpit is checked against a video screen... however the mechnics function.
Providing a wireless system for "discrete notification" into the cockpit? As others have pointed out - how long until that gets hacked, or until lack of maintenance and/or interest renders it useless?
CCTV is widely deployed, secure, etc, etc. A cabin looks pretty tame 99% of the time, and if it isn't calm and organised, the captain probably needs to know anyway.
With each breath in, a flower somewhere opens; with each breath out, a flower withers away. In between lies beauty.
To wit, the following was retrieved from the in-flight recorder:
Flight Attendant (FA): Umm, yeah, hieeee...
Pilot (P): Captain speaking.
FA: Yeah, there's like this guy who, umm...I dunno, he just kinda looks icky and, y'know, gross...
P: What's the problem?
FA: Ohh, gosh, I'm sorry, it's just...this guy, y'know, he's scaring me...
P: [sound of pages flipping] WHAT MA'AM IS HE A TERRORIST?
FA: Uhh, I don't think so...
P: [whew] Uhh...Lisa?
FA: Yeah! This is stupid.
P: I know, baby. We gotta do this, though. Just try to keep it up. Just another sec.
FA: I thought you said down in the bar that you were gonna show me how to play your rusty trombone.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Seriously now. What happens when they have to carry some button in their pocket or something, and they accidently bump into a seat and trigger it. An emergency/immediate landing begins and the police are called....and they complain about alarm systems giving out false alarms?
Try reading it in links, its totally fucked up now :(
Already been done. The Peruvian aviation authority was not amused.
So they blow up some troops in Iraq instead. That's become the easy option for terrorists now.
Cockpit has only one door which goes to the outside. No access from the passenger area at all. I believe there are already planes like this.
This is just one more paranoial waste of money without increasing security. Lets face it - the real security is the bullet-proof reinforced flight deck door with CCTV surveillance of the entry area.
The problem with a secret alert device is a) secrets don't remain secret if you mandate it for the entire industry and b) what is the pilot supposed to do if he gets alerted of "suspicious activity" (We have often "suspicious activities" aka unruly passengers)
The pilot can not go back to check it out. He can not just dive to the next airport because it might have been a false alarm or the situation can be resolved by the flight attendants. If every alarm would lead to an diversion the system could be easily misused for a DoS attack.
So in the end he would just have to wait until 1) someone shows up at the cockpit door and tries to force entry: Hijack (better: attempted hijack) or 2) noone shows up: Situtation resolved.
This is the same as the usless keypads on the flight deck door mandated by the FAA. Two buttons would have been enough: regular entry and emergency entry.
The security is not that only the flight attendants know the secret keycodes - with a knive to their throat they will type in the correct one anyway. The security is the video surveillance to check the area from the flight deck. (To be fair: the keypads have the advantage that passengers in search for a toilet will not accidentaly press the "emergency door bell" - which would mean immediate landing)
Back to a) Why secrets won't work: Like every equipment on board it has to be approved by the FAA which makes it expensive which results in only very few vendors offering a system. And they will offer it to any airline, including Saudia Airways, Pakistani Airways and Ariana Afghan Airways and many other. It would be naive to think that intelligent terrorists do not have contacts in the airlines and can not get access to the devices.
In the end most airlines will anyway use the loophole of some "secret" intercom procedure which they have to document and distribute to thousands of FAs and Pilots.
This is just another stupid TSA regulation in a long line of stupid TSA regulations - like not being allowed to stand in a line in front of a toilet.
X IMPRIMITE "SALVE TERRA!"
XX ITE AD X
As I understand it, all Israeli El Al planes have a separate external entrance for the pilots, and the cockpit is not accessible from the cabin. Why would you need access to the cockpit from the cabin, or vice versa, during the flight anyway?
Wireless.... highjacking.....
Dupe-O-Meter rating: 9 of 10
* This story is highly likely to be a Dupe, infact you probably already read it
Officially: "No comments"
Seriously, though, someone had a go at flying a plane into a tower in the land of "The Lord of the Rings", New Zealand, just last week. The plane crashed into a lake, and the pilot survived the crash. Like many of the film sets, it was all in miniature: the plane was a light plane from a flying school, and the tower was only 650 feet high. Those crazy New Zealanders :)
Nothing worse than now, as long as the system is such that the trusted pilot must enable ground control from the plane:
Ground control taken over, plane not taken over: no problem, trusted pilot flies.
Ground control not taken over, plane taken over: no problem, ground control flies plane (provided trusted pilot had enough time to transfer control).
Ground control taken over, plane taken over: terrorists win, but that's also the case now. So the new system add security without introducing new weaknesses (except those introduced by added complexity).
I assume they would have to turn these off during takeoff just like I have do with my IPOD. ;-)
Adventure City Tours
Tell me then.. what happens when the number of locked out planes outnumbers the number of ground control stations. Who flies the plane?
So someone should explain why I cannot operate any digital equipment during take off and landing while cabine crew can.
I think that restrictions like "no laptop attached to CD reader or laser printer is allowed" are fake, to let people know that flying on an airplane is a serious thing, like going to the moon or doing heart surgery.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Wireless devices can also copy in flight movies and beam them around the internet from 30,000ft! LOOK OUT MPAA!!!111oneone.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Flown much recently? As a result of 9-11. cockpit doors are locked in flight, and have been for a few years. At the same time, existing doors were replaced by sturdy metal doors to prevent someone from simply chopping their way through to the crew.
Your notion of adding a second external door would require redesign and refit of every aircraft, which is unlikely ffor financial and aerodynamic reasons. Also, the crew needs access to the passenger section, especially during non-hijacking emergencies..
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Um, but they still didn't make it out alive.
And no effort at all has gone into the sort of political process that would make these precautions unneccessary. Exactly the opposite, in fact: the attacks on innocent coutries have strengthened popular support there for this kind of action.
... or the holes on the ground formerly known as The Middleeast, Serbia or India/Pakistan?
Yeah, right. Terrorism only happens against countries that attack innocent countries, and if our countries never ever interfere with the leadership and actions of other countries, the world would be a much nicer and safer place to live...
What a lovely world we'd have... Welcome to the Nazi World Empire... or how about the Communist World Empire?
Get real. Quite often we see countries under a leadership that is totally unacceptable when it comes to human rights, freedom of expression, freedom to travel and so on, and the international community has no choice but to intervene. In the matter of Iraq we saw the UN completely paralyzed despite Saddam having used the now infamous weapon of mass destruction against his own people (kurds, shia-muslems) and his obvious and blatant defiance of both UN resolutions and the treaty that ended the Gulf War.
I'm happy that the USA didn't back off but instead acted as the UN should have done by getting rid of Saddam using the means nessesary (he did get the option to step down voluntarily, remember?). It was both a good move and a nessesary one. It was important to make an example and draw the line. Comply or we will force you. Saddam would most likely have been allowed to flee into exile if he had stepped down on his own. Now he faces the gallows. His choice.
I just returned from a vacation to Europe and was shocked and amazed that the cabin had no cameras of any sort. I mean, cameras are so good and so small these days that there really is no reason not to. We each had interactive screens in the backs of our seats, but they can't put in a couple cheapo webcams?
I know cameras only show you the bad stuff happening and don't do anything to prevent it, but tipping the pilots off sooner than later can only be better than what we have now.
The other thing I wondered is... couldn't the pilots suddenly go into a dive, rendering the hijackers walking around helpless? Sure you'd surprise that guy in the bathroom and a couple others (including stewards/stewardesses), but it'd be a small price to pay, I'd think.
As soon as I saw the topic I just knew there would be two types of reply.
First was the people who think they are funny. That crew was very sad. Most of the funnies came from crew 2.
Crew 2 was made up of those who posted those really serious solutions that had never been thought through before the spur of the moment hit the poster.
As a pilot I have given this a bit of thought in the past and I don't think that I have a perfect answer but I'd start with:
1> Seal the cockpit. Door locked from inside. Toilet facilities inside and meals etc pre-loaded. Microwave and hot water in cockpit micro-galley.
2> No communication between cabin and cockpit except for a set of signals that do something like indicate that we have a medical emergency back here that requires landing at nearest airport. Maybe one or two more. NO SECRET combos permitted.
That's about it. The more complex the more chance of fuckups.
If you can't get to the cockpit you can't take over the flight no matter which cornflake packet your licence came in.
If you can't talk to (or signal) the flight crew you can't use a hostage to force them to do anything.
I'm sure I haven't covered anything. I didn't have a plan prepared for the scenario posited here. On the other hand I've seen innumerable posts here that I'd hate to have applied to ANY flight that I was on.
The people who wrote them would have done better to commit their ideas to paper and re-read them with friends before thinking they'd had a eureka moment with no prep time.
I can see it now... The flight attendants are coming down the rows passing out shot glasses full of soda to the passengers. One of them runs out of ginger ale and reaches for another can bumping the "hijack notification button." Your flight to LA now lands in Iowa, and you are stuck there while the TSA inspects your plane for the next two hours. You arrive in LA four hours late, only to find out your baggage has been left in Iowa.
/whisper/ Thanks for the candy!
As for hijackings, you don't need to worry about it because IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. I can't believe people still think that terrorists will try again to hijack a commercial airliner and use it as a missile--it was a one-time trick and it will NEVER work again.
That's exactly what I've been saying ever since the gubment started talking about adding so much more security to airlines. With our new "post-9/11" mindset, the first thing that most people are going to think of if a plane is ever hijacked again is "Well, I'm going to die anyway. So, I might as well go down on my terms!" The terrorists would be nothing short of stupid if they tried it again. They wouldn't be able to get past, "Everyone get back into your seats" before they are taken down like a quarterback getting sacked by the entire defensive line.
Anything further to secure and monitor airlines' cabins is foolhardly and, as Geroge Carlin once said, "is only meant to make white people feel safe." If only the gubment put this much effort into protecting the real threat to national saftey right now (besides the politicians themselves) -- that sieve we call our borders.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
A friend's father used to advocate the installation of pork-fat sprayers in the aircraft cabin. Granted, that's only effective on the folks who believe that such pork contact will keep them out of heaven. But I always thought it was a creative way to keep certain hijackers from doing suicidal things.
It just wouldn't be Slashdot without the occasional conspiracy theorist who has no proof (except for a lot of anti-Bush/anti-government, extremist web sites) but does have a lot of suspicion and hatred.
Thank you for renewing my faith in Slashdot.
The most efficient, cost-effective way to reduce terrorism would be for the American people to take funding away from the CIA.
Seriously. If a flight attendant notifies the cockpit of a highjack attempt, the cockpit and cabin become atmospherically isolated, and NO2 or something is released into the air in the cabin, putting everyone to sleep. The plane lands, and people in HASMAT suits come in and secure the cabin. You could also have air martials with the ability to afix a mask on being alerted so they could tie up offenders on the way down.
One of the caveats is that some people's health conditions don't take well to anesthetics. If the gas's effects are relatively mild, though, they should be okay, and this gives the air martials time to tie up the perps before the stuff wears off.
so... how does this jibe with the stewardess pitching a fit when she notices that i am listening to my MP3 player (claiming that it might interFEAR with the piloting instrumentation, &c.)? what about cell-phones[turn it off, or you're a terrorist suspect]?, &c.
I love how since 9-11, everyone is looking for the government to spend billions on preventative measures for movie inspired unlikely scenarios. Yeah lets spend a hundred million outfitting stewardesses with wifi buzzers, instead of just using the plainly obvious non-gagetry solution of not opening up the cockpit door when the stewardess yells hijack. Either way, with the buzzers or just yelling hijack a reprisal from the terrorist will occur when that cockpit door does not open.
Has anyone noticed that there has not been an attempted hijack on a US airline since post 9-11 security measures were put in place?
When I worked in France, the lab where I worked was outfitted with devices known as PTI's (from "Protection de Travailleur Isole" - "Protection for Isolated Workers"). The device was a small box that you could wear on your belt, that connected wirelessly to the office alarm system (which was remotely monitored). It had a panic button that you could press. It also had an orientation sensor, so that if you fell down and didn't move for any length of time, it would trigger an alarm. And it had a wire loop that you could pass through a belt loop: any attempt to snatch the device from you would snap the loop and trigger the alarm.
Because people worked alone in the lab outside normal office hours, there was apparently a legal requirement to have these things, but I don't know if there was any legal requirement to actually use them. We sat through the briefing, then put them away in a closet and never looked at them again. However, in an industrial or agricultural setting, or for someone working in a service station, they might be quite practical.
I presume that any devices intended for use by cabin crew might have similar characteristics, including an anti-snatch feature.
What happens when there is a mechanical or electrical malfunction that requires the pilot to go in to cabin? There have been thousands of situations where a pilot had to go in to the cabin to observe damage, check wiring, check the gear, etc etc.
Anything that is wireless is subjectable to malicious behaviour. I haven't seen a wireless device yet that couldn't be hijacked itself starting with something as simple as a frequency counter. You may think to yourself, "Who would want to clone the functionality of a wireless hijack button?" But think about how many virii are floating around this very minute.
Colonel Cranium this is Rectal Reconnaissance, we are on a collision course sir, Abort Abort!
What do you mean "only happened once"
Do you not remember Lockaby (that place in Scotland) - plane blows up and falls on small town.
And only last week some plane in South East Asia crash landed on a town - more people on the ground died than in the plane (some of them survived).
Bloody short memory - not that I blame you for blotting out the memory of planes crashing into what they fly over - but I prefer to live somewhere they don't fly over.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
How can such a wonder be accomplished? Simple - anesthetize the passengers, then load them up like cordwood on the plane, and bring them out on the other side. You don't have to fully knock them out - just dope them up so much they cannot do anything meaningful.
NOTE TO CLUELESS SLASHBOTS:
The above post was HUMOR. It was in no way a suggestion of a real course of action. The poster is well aware of the risks of anesthesia.
PS: Hallelujah! Slashdot that actually fixes the damn bug where adding a </li> tag to a list did not work!
www.eFax.com are spammers
As others here have said - it's best to Keep It Simple, Stupid. Sometimes I wonder if the FAA thinks that K.I.S.S. stands for Keep It Stupid, Stupid. A reinforced cockpit door which can only be unlocked by the pilots - maybe even with an access slot for food/coffee etc (a la jail cell door) would be fine. Beyond that, move the cockpit door to the outside of the aircraft (access slot for food/coffee etc.). If anything, if you really want to go nuts; add a closed circuit surveillance system for the passenger sections on top of the door (or lack thereof) and you're ready to go.
The last thing we want is a bunch of false positives, "oops, the battery ran out", etc. etc..
Now all terrorists have to do to attack airlines is get aboard with a WiFi transmitter that sends false alarms to the cockpit. Or even aim from miles away on the ground with a WiFi rifle. If those flight attendants' devices aren't symmetrically encrypted, they'll become more of a risk than a mitigator.
Remember, the reason terrorists hijack and crash planes isn't to stop the plane from arriving at its destination. It's to create a horrible series of hours of compellingly scary TV shows. The minute the fear races through the media, the terrorists have won. That's asymmetric warfare at work, regardless of its weapon of choice.
--
make install -not war
I think that they should just be equiped with a taser like the air marshall on Adam Sandler's movie "Anger Management". That way if anyone is suspicious, they can just taser them until they land. Shoot first and ask questions later is my motto!
Generation Trance: What generation are you?
Is there anything that sets in quickly but also wears off quickly?
Fire extinguishers. They're on all planes.
.
Big metal clubs that shoot subzero, freezing, unbreatheable gas.
.
I'd like to see how Mr. Jihadist with a butterknife does with his eyeballs frozen solid. After overpowering the fucker and hopefully causing much pain, use the fire extinguisher to freeze his cock solid, then break it off. Then shove a pork loin up his ass to the words, "Allah ackbar, asswipe. Now you're no longer a virgin!"
Nobody will ever hijack an airplane again. The 9/11 hijackers ensured this by convincing EVERYONE EVERYWHERE that their life depends on mashing the hijackers into a pulp. 90 pound grannies will stab them with their knitting needles. Blind men will slash them with their canes. Children will bite their ankles. There will be so many people rending their flesh from their bones that most people won't have a chance to help.
The only current on-board threat to airplanes is explosives. Any effort to prevent hijacking is a Maginot line.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Don't wireless signals of any type interfere with fire control?! Or is that just a lie to get us to pay for the calls inflight?
Gee, I wonder.
if a terrorist can hi-jack a plane, a terrorist will hi-jack a plane, so we must make planes unable to be hi-jacked. how many times have we heard the phrase: the computer doesnt have a problem - its the user. the same could be said about planes and human-pilots: the plane doesnt have a problem - its the fact that the pilot is a human.
presently, we have robots catching balls flying at 300 km/h. it shouldn't be long before we have robotic pilots eliminating mid-flight hi-jacking.
we could also replace the flight-attendants with robo-cops. i can picture it now...
Robo_attendant: Abdullah al-Azha, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent...
Abdullah al-Azha: PRAISE TO BE ALLAHHHHH! MANY VIRGINS I MUST HAVE!!
Robo_attendant: Come quietly, or there will be trouble.
Abdullah al-Azha: What your prime directives are?!
Robo_attendant: Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law.
[armed with a razor blade, al-Azha grabs a passenger threatening her life]
[Robo_attendant shoots al-Azha mercilessly with precision]
Robo_attendant: Your move, creep.
havent you seen the langoliers (sp?) :)
based on a stephen king novel.
the pilot dropped the air pressure on the plane, which made everyone fall asleep. good movie
Terrorists used to hijack planes to escape or to demand something, but were not suicidal. You countered with ultra elite task forces to kill the terrorists when the plane was on the ground. This, in theory, made hijackings impossible, except for the fact that the terrorists in question learned. I think it became somewhat apparent that if you hijacked a plane, you were not going to survive, thus, might as well combine it with a suicide attack. Now we have development going towards preventing a suicide attack in planes. This in no way prepares us for whatever is coming next. (whether or not that should actually be a concern is another debate)
The political questions are completely ignored simply because they are difficult. It is easy to say, "Terrorists used knives to take over planes, therefore if there were no knives, there would be no hijackings". It is, on the other hand, quite difficult to sum up the incredibly complex set of circumstances which eventually lead to terrorist organizations actually launching attacks. It is even harder to come up with reasonable solutions that will actually have an effect in 5 or 10 years, let alone in a handful of months.
It would seem that virtually every one of our 'leaders' in recent years is obsessed with the simple, all encompassing solution to problems. Admitting that there is no easy solution to some problems quite simply does not exist.
Hm. I think I wandered a bit there.
I assert reality.
Disclaimer: I did not RTFA
So, how much are we going to spend on a device that will in all probability never be used? If you know anything about risk management, you know that you don't throw a ton of cash at something unless there's actually a possibility of it happening. And the simple fact of the matter is that it will never happen again. Oh sure, some lone idiots will try, but they'll quickly be pummelled by the other passengers.
Now just for the sake of arguement, let's say that this gets implemented, and actually used someday. What is the likely sequence of events after the flight attendant pushes the panic button? Maybe the co-pilot checks out the situation?..maybe they set the hi-jack code on the transponder?..maybe the plane is intercepted and shot down? Nothing that wouldn't have happened without the newfangled wi-fi gadgets.
Now with my tinfoil hat on, I'm wondering who makes the proposed devices, and who in the TSA/FAA they're related to, or who owns stock in the company.
Just another day in Paradise
This is the ultimate yuppy gadget, not geek gadget. A geek would just pee in a bottle:-). A yuppy would buy a special bottle to pee in. Then, again, a yuppy wouldn't have a problem taking a walk to the bathroom...
Nice of the moderators to waste offtopic mods on a post that is CLEARLY LABELED as such. Idiots.
So the cringing little moderators couldn't deal with the screamingly obvious and so hammered this post into flame bait? --Well, guess what? The truth doesn't go away just because you ignore it.
Grow up and deal. The psychotic Bush government and the psychotic Zionists in charge of the Jewish and Palestinian populations in Israel are the real terrorists and they are directly responsible for the hijacked planes on 9-11. --And I'm not talking about 'They made the arabs angry with their international policy and thus drove them to do it', I'm talking about a full-fledged, false-flag bit of spymanship using all the modern techniques. Any half-diligent observation reveals this almost instantly. So leave your spineless negative mod points in the play-pen and make an effort to join the waking world, please.
-FL
the same shit that happened on the Pennsylvania flight 93 will now be standard procedure...
You are underestimating the US government. The Pennsylvania flight 93 was shot down. I have a friend who was listening to a police scanner down there at the time, and it was quite clear from the radio traffic that it was shot down, and the passengers had nothing to do with it. Jumping the terrorists is the best thing the passengers could do in a situation like that, no doubt, but it just wasn't what's happened.
If you don't believe me (why would you?) think about this: The official version said that the passengers used their cell phones to find out what the hijackers were up to, and that put them (the passengers) up to trying to take over. Please try using your cell phone on a plane next tiem you fly. Don't worry - it won't interfere with the planes' equipment a bit - the reason they ask you not to use the phone in flight is that they haven't tested all types of cell phones against the equipment, but there are no known cases of interference. Turn on your cell phone and try to get a connection. It won't work, unless the plane is very near the ground - because the cell towers have directional antennas that only work along the ground.
1. This thread exhibits the firefox bug
;)
2. Finally the FAA institutes a reasonable AND effective security policy. This is far more effective and far more constitutional than harassing every single passenger. It still disregards the fact that proper foresnsic science demands profiling likely suspects (yes, this means focusing on muslim extremists and travelers from Arabic countries rather than single moms, blue-haired 80-yr-old ladies, and any Americans who have never left our shores and have never expressed any interest in Islam, let alone extremist Islam)
Captcha for this post? allied. I guess the French won't be reading my post!
That diverts resources from protecting the targets that haven't been tried yet.
People responsible for mounting a reply to terrorist attacks have different agendas that their job description says. They want:
1) Not to look foolish the next time something happens.
2) To get more budget money.
Allowing the terrorists to pull the same trick twice would make the guy in charge look totally foolish, so that's why we get strip-searched at the gate. Not because it could stop a terrorist from blowing people up away from the airports. The #2 above explains why we have all those expensive and useless baggage scanners, and whatnot, and the Department of Homeland Security. I'm not sure how any of that would prevent the next half-brained terrorist from killing people...
Simply untrue. One engine was some distance from the main impact site. Burning debris and human remains were found eight miles away. And really, apart from the lies and coverup, why is the notion that it was shot down so repellant? Do you not think that that's exactly what would happen in the event of a hijacking today? And that most people would likely support such an action?
If there's the smell of a turd in here, it's coming from you, not the grandparent poster.
People keep saying this; I don't really believe it. Oh sure, it will be more difficult for hijackers to control a plane now that passengers are aware that they may be used as a WMD, but on the whole I do not think that maintaining control of the situation is beyond the abilities of a group of trained terrorists. People do not want to get hurt, much less killed, and it won't take much assurance to keep them in their seats if they believe that will keep them unharmed. All a group of hijackers has to do is reassure their victims that "all we want is to go to Cuba; of course we won't slam this plane into a building" and most people will believe them (especially if the hijackers make a few bloody examples beforehand).
Everytime I hear someone spout this new meme of how "terrorists could never take over a plane again after Sept. 11", I am reminded of the situation of the Jews in the Holocaust. It is not an exact analogy, but I think it relates. Many rumors about the attrocities and deathcamps filtered down into the ghettos; enough so that one would expect that -when the Nazis came and said "Hey Juden, get your ass into this cattle-car for a ride to Auscwitz", you would think the Nazi's all would be mobbed by a crowd of disbelieving and victimized Jews. After all, those poor souls knew they were just a train ride away from death anyway, right? But the Jews calmly and meekly stepped into the trains and, tragically, died. There was no equivilant "taken down like a quarterback getting sacked by the entire defensive line" for the Nazis. Although many Jews had a very good suscpicion that they were going to die, they desperately hung onto the hope of a few days/weeks/years more life rather than risking it against an immediate and obvious death (there were, of course, a few exceptions but on the whole the Jewish round-up went scarily easy for the Nazis).
I can't help but think that, sadly, most passengers on a hijacked plane would operate under the same principles, especially if given a chance to believe that their death was not in the hijackers plans. While it's doubtful that one or two men with box-cutters could hold a whole 747, three or four men with guns (and perhaps the threat of a bomb) probably could.
Let's not learn the wrong lessons from the Sept. 11th hijackings. Human nature is what it is and people are not suddenly going to leap to their deaths.
Alternatively, build a seperate, external door to access the cockpit and replace the internal door with a solid wall. You can push the wall back a bit and create a little suite in there so they have food and facilities during long flights. Problem solved!
Yes, because it is a 100% trivial and completely uncomplicated task to retrofit a commercial airframe with an additional door. Every cockpit has loads of empty wall space that can be used for this very purpose. You can be assured that there are absolutely no cables, wires, or other conduits running through the wall, so feel free to break out the reciprocating saw and put the new door wherever. And air pressure? It's a myth - forget about it! Oooh, how about this: maybe we can weld the original door shut and the pilot and co-pilot can just climb in through the window. It seemed to work for those southern gentlemen in the orange car...
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
...The era of "hijacking" airplanes has come to an end? At least in the west? Sure, someone might sneak the odd thing on board, but between the locked & secure cockpit doors, the lack of complacency on behalf of the passengers, the fact you have to practically strip naked to get on a plane, racial profiling, "don't fly lists" and a myriad of other "improvements" I suspect most terrorists are now saying "Oh well, it was fun while it lasted" and have given up hijacking and moved on to other things, like shooting down airplanes from the ground, smuggling in bombs in cargo containers or ?
Well a pro pilot friend of mine said that not only would the dosage need to be different for every individual on the plane, but they do not currently have a gas that is able to do this and NOT be extremely flamable!
Libertas in infinitum
Well if one is unable to use ones hands a foot trigger would then work for it wouldn't be really noticable and if they caught the flight attendent it would be too late. Plus, the fact that the terrorists on board will now have to deal with whomever is aboard, they better outnumber the rest of the passageners by at least 5 to 1 if they are going to even think of doing another 9/11 given what must have happened on flight 93. Plus the fact that smuggling sharp stuff/weapons or inporvised stuff aboard nowadays and people are smart to their plans and tactics and saying you have a bomb with only a pocket/wrist watch straped to some sort of plastic tube or bomb looking device won't work, nor the lame "hand making a gun like shape in ones pocket" never worked to begin with. Props for the heart rate idea. The cockpit door is already renforced and I belive is locked in some way. They(the terrorists) would need a hammer drill or a blow torch to cut into the renforced cockpit doors and trying to explain that to the Inpection TSA people would be hard, in not a laugh.
In most airliners some of the walls and bulkheads are punch out capable. In case of loss of cabin pressure they would rather have part of the bulkhead or wall coming off rather than the entire thing. That could potientially damage the structural integrity of the craft which a simple decompression may not do.
Libertas in infinitum
And you'll note that OKC *wasn't* a suicide attack. Suicide attacks are pretty much the halmark of Islam, that "Religion of Peace". And aircraft hijackings in the US now are going to pretty much be limited to suicide attacks.
Ergo, hijackers of US aircraft will almost certainly be Islamic.
No, all Moslems aren't terrorists. But damn near all terrorists are Islamic. And that will be true until Islam undergoes it's equivalent of a reformation. Until Islam does things like recognize the rights of women, gays, and non-Moslems as being equal to those of male Moslems they're going to stay in the 12th century.
You really need to look up "dar al-harb", "dar al-islam", and "dhimmi". Then maybe you should watch and actually listen to Al Jezeera, or maybe pop on over to http://www.memri.org/ and see what the Islamic world is really listening to and stop believing what the NY Times has to say about the world.
It's a nasty world out there - "hate" isn't what comes from Rush Limbaugh, it's what comes from those folks who deny women the right to vote, drive, or own property, subject them to genital mutilation, and consign them to being the property of some man. AFAIK I can't think of one Christian or Buddhist or Taoist or even Satanist culture on this entire planet that does all of that.
I've been reading on airline security recently. I have come to the conclusion that El-Al certainly do have the right idea about airline security and it has nothing to do with hidden or reinforced doors, which are only a part of an overall strategy.
The right idea is passenger profiling. Something they do, which is proven to work, but is regarded as "politically incorrect" or "potentially offensive" and thus vetoed by American airlines or government. Instead, they rely on all manner of technology which we now know (all too tragically) can fail badly.
El-Al tend to know the passengers aren't terrorists before they even get on the plane. That's the right idea.
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
thanks for the laugh
Most of the terrorists were here legally, so I think that the REAL threat is in allowing visitors/immigrants from the middle east at all. Whether or not it's a threat we should eliminate (and risk fostering more xenophobia and ill will) is debatable. Personally, I don't think it's possible to be truly secure without compromising our ideals (either of freedom, or of diversity and immigration--"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.") We've pissed off a lot of people in that region of the world, but it's still within our means to take away their motivation to fight us. Pull out all visible military presence (but leave behind intelligence operatives) and stop blindly supporting Israel in the UN and we'll probably never see another Muslim terrorist attack. Sucks for Israel, but they knew what they were getting into (at least they should've) when they decided to settle there.
What should be repellant is not the notion of shooting down planes that would otherwise crash somewhere they would do much damage, but the thought of the government covering this up. You shoot down a plane, goddamn it, you might as well admit it. After all, you didn't do anything wrong, really!
But, somehow, I doubt that if they really did shoot it down they would have the balls to admit it...