Is Your Laptop At Risk While Traveling?

Editorgirl35 writes "Here's an interesting story on DesignNews.com With last week's announcement that the British government thwarted an alleged terrorist attack planned for flights from the U.K. to the U.S., news that travelers are required to check their laptops as baggage on some flights has raised a new level of panic as they try to figure out the best way to protect their laptops."

Comments

Baggage Check?

[nurb432]

Wow, thats really safe..

Some laptops ( and most pdas ) can turn them selves on at a predetermined time.. Just estimate the time for maximum impact, laptop turns on and detonates the 'extra' battery that is made up of C4.. now you have a nice big hole in the bottom of the plane..

Re:Baggage Check?

[Aadain2001]

If that happens, instead of the plane blowing up you get the airport terminal. Either one causes damange, loss of life, and really hurts the international economy (extra 'security' at the airports). We just need to face it, there is no silver bullet or extra security measure we can take that will guarenty safty from terrorist attacks. At this point, we are getting zero returns on the extra effort and cost. I would rather go back to more customer friendly airports than have this illusion of protection we have right now.

Re:Baggage Check?

[Alien Being]

The most important thing with regard to protection against airline terrorism is that the bad guy not be allowed to take control of a 3.3 terajoule aircraft (guided missile). The solution is to lock the cockpit door. El Al understood this 30 years ago and the FAA realized that it was true on the morning of 9/11.

energy density of jet fuel
fuel capacity of a 767

( 5.62 million btu/ barrel ) * 23980 gallons == 3.3 terajoules

Re:Baggage Check?

[Aadain2001]

That's the problem with actually paying attention: once you learn just how easy the systems are to defeat, you stop buying the illusion and acknowledge the reality of our security. If someone like Bin Laden wants to attack the US again, they will. And it won't be with an airplane, it will be from a cargo ship (*cough*Seattle*cough*). Or it will be some people hiking into the US from Canada or from Mexico. It will be a home-grown terrorist (Oklahoma) or someone on the inside (USPO). However it happens, all the money and effort put into the illusion won't stop it.

If the ban persisted, business would suffer

[rufusdufus]

The ban was lifted already. As it had to be. Business travellers routinely carry laptop computers with confidential client information on them, they would be negligent if they checked them into the current baggage handling system. Forget about the laptop being damaged since it is possible to package it safely, but the possibility of lost client data would be too high of a risk.
While a permanent laptop ban would have a serious impact on certain types of businesses and travellers, it would have an even more serious impact on the airlines when their primary client base was forced to use charter aircraft.

Carry-On or Not At All

[ewhac]

"I refuse to participate in your shared hallucination." -- Dilbert

Fortunately I don't travel by air very often. And, as has been pointed out by others, the laptop ban has been lifted (wealthier, more powerful people than I have likely already informed the appropriate scaremongers what a losing proposition this was). Even so, there's no way I'm putting a laptop through checked baggage. Luggage gets lost. Luggage gets tossed around very roughly. And items are known to go "missing" from luggage.

No. Not my laptop. It stays with me, or it stays home.

Schwab

Re:Carry-On or Not At All

[grcumb]

'"I refuse to participate in your shared hallucination." -- Dilbert'

Wise words. I wish more people would live by them

I would find this whole airport security thing rather amusing, if it weren't such a pain in the tuckus. I think Bruce Schneier summed it up rather nicely in his latest Crypto-gram when he characterised all these draconian restrictions as 'Security Theatre' - something that looks like security to those who don't know any better, but ultimately has no real effect.

He also points out that if we're to learn anything from this event, it's that classical police/intelligence operations work. Authorities knew about the would-be bombers well in advance, they learned as much as they could about the cell, then shut it down before it could do damage. Biometric IDs, airport baggage checks, no-fly lists and other kinds of security theatre contributed nothing whatsoever to the outcome.

Re:Long Lines

[rufusdufus]

This is how we know that that 'terrorusts' don't want to 'kill amerkuns'. If killing was their primary goal, they could start blowing up any sort of public event that have no security like concerts, movies, town meetings, carnivals, or krispy kreme openings.
The goal is to blow up symbols to inspire fear in the populace by use of mass media. There have been bombs set in discos and the past, but those didn't effect public behavior much at all, people kept on dancin.

10 minutes * 60 passengers

[NotQuiteReal]

Please arrive at your gate 10 hours early so that our one certified laptop cavity searcher can accomodate everyone...

Not worried about damage, but theft...

[Hamster Lover]

I fly quite a bit in Canada and would never check my laptop, iPod, digital camera or anything else valuable as I would be afraid of theft more than damage. I've never had a theft, but I have heard horror stories from people, mainly international travelers, that have returned home only to find a video camera, liquor, jewelery or some other item stolen from checked luggage.

I do have a friend that works on the ramp, as it's called, stowing and retrieving bags from aircraft. He told me that theft isn't a problem domestically because they're watched so carefully with video cameras and security, but most importantly they just don't have the time or opportunity to pull someone's bag aside and rifle through it. He said international flights are a different story as bags are checked hours before the flight actually leaves, but he still doesn't think it's a big problem. I won't take my chances though and will continue to carry my digital/video camera and laptop onboard.

Re:Not worried about damage, but theft...

[abscissa]

Yup, you should be modded up.

I had a Palm Tunsgten PDA and an Apple iBook (old G3 blueberry model) stolen out of my luggage at La Guardia. Only reason I put it in there was because it was broken. I had also just bought a new iPod (thanksfully I carried it with me) but the stupid fucks stole all the iPod cables and dock, which I'm sure were worthless to them.

At the end of the day I was out the Palm PDA and the iPod stuff, and the laptop was probably worth something. Then of course, the airline folded. I suspect the only reason I lost the PDA was because the (broken) laptop was in there so the thieves decided to look harder, and of course stole the iPod power cables...

DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT, EVER put anything of any value in your luggage!!

Re: TSA stealing from luggage

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't paranoid if they really are out to get you...or your stuff:
TSA Under Fire for Rising Theft by Baggage Screeners

"It's a huge security threat," said aviation industry consultant Michael Boyd. "If we've got the kind of people who would steal things out of bags, we're not sure if we have people on the job who will put things into bags. And obviously we don't have enough scrutiny of the bags once they're checked. It's huge."

As someone who travels to Latin America...

[ChePibe]

As someone who gets to Latin America every once in a while (thus the name...), I would NEVER check my laptop, electronics, or ANYTHING of value in my baggage. NEVER.

Theft occurs often enough in the U.S. to make me at the very least give serious pause... in Latin America? In Argentina, for example, a country where you have almost no hope of receiving anything more than a disposable camera in the mail, there is NO way I would entrust my laptop to their baggage handlers, not to mention my camera, iPod, etc.

It looks like the security is being toned down a little bit now, and I hope and pray it stays at the present level.

I would also appreciate it if people would stop planning to blow up airplanes - can y'all just knock that off, please? Thanks, guys.

Re:Soln: Profile passengers, or go on pretending.

[bursch-X]

Not all Muslims are terrorists, but nearly all terrorists are Muslims.

Sure, and everyone eating Sauerkraut and wearing Lederhosen must be a German, if you see someone wearing a ten-gallon hat and chew chewing gum it must be an American, Asian in school uniform an naked? It's definitely a Japanese.

To adjust your splendid world view, here's some food for thought http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_org anisations.

And thus justify the extremists...

[the_raptor]

By doing that all you would achieve would be to justify the extremists claims that the west is persecueting Islam, thus gaining them even more support. Where do you go from there? About the only place to go is to take Muslims out behind the chemical sheds and shoot them, because you will have guaranteed even more terrorist attacks by a persecuted population. This is because security will never be good enough to stop a determined attacker, as that would cost so much money that air travel would cease to be economically viable.

Oh and flashback to last century anyone?

"Guarantee? No, but prohibiting Irish Catholics from going into pubs (or at least giving them an extra-thorough level of scrutiny) will make a huge improvement. Religion is the single defining characteristic of modern terrorists who seek to destroy pubs full of patrons. And it's not Scientologists or Mormans we're talking about here, it's Irish Catholics.

Not all Irish Catholics are terrorists, but nearly all terrorists are Irish Catholic. And quite a large percentage are sympathizers as demonstrated by recent polls in America showing support for the recently foiled plot to kill a few thousand British in pubs. Call it flamebait if you want, but it is true. Nearly all pub bombings and intentional attacks on civilians have been done in the name of Irish Republicanism (which is nearly exclusively Irish Catholic). The world can go on pretending that's not the case, but until we are willing to at least identify the well-defined group of people responsible for most of this mayhem, increased security will be a pipe dream."

Re:Soln: Profile passengers, or go on pretending.

[Skrynesaver]

To bring up a bit of history, (Those who don't learn it are forced to repeat it and all that).

• The IRA were a small group of nutters in the mid 60's.
• The civil rights movement were demanding all sorts of outrageous things like equal access to education, employment and housing.
• The Northern Ireland statelet was discriminatory to it's core.
• Police and pseudo-military police were used to baton charge peaceful civil rights protestors
• The IRA "was standing up to them" unlike those dippy civil rights types
• The IRA gained lots of angry young recruits
• After 30 years of pointless bloodshed the civil rights demands are being met. Though a lot of hatred has been alowed to develop in the interm

If were honest about the way Palestinians have been treated we'd realise that we in the west are setting up a similar scenario on a larger scale and as a previous poster said in the end we'll have to talk to Hezbolah & Hamas, or if we hang on a while longer a more extreme group will be sure to come along.

Not high enough capacity?

[Silver Sloth]

Using trains to deliver bombs has been described in great (fictional) detail in 'A Big Boy Did And Ran Away' by Christopher Brookmyer.

Simply put:-

• Board train with suitcase filled with explosives at any station - minimal security.
• Leave suitcase in suitable location and leave train. Here in the UK no one would touch it
• Use timer/gps to detonate bomb at suitable location. Suggestions given were:-
  • As train passes suitable military base
  • As train passes through suitable urban area

And even without the gps/timer aspect, consider what would happen if a bomb went of in a major rail station of your choice in a city of your choice during the rush hour. Remember 7/7/05? Those were baby bombs delivered by amateurs.