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Why the FAA May Finally Relax In-Flight Device Rules
Nick Bilton at the New York Times has been writing skeptically for years about the FAA's ban on even the most benign electronic devices during takeoff and landing on commercial passenger flights. He writes in the NYT's Bits column about the gradual transformation that may (real soon now) result in slightly more sensible rules; a committee established to review some of those in-flight rules has recommended the FAA ease up, at least on devices with no plausible negative effect on navigation. From the article: "The New York Times employed EMT Labs, an independent testing facility in Mountain View, Calif., to see if a Kindle actually gave off enough electromagnetic emissions to affect a plane. The findings: An Amazon Kindle emitted less than 30 microvolts per meter when in use. That is only 0.00003 of a volt. A Boeing 747 must withstand 200 volts per square meter. That is millions of Kindles packed into each square meter of the plane. Still, the F.A.A. said “No.” ... But then something started to change: society." Of course, the rules that committees recommend aren't always the ones that prevail on the ground or in the sky.
If a malfunctioning kindle can generate enough RF to possibly interfere with a plane, then a malicious attacker could *certainly* interfere with a plane. If a device running on a few watts of power can fuck up a plane this badly then I don't want to get on it.
I'd be more concerned with a bunch of cell phones, each with a GPS receiver built in, interfering with the aircraft's GPS based systems.
You can rest assured that that scenario has been thoroughly tested. When the flight attendants tell people to shut off their electronic devices and stow them, many if not most people simply shut off the screen, believing that means "off", or simply not giving a damn. The GPS and cell functions continue merrily running for the whole flight, including takeoff and landing. Since planes aren't falling out of the sky already, it's almost certainly safe enough.
A lot of people have no clue what "airplane mode" is or what it's for, and there probably are also a lot people who have no inkling of even how to actually power down their phones. None of this is enforced anyway, beyond checking that someone isn't blatantly operating a screen.