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US To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights From Europe (thedailybeast.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article: The Department of Homeland Security will ban laptops in the cabins of all flights from Europe to the United States, European security officials told The Daily Beast. An official announcement is expected Thursday. Initially a ban on laptops and tablets was applied only to U.S.-bound flights from 10 airports in North Africa and the Middle East. The ban was based on U.S. fears that terrorists have found a way to convert laptops into bombs capable of bringing down an airplane. It is unclear if the European ban will also apply to tablets. DHS said in a statement to The Daily Beast: "No final decisions have been made on expanding the restriction on large electronic devices in aircraft cabins; however, it is under consideration. DHS continues to evaluate the threat environment and will make changes when necessary to keep air travelers safe."
It doesn't need to be full, it just needs enough explosives that if pressed against the hull and detonated that it would rip a hole in the fuselage. The information I saw said that they had figured out how to cut a chunk of the battery out and fill it full of some explosive that's been shaped into a shaped charge, set one of the keys or switchs to detonate it.
The laptop would turn on a function like normal and would explode with enough force to breach the fuselage if pressed against the wall before being detonated. This arrangement was viewed to be virtually undetectable without disassembling the laptop. Experts that had reviewed the plans they recovered believed this was not only possible but that the groups in question were actively building these bombs. The crucial weakness is that the bomb wouldn't be strong enough to breach the fuselage if it wasn't pressed against the wall, so all you need to do is ban laptops from the passenger compartment to make the bomb worthless.