What To Do If the Laptop Ban Goes Global (backchannel.com)

"The U.S. is reportedly seriously considering a greatly expanded ban on laptops in airplane cabins," writes Slashdot reader mirandakatz -- sharing some advice from Dan Gillmor. If the government still allows laptops to be checked in with luggage, "the priority will be to discourage tampering and mitigate the risks associated with theft," he writes, envisioning that "If I have to check mine, I'll pack it in bubble wrap and tape, and do some other things to make it evident if someone has tampered with the machine." But of course there's other precautions: [W]e can travel with bare-bones operating system setups, with as little personal or business data as possible (preferably none at all) on the laptop's internal disk drive. When we arrive and get back online, we can work mostly in browsers and retrieve what we need from cloud storage for the specific applications that have to run "locally" on the PC... You might also get a Chromebook for international travel. Chromebooks run Google's Chrome operating system and keep pretty much all data in Google's cloud. So you could carry a bare Chromebook through a border, go online, and retrieve the information you need. You have to completely trust Google with this method...

[The article also suggests encrypting the hard disk -- along with your phone -- or carrying an external drive.] I use the Ubuntu operating system, and this simplifies creating a special travel setup. In preparation for international hassles, I've put a copy of my OS and essential data files on an encrypted USB thumb drive, which holds 256 gigabytes of data... If I've forgotten to load some specific files, and I have them backed up in the cloud, I can always go there.
Because of all the additional security procedures, he utlimately predicts higher ticket prices, fewer business travellers, and, according to Bruce Schneier, "a new category of 'trusted travelers' who are allowed to carry their electronics onto planes."

Comments

Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, who the heck trusts that their laptop would not be seriously damaged or stolen if they check it in their baggage? I've had things that were MUCH LESS fragile than a laptop completely destroyed in checked baggage.

Re:Theft and Damage

[jfdavis668]

I check my laptop in my baggage every time I fly overseas. I'm not interested in working on the flight. Never had a problem with it. You do have to properly pack it. I have a case specifically made to pack it into your luggage for protection. You can't just throw it on top and close the bag and expect it to survive.

Re:Theft and Damage

[Known Nutter]

Agreed. I put my laptop it its bag -- one of those thick ass Dell bags -- and toss it into my luggage. I've never had an issue.

Re:Theft and Damage

[AmazingRuss]

That's if you're lucky enough to ever see it again.

Re:Theft and Damage

[angel'o'sphere]

Just a few years ago a MAFIA ring exactly doing that was arrested.
They had stollen millions of dollars worth of cameras, laptops, money, jewlary from air plane cargo.
Of course they were employees of the relevant air lines.

Re:Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

I check my laptop in my baggage every time I fly overseas. I'm not interested in working on the flight. Never had a problem with it. You do have to properly pack it. I have a case specifically made to pack it into your luggage for protection. You can't just throw it on top and close the bag and expect it to survive.

This concept is fairly secure, when your checked bag is 1 out of 100 with a laptop in it.

A massive ban would mean that damn near every piece of checked baggage would have a laptop in it, which increases the overall risk of theft considerably.

Re:Theft and Damage

[thegarbz]

Never had a problem with it.

The correct phrase is "Haven't had a problem yet". The more your fly the more likely you'll end up hitting that wonderful statistics of over 10,000 claims against the TSA for stolen checked baggage items per year.

But really I bet the insurance companies are rubbing their hands together at the prospect of people literally fearing checking items into baggage. Hell given the actual state of my suitcases some times I doubt anything that isn't soft cloth can survive some of those idiots.

Then you end up with stories like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... And a dedicated guitar case can normally survive a shitload of abuse.

Re: Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

I use to travel with 75lb computer in a card board. No problems except rolling in the back door of a hotel with DEMs meeting. SS hated that.

Now all on a single 1TB SSS via USB3 encrypted. No problems. Can boot and run on any machine. Small enough to be in my pocket. Do not need phone either.

Connected world is so much better

Re:Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

I once had to put my laptop in the hold when Ryanair decided that there would be no cabin luggage. Needless to say, the fluorescent tubes for the LCD got smashed.

Re:Theft and Damage

[Opportunist]

You also never had any room for other luggage, I get it?

Re: Theft and Damage

[Charlotte]

I check my laptop all the time. No issues.

Re: Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we do ignorant bigots next???

Re:Theft and Damage

[Hadlock]

Depends on what class of laptop you buy. Did you buy the $399 15" laptop at best buy, or did you buy the $1200 business class laptop (thinkpad, elitebook, XPS etc). I have 30K air miles, 3000 sea miles and probably 200,000 road miles in my 2012-era, i5 Thinkpad over 5 years and wouldn't hesitate to check it for fear of damage. It gets used as a book stop, coffee coaster, paper weight and everything inbetween when not in use.

Re:Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

> Honestly, who the heck trusts that their laptop would not be seriously damaged or stolen if they check it in their baggage? I've had things that were MUCH LESS fragile than a laptop completely destroyed in checked baggage.

Let's get real, shall we?

China/Russia either learned how to bypass spy tech ("remote management") and probably has its own now. The USA is "afraid, very afraid" of that -- because they know what it enables.

So they want you to use American notes with all the known gizmos they put inside.

Re:Theft and Damage

[dgatwood]

I managed to get damage to a trombone inside a hard case, when the airline dropped it so hard that one of the corners broke off the case. So to the question of whether I would ever trust by laptop to an airline's care, the answer isn't just no, but, "Oh, f**king h**l, no. Not even if they agreed in advance to treble damages with a million-dollar cap."

Re:Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to bring canned tuna from Italy (let's not go into why) in my luggage. It is hard to imagine an event or force that would harm a can of tuna. However, the airport baggage tossers have managed to mangle one batch into some rather startling shapes recently. No way would I subject a laptop to any of that.

Re:Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

2012, so it still has the tricolor IBM logo, and could be bulletproof as well. (So I've heard)

Re:Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if it's not damaged or stolen, it might end up having spyware put on it.

Re:Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because that is like labeling it with a giant sticker that says "anal gruel". Kind of ingenious actually

Re:Theft and Damage

[nedlohs]

That's just being stupidly redundant. "Had" is past tense and thus already includes "yet" by its very definition.

Re:Theft and Damage

[Duds]

I flew Air Canada recently and they specifically ban you checking laptops.

So who knows what the hell they will do.

Re:Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing wrong with that phrase. You wasted your time saying that.

Re:Theft and Damage

[jittles]

Honestly, who the heck trusts that their laptop would not be seriously damaged or stolen if they check it in their baggage? I've had things that were MUCH LESS fragile than a laptop completely destroyed in checked baggage.

I had four pounds of chocolate stolen out of a checked bag once upon a time. Seriously. The bag was checked, it was locked, and there was a $400 bottle of scotch in the bag as well. They cut my lock off, ate or disposed of all 4 pounds of chocolate, and then put the lock inside of the center most paper wrapper of the top 1 pound box of chocolate.

Re:Theft and Damage

[MercTech]

You go to loading ramp check in of electronics. The danger is less of gorilla handling of your baggage and you don't have it in the cabin.

Yep, backtracking to the 90s when a laptop in a bag was a hard fit in the cabin bins, there was no in flight connectivity, and the batteries would only actually last half way through a two hour flight.

Re:Theft and Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

Just today i picked up my checked baggage and it was noticeably damp after we had dismal, heavy rain at our origin. I normally only put clothes in checked, so nothing lost and i'll just wash them again, but i'm not looking forward to any future where you have to rig up a waterproof case to travel somewhere with a laptop.

Re:Theft and Damage

[syntotic]

WHO EXACTLY is the US Government in this issue? Another Arab? Indian? AFRICAN? Or one of their TOTEMS, carefully selected to be undiscernible to anything but those groups interests? It is a typical strategy, as long as they have ONE classic American, it is the Age of Stone (real stone, not computers) and Middle East and we have to say it is the USA and it is Americans because the Totem is justifying it all... on Middle East, Afroasian Age of Stone reasons he himself thinks are Occident... SURELY there is another solution to this problem. The thieves of my laptops will have some trouble MAYBE, but it also GROUNDS ME TOTALLY.

Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[religionofpeas]

My plan is to avoid travel by plane as much as I can. And if I really have to travel, then I'm going to leave my laptop at home. I don't trust the baggage handlers not to steal it, so checking in is not an option.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[shmlco]

Sounds like an opportunity for some enterprising company to offer laptop rentals at airports. Pick it up when you arrive, drop it back off on the return.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[jfdavis668]

Since this only applies to flights to foreign countries, it's hard to avoid travel by plane. Not many steamship lines still in existence.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[shmlco]

Also, stuff like this is just going to push development of autonomous vehicles and their use for business travel and vacation travel even faster.

Won't help for really long-distance or overseas travel, of course, but for regional travel why not bypass all of the airport/airline/TSA BS?

Get in your car the night before, tell it to take you to some other city, then take a nap and wake up when you get there. No lines, no security, and no having to get to the airport two hours ahead of time "just in case"... only to find your flight's been delayed two hours.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Hognoxious]

The TSA could run it using the ones they've stolen.

Obviously it would require some record keeping in case someone actually gets their own machine back and makes a fuss, not that anything would happen because even cardboard cops are part of the ingroup..

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Hognoxious]

A fair number of cargo shops have limited space for passengers. I understand the conditions are a bit spartan and there's not much entertainment, plus it might take a week to cross the Atlantic.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Sounds like an opportunity for some enterprising company to offer laptop rentals at airports.

Some airline is already experimenting with providing laptop loaners for free to business and first class passengers.

Of course, most corporate IT Security folks would rightly ban that for their employees. Given the amount of industrial and personal espionage performed by the NSA, CIA and their pals . . . most folks should just stay away from this anyway.

Hmmm . . . maybe airlines need to offer more options for passengers willing to pay more for tickets? Like, Muslims are banned, but laptops are allowed (the Trump policy) . . . ? No screaming babies or fat folks blubbering over to your side of the seat . . . ?

Banning laptops is not going to "fly well." Business folks, who make more profits for the airlines will cut back on flying. A monthly intercontinental trip will become a quarterly one. When their profits are hurt, the airlines will shit-can the laptop ban.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[__aaclcg7560]

The NY Times had an article on taking a cargo ship from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes for a week. Sounds like fun.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/travel/great-lakes-montreal-minnesota.html

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Richard_at_work]

Uh, you don't need to hop on a freighter to cross the Atlantic, there are still scheduled passenger liners plying the Atlantic routes, and a crossing can take as little as three days in decent luxury.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[AHuxley]

Most nations security services would load that up with their own hardware. Even with a new OS, that service will be logging everything.
Or be waiting for it to show on any of their national networks for later inspection and access.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[religionofpeas]

Since this only applies to flights to foreign countries, it's hard to avoid travel by plane

There are a couple within distance of train/car, and I can avoid nearly all the others.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[TheRealMindChild]

What good will that do anyone? I'd certainly never trust entering my passwords into the likes of a rented laptop. Neither should anyone else.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[angel'o'sphere]

Most cargo ships have passenger cabins.
And they are faster than passenger ships anyway.

Re: Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

The airlines don't really get a say. It's the government that makes these rules. More likely, there will be a "trusted laptop" or "trusted device" program that you pay to be a part of

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Alypius]

For domestic flights, you could always check your laptop with your firearm (even a starter pistol qualifies). The items in the case are inventoried at both ends of the flight and the law requires a keyed padlock (no TSA locks).

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Jason1729]

The cruise industry makes most of the world reachable by sea. Cunard (who owned the Lusitania) has never stopped their transatlantic service for example. You can cross the atlantic in 5 hours crammed like a sardine in a tin can (after enduring hours of torture and a prostate exam at the airport) or in 7 days on a luxury ocean liner with all entertainment and food included.....For about the same price.

For most people, and obviously all business travellers, 7 days at sea is a deal breaker. For vacationers with plenty of time on their hands, it really isn't a bad option.

Also you sound pretty ignorant when you say not many steamship lines still in existence. The lines are still around, with modern Diesel ships that are every bit as sophisticated as an aircraft carrier.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Hognoxious]

Put your favourite live distro on a usb stick. Boot from that, or if you're there more than a few days install it over the existing OS.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

My plan is to avoid travel by plane as much as I can.

This is the only possible response. I'd like to say that the US can't possibly be that stupid as it will seriously hurt business, but since 2001 the US has proven that there's no levels of stupid that it won't try.

It's not just laptops--it's anything bigger than a cell phone. Sure, it's possible to work with a cell phone under certain fairly limited circumstances, but it's ridiculous to have to as well. There's no way I'd travel for business or even personal reasons if I can't have a notebook with me.

Checking it is ridiculous. They don't want you locking luggage except with useless locks, so that's right out. That, and letting a notebook out of your control on a trip like that is just asking for law enforcement to tamper with it. Sure, it's already pretty much a requirement to keep anything you don't want them seeing encrypted on a server you access from your destination and not on your notebook, but controlling the base hardware is an absolute must because when you decrypt it you have to trust the platform.

No, the only possible response to this is to hit businesses where it hurts in response. Cut out international travel completely and since governments are corrupt and controlled by business let THEM take care of repealing this or preventing it from going into place at all. It's the only way.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Highdude702]

I thought exactly what you did, live USB stick. Then i thought about what GP said

Most nations security services would load that up with their own hardware.

There is really no way to get past a HW key logger with software. And if its encrypted, they get not only your physical passwords, but also they keys in memory. Hardware that is not your own is not to be trusted.

Re: Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. You sign up, bring your laptop in, they put a sticker on it, and you pay a subscription. In a few years, you also agree not to run any encryption on it that the government has no master key for.

They will probably make it a prereq to be on their "pre-check" lists.

TSA: so clearly worthwhile that you have to pay taxes for the right to pay a fee for the right to be bothered by them slightly less. The very best in security theater!

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[MangoCats]

I carry an outdated 64GB USB stick inside by company badge, could as easily go with me through airport security. Everything that matters can fit on the USB stick and be restored to virtually any new system, if you bother to configure things to properly restore and backup.

Seems like an opportunity for a software company to make a generic backup/restore tool for this purpose... they might make a few million before Microsoft notices and folds the functionality into Windows 19.

Re: Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[kenh]

maybe airlines need to offer more options for passengers willing to pay more for tickets? Like, Muslims are banned, but laptops are allowed (the Trump policy) . . . ?

For pete's sake, you're trying to claim Trump wants to allow laptops on planes when the discussion is about a Trump administration ban on laptops on flights?

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Opportunist]

And considering how you travel by plane these days, you're already used to travel like freight anyway.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Get in your car the night before, tell it to take you to some other city, then take a nap and wake up when you get there. No lines, no security, and no having to get to the airport two hours ahead of time "just in case"... only to find your flight's been delayed two hours.

Police: "Car 223435454, you have a known criminal to the state of [insert state name here] onboard. You are ordered to drive to the nearest law enforcement officer immediately for arrest of the criminal."

Car: "Yes, master. Recalculating route...."

*Later*

You: "*Zzzzz*"

Police: "Wake up."

You: "... Huh??? What's going on?"

Police: "You are under arrest for attempting to avoid police scrutiny, which is considered to be an act of Terrorism. You should be glad we didn't tell the car to drive you to straight to Gitmo. Heheheh."

Car: "You have arrived at your destination."

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just check the cheapest laptop that you can find, so it isn't that big a loss and can be cheaply replaced if it's stolen. Of course, that doesn't work if you need a lot of computational horsepower on your trip.

Re: Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually an economically actionable idea in the event this goes down. Good thought!

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Ol Olsoc]

A fair number of cargo shops have limited space for passengers. I understand the conditions are a bit spartan and there's not much entertainment, plus it might take a week to cross the Atlantic.

I've been told the food is really good. I'd like to try the trip some time, since even in retirement, my schedule is pretty hectic. Wonder if the cargo ships have wifi?

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us have more sense than money.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only one specific foreign country: the US.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[pjt33]

Depends on the context. You have to do a threat and risk analysis for the given circumstances. When I spent four months travelling in South America a dozen years ago I needed to be able to ssh into my home computer for e-mail, so I created a USB stick with putty and a password-protected key pair. My reasoning was that even if the Internet cafés I visited had keyloggers (plausible) they were less likely to be set up to automatically copy the contents of the stick, and the operator of the keylogger (whether the owners or another customer) probably wouldn't have a clue what ssh is anyway. I considered it an acceptable risk.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[dgatwood]

Some airline is already experimenting with providing laptop loaners for free to business and first class passengers.

What!?! How could a loaner laptop be even slightly useful? Nearly everything I do with my laptop requires installing hundreds of dollars in software, much of which allows a limited number of installations, thus making it infeasible to install it on a loaner even if I wanted to. And even if I could get past the installation limit, it would still take the better part of an hour with a fast Internet connection just to get the software installed. And you almost certainly wouldn't have a fast Internet connection on a plane, which means you'd have to somehow do that on the ground....

And then, there's Xcode. No installation limit, but you would start installing it on one coast and it would just about be done installing when you got to the other coast.

Anyone who could realistically use a loaner laptop could also just as easily use an iPad, because their needs can't possibly be much more than web browsing. And if that's all you're going to use the laptop for on the flight, what's the point of having one at all? The airline might as well just glue a $100 Android tablet to the back of every seat and be done with it.

No, a loaner laptop, even ignoring the completely nightmarish IT security implications, would be utterly useless, and the only thing such a ban will do is create an instant market for private flight sharing programs. Perhaps call one Lyft With Lift....

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

But most vacationers don't have that much time to waste in the middle of the atlantic. Your 7 days turns into 14 days allowing for return, leaving most people no time at their destination.

You may as well drive to Florida/California/NY and take a cruise, where you get the same time at sea with food etc. plus nicer weather (normally) and brief port calls.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[quetwo]

I used to fly with a flare gun all the time in my checked luggage. Flare guns are allowed in every state (and even traveling to Canada), require no permits and allow you to follow the TSA "gun" policy. My lock, hard-sided case, fully real-time traceable, and if the airline looses it, they get fined $250,000 -- so they make sure they actually keep track of it. It takes an additional 5 minutes to check-in, and most of the time your luggage will be first off with somebody waiting with it (except for the smallest airports, where you have to go to the luggage office to sign for it). No additional cost to do it except for Spirit.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[CohibaVancouver]

How could a loaner laptop be even slightly useful?

Your use case is way outside the norm. Watch most people on a flight. They work through their email inbox and 'do spreadsheets.'

That sort of thing can be easily done with a thumb drive and WiFi.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[ChunderDownunder]

Swap the SSD.

With Linux you can take the hard drive out of one machine and run it on another. It need not be the same model even. Kernel modules will be dynamically loaded for the hardware detected at boot.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[gordguide]

That is probably an excellent solution. Unfortunately if the practice becomes well known, authorities will counter with methods to defeat it. A simple regulation requiring only firearms and/or ammunition in the case would be all it would take.

Great ideas, in the internet age, are best kept to yourself. The better the idea, the faster it becomes well known, and the sooner it is countered. Your best approach would be to continue with your practice but tell no one, so that you may continue to use it in the future.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally love this idea. Same goes for getting around Europe by train. US is a little more difficult to do. Bonus is you avoid the jet lag as well. As long as you can work remotely the 7 day crossing isn't a deal breaker at all.

If you are truly lucky you can fly space-A (cargo) with the Air Force. (Retired) You set up your laptop and a sleeping bag/air mattress on the floor and enjoy the crossing without all the bullshit of flying commercial.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[AHuxley]

Yes that https://theintercept.com/2017/... (March 8 2017)
Why just go for sound and vision. If a user is connecting a computer too, any nation could request to set up all the smart tv devices in their must trusted hotels.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no need to avoid air travel al together.

Flying in countries that still respect freedom still allow you to have your laptop with you.

Just do what sane rational people do, simply avoid the USA.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

From respected Brand "NSA", "CIA", "FBI"

No need to worry if it gets stolen, they are already tracking it.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[berberine]

I get 10 days vacation per year. I'm not going to waste six of them getting to my destination. I suspect many other people are in my position as well.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Alypius]

Yep, if a gun-like appliance is a non-starter (e.g. travel within New York, CA, or some other police state), you can always get an el-cheapo (~$10) box of 9mm ammo. Same flight rules apply and a lot cheaper!

Re: Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you work, but where I worked even the possiblity of third parties seeing the data would be an automatic firing. If the boss was in a bad mood, you'd be looking at criminal charges, as well as a civil fine.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

>>My plan is to avoid travel by plane as much as I can. And if I really have to travel, then I'm going to leave my laptop at home. I don't trust the baggage handlers not to steal it, so checking in is not an option.

My plan also.....and any overseas flights will be from a Canadian airport.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[antdude]

What about work travel that requires your work laptop? :(

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[CeasedCaring]

"What about work travel that requires your work laptop? :("

1: Do NO work on the flight. Read a book instead.
2: Have the destination office provide you a laptop, already loaded with your needed programs.
3: VPN to home office & download your data from there.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[dgatwood]

Your use case is way outside the norm. Watch most people on a flight. They work through their email inbox and 'do spreadsheets.'

Almost all of which, as I said, could be done almost as easily on your cell phone without paying for a laptop rental.

People who do simple stuff that you can do on a cell phone won't pay for a laptop rental because it isn't worth the money just for a slightly bigger screen to read your email. People who do real work won't pay for laptop rental because isn't useful without all your software preinstalled. So who do they think would actually pay for such a service?

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[dgatwood]

Personally, I like the idea of just leaving a desktop computer connected to the Internet and using screen sharing from a rental laptop while onboard the plane. It will bring the in-flight wireless to its knees, of course—particularly if more than one person is forced to do that—but perhaps that's one of the thoughts that should be running through the heads of the airline CEOs when deciding whether to sue the TSA and demand an injunction against any such laptop restrictions on domestic flights. Just saying.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Rozzin]

I used to fly with a flare gun all the time in my checked luggage. Flare guns are allowed in every state (and even traveling to Canada), require no permits and allow you to follow the TSA "gun" policy. My lock, hard-sided case, fully real-time traceable, and if the airline looses it, they get fined $250,000 -- so they make sure they actually keep track of it. It takes an additional 5 minutes to check-in, and most of the time your luggage will be first off with somebody waiting with it (except for the smallest airports, where you have to go to the luggage office to sign for it). No additional cost to do it except for Spirit.

That is probably an excellent solution. Unfortunately if the practice becomes well known, authorities will counter with methods to defeat it. A simple regulation requiring only firearms and/or ammunition in the case would be all it would take.

I remember when laptops containing encryption software were munitions....

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you assuming that everyone is a developer ? Writing a report can be done on Google Docs with just a browser. Exchanging email, working on a spreadsheet... Not everyone needs $1000 software.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

I looked up a few transatlantic cruises. Funny story: they tend to want to sell you a plane ride back at the end of the trip.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[mjwx]

My plan is to avoid travel by plane as much as I can. And if I really have to travel, then I'm going to leave my laptop at home. I don't trust the baggage handlers not to steal it, so checking in is not an option.

My plan is to sit back and wait for business travellers to raise hell. Here in Europe, train travel will eat air travels lunch even though air is faster (spending 2 hours waiting in airport lines here in Europe is rare) so the airlines will start raising hell after that. After the parties have lost so much funding, the ban will be revoked and all will be well.

Its amazing how short some people's memories are, after 9/11 they tried to entertain the idea of a laptop ban. This idea was quickly slapped down by business travellers and airlines.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Already doing that. I find it interesting that nobody has addressed the real reason for the laptop ban to begin with- the fact that it is drop dead easy to rewire a lithium-ion battery to become an IED.

Re: Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Marxist Hacker 42]

If the Muslim ban in place, then the reason for the laptop ban goes away entirely.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Gilgaron]

You can leave your laptop at home when vacationing... 6 extra days of paid time while traveling for work but not actually being able to get work done sounds fine to me.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[unixisc]

If that's your use case, then while working on the flight would be out of the question, a better idea would be to leave your main computer online & connected to the office (if it's not there already), take the remote laptop, securely login to your main computer and work from there.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[nasch]

If you think working on email and spreadsheets is almost as easy with a phone as a PC, some possibilities spring to mind:

- you have an amazing phone that I need to know more about
- you have never done those tasks on a phone
- you have never done those tasks on a PC
- you have a different definition of "almost" than I do
- your PC is broken
- you're very bad at using a PC and really really good at using a phone

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[nasch]

Also sounds like something most employers are not going to agree to.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[nasch]

He explicitly mentioned that: "For most people, and obviously all business travellers, 7 days at sea is a deal breaker."

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[nasch]

The lines are still around, with modern Diesel ships that are every bit as sophisticated as an aircraft carrier.

I don't know about that, a lot of aircraft carriers are nuclear powered. I think that complexity outweighs the hot tubs that are missing from the carriers. And then there are the catapult systems and aircraft elevators. Probably more extensive fire suppression systems, point defense systems, probably a bunch of stuff I don't know about...

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[orgelspieler]

I had the good fortune to sit next to a lady and her daughter for whom this was their first commercial flight (unfortunately for them it was Frontier). They were used to flying on USAF planes like you said, sleeping bags and all. The lady had been so mistreated on this trip (by shitty Frontier employees, who excel at being dicks), that she wanted a drink when we got in the air. Of course her wallet was in her purse, which was overhead (front row coach), and they wouldn't let her out. I bought her drink. I regaled her with the horrors of commercial flying (especially Frontier, which is just the worst), and she told me all about being an Air Force family. The daughter and I swapped iPads for part of the flight, too. She got to play the evolving shark game, and I got to play some twitch game. It was a pleasant end to a vacation that had gotten off to a rocky start (did I mention Frontier sucks?).

Re: Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Chromebooks would be cheaper.
Heatherow has a Dixon's. Amazing, I saw a good number of people buying laptops the one time I was there. In the. USA, plenty of stores selling cheap laptops.

Re: Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Then let your employer ptovide a laptop for you to use. Let the employer take the risk or provide a laptop at your destination.

When you return home, it might be a good option to find another, better employer.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[balbeir]

I recently did fly from the USA over Istanbul and I could experience it first hand.

Turkish Airlines did only require you to check in your laptop at the gate before getting on the plane to the USA.

It wasn't very well organized so it took about 30 minutes but they did bubble wrap everyone's electronics, noted down a description and gave you a tag. Arriving in the US there was a stand at the luggage carousel where you could go pick up your laptop. Again this required some standing in line.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Richard_at_work]

You really *really* need a better employer then - my last full time job (I'm now self employed) came with 25 days holiday plus public holidays.

And when you take a transatlantic liner, thats part of the holiday. Its an experience in itself - try it some time.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Richard_at_work]

What sort of weak ass employment law do you work under where you can't take holiday time and expect to be undisturbed...?

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[nasch]

There are definitely people who cannot take vacation without being in contact with work, though I don't know how much of that is them being unwilling to just not answer the phone/email and how much is actual employer expectations. However I was responding to this:

6 extra days of paid time while traveling for work

To me that means the employer pays for the time on the boat as part of the business trip, not a vacation. I don't think many companies would be willing to foot that bill.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Toilets for 8000 people (on the cruise ship and aircraft carrier) are a bit more complex than an aircraft elevator.

And not all aircraft carriers are nuclear.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[toddestan]

The cruise ships that are in Europe and the Mediterranean in the summer often go to the Caribbean in the winter. Since they have to send the ships across the ocean anyway, they figure they might turn it into a cruise and make some money. So that's why they tend to be one-way, because the ships usually only cross the ocean twice a year.

Re:Avoid travel or leave laptop at home

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps this is the plan. Places like the Soviet Union or North Korea banned people from travelling overseas. The current US government wants to do the same, but they can't implement exit visas, that would be too obvious. Instead, they make it so painful to travel that people don't want to travel.

They'll get all the benefits of a locked-in population with no one blaming them.

Tablet rentals within the passenger cabin

[Anonymous Coward]

Prolly loaded with crapware, coming 3.. 2.. 1..

Re:Tablet rentals within the passenger cabin

[fustakrakich]

The units built into the seat backs will serve. And now, with more convenient spacing, it will be much easier to reach the touchscreen. The tray table, which is now jabbing your chest, will be the keyboard.

Useless suggestions

[Anonymous Coward]

None of this will work with BIOS malware installed over ThunderBolt. Who knows what software attacks we don't know about yet. Glitter nail polish is fun and "cool story, bro," but why do you think tamper-proofing works on an adversary with unlimited time and tool-funding to attack your specific model, and, for example, how do you expect to tamper-proof your keyboard?

These responses aren't threat-proportionate. If the laptop has been out of your physical control it's less trustworthy. If it's been out of your control in a golden tampering opportunity like baggage, where it's tagged to you, it's moving so it's easy to set up Room 641A's to hide methods and employee identities, and the place is saturated with federal authority, constitutional suspension of searching everything because "safety" and spying on everything because "foreign," it would be hard for me to conscience not throwing it out.

Re:Useless suggestions

[dgatwood]

That's why, as someone else already mentioned, the right workaround (ignoring the huge inconvenience of not being able to work during the flight itself) would be to buy a gun (even a starter pistol) and store it (properly declared and unloaded) in a checked lockbox along with your laptop.

Of course, if everyone who owned a laptop did this, the TSA would probably implode from the extra workload of handling that many hand inspections, but that's not my problem; that's something for the total newbie TSA people who naïvely proposed a no-laptops-onboard policy to solve.

Do it the old fashioned way...

[__aaclcg7560]

The last time I took an airplane trip I took a dead tree notebook instead of my laptop. No hassle in getting that through airport security. It didn't hurt that I was away from the Internet for a whole week.

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[Vermonter]

Encrypting your dead tree notebook must have taken forever

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[__aaclcg7560]

Encrypting your dead tree notebook must have taken forever

No encryption. I write in Engrish. For the high school grads in the TSA, my notebook is non-threatening because it looks like college-level English that they can't understand.

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[Anonymous Coward]

So how was the service in the cargo hold?

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[Hognoxious]

I'm a doctor you insensitive clod, my handwritings already encrypted!

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[Strider-]

Just don't have any threatening math in your notebook.

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[__aaclcg7560]

Just don't have any threatening math in your notebook.

I write Roman numerals instead of Arabic numerals. ;)

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[Anonymous Coward]

So how was the service in the cargo hold?

... you mum was great for the mile high club ...

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[Jason1729]

ROT-13 is plenty strong enough for the purpose. Heck, ROT-26 may actually be suitable.

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of a complete idiot modded this troll? I'd mod it up but I've posted non-AC to this thread.

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[thegarbz]

The last time I took an airplane trip I took a dead tree notebook instead of my laptop. No hassle in getting that through airport security. It didn't hurt that I was away from the Internet for a whole week.

Can it play 1080p feature length movies? Or are you limited to the sketches on the edge of the paper played back at 10fps and limited to 100 frames?

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[__aaclcg7560]

Or are you limited to the sketches on the edge of the paper played back at 10fps and limited to 100 frames?

I took a notebook. I didn't take a tablet. :P

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can your brain recognize the letters in a book and then translate them into ideas and the construct a picture/movie from them? Or are you limited by birth?

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[Anonymous Coward]

So how was the service in the cargo hold?

... you mum was great for the mile high club ...

You dug up my mum?

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[n329619]

Well, at least you're a doctor that can decrypt your encrypted writing.

I couldn't even get mine to decrypt after I encrypted them.

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[mjwx]

Encrypting your dead tree notebook must have taken forever

Have you seen the state of my writing, I put most doctors to shame. Encryption is built in.

Re:Do it the old fashioned way...

[Anonymous Coward]

He is writing in Code! ARREST HIM!!!

The reason given makes absolutely no sense

[Anonymous Coward]

If the explanation about a risk from laptops were the real reason for the ban, then the obvious solution would be to remove all of the Li-ion batteries from the laptops and to ban ALL electronics including iPhone 8+ and Samsung 8+ which do not have removable batteries and yet which are dangerous enough according to EgyptAir Flight 804 in 2016.

But that solution is not being used. Therefore, the real reason cannot be about protecting the planes. The real reason is more likely something to do with wanting to have unattended access to laptops by officials during the baggage security screening process.

Re: The reason given makes absolutely no sense

[Anonymous Coward]

The size of the device also severely impacts the potential lethality of any modifications. Sure, a pocket sized battery could be used to kill someone but it is hard to see it taking down a plane.

Re:The reason given makes absolutely no sense

[DrXym]

That is a sensible solution and one that would stop mobile / tablet / laptop manufacturers from sealing in batteries. A double win.

Re: The reason given makes absolutely no sense

[Anonymous Coward]

No, your assumption is unfortunately wrong. There is no such lower bound on what constitutes a dangerous size.

Re: The reason given makes absolutely no sense

[queazocotal]

Then it can be trivially concealed around the body if this argument is correct. Unless you do cavity searches.

Re:The reason given makes absolutely no sense

[__aaclcg7560]

Or get a fireproof and explosion proof bag for your batteries and devices.

Re:The reason given makes absolutely no sense

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter if makes absolutely no sense...it's what people will have to deal with.

Re:The reason given makes absolutely no sense

[vtcodger]

"It doesn't matter if makes absolutely no sense..."

Pretty well sums up modern US border security, and air travel in general as well, no?

Re: The reason given makes absolutely no sense

[shilly]

Of course there's a lower bound. A device the size of a microbe is not going to blow a hole in a fuselage, is it? So there's obviously a lower bound. Whether a phone crosses that bound is a different question.

Re: The reason given makes absolutely no sense

[Anonymous Coward]

If the problem really is the battery then shirley laptop manufacturers are going to start manufacturing specialised 'travel' laptops that have a conspicuous, easily-removed battery. You then check the battery and keep the now lightweight laptop in your hand luggage. Most business class seats feature power outlets, do they not? I can't see how the authorities can really object to such an arrangement.

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

When you go through customs, the US government has the right to access all data that you have stored on a server (including Gmail, Dropbox, Facebook, etc.)

So a Chromebook won't help you much if your purpose is to keep your business data safe from the government.

Re:Nope

[hhawk]

You an do a power wash of the chromebook... before and/or after.. but we should assume that State actors have access to items stored in the Cloud... and accessing them while over seas (or at least out of the country) prob. makes it easier for them to access the data.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they plant persistent malware while you don't have physical possession of your laptop.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why you RDP into a PC stateside where all the ACTUAL data is stored. The Chromebook never sees more than screenshots of anything sensitive.

Windows 10 and secure boot

[Anonymous Coward]

Say goodbye to Linux flights, only Windows 10 and secure boot laptops will be allowed iin the future, with NSA tracking and social media disclosures. Meanwhile anyone with a truck and knife can cause terrorism.

Re:Windows 10 and secure boot

[jfdavis668]

"Meanwhile anyone with a truck and knife can cause terrorism." Yes, but they only kill 12 people, not 259 like on Pan Am flight 103.

Re:Windows 10 and secure boot

[religionofpeas]

"Meanwhile anyone with a truck and knife can cause terrorism." Yes, but they only kill 12 people, not 259 like on Pan Am flight 103.

They killed 89 in the Bataclan theatre. They killed 192 in the Madrid train bombings. There are enough crowded places that a handful of people with automatic weapons can create a massacre.

Re:Windows 10 and secure boot

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, however the monetary loss is much smaller.

Re:Windows 10 and secure boot

[BronsCon]

It's not about monetary loss or body count, it's about making people feel unsafe everywhere. They've already managed to make sheep feel unsafe in airports and on planes; they keep the fear going with a few "failed" attacks (which were never destined to succeed in the first place) here and there. They're now concentrating on making the same sheep feel unsafe in theaters and concert halls; I suspect shopping malls will be next, likely followed by sporting events, though I may have those reversed as I don't have access to the same intel the JTTF does.

Of course, all of the above is my opinion and any predictions are pure conjecture based on common sense. The long and the short of it is that it's silly to fear terrorism, whether a single act kills 1, 12, 89, 192, 259, or 2996; you're still more likely to die from choking on a bite of food, but that probably doesn't stop anyone from eating.

Re:Windows 10 and secure boot

[religionofpeas]

Of course, however the monetary loss is much smaller.

If they wanted to create more monetary loss, there's plenty of unguarded infrastructure that can be attacked.

Re:Windows 10 and secure boot

[jfdavis668]

Yes, but they used more than a truck and a knife.

just take the PC

[ooloorie]

You can travel with something like an Intel NUC Skull Canyon or a Compute Stick and just plug it into the hotel TV's HDMI port. No laptop battery, no fire hazard, etc. Or you can simply use your phone as a computer and plug it into an HDMI port.

You can carry sensitive data on a separate micro-SD card, which, realistically, airport security or passport control won't look for or find unless you're already on a terrorist watch list, in which case a laptop ban is the least of your worries.

Re:just take the PC

[AHuxley]

The security services usually have that smart TV loaded with some extras in most nations. Mic, camera or just looking for the data connection.
That smart TV is the perfect way to see what a guest does, what data they look at, images, movies.. or to turn on a mic/camera if they have guests to talk to their fellow workers on the same trip.

Re:just take the PC

[Misagon]

That won't always work. Not all hotels use regular TVs but often special-purpose hotel TVs with special hotel functions such as info channel and pay-per-view etc. These often have no ports - only a single fixed cable at the back going into the wall.

Many older hotels are also stuck with standard-definition or 720p TVs. I have even encountered that the TV on a 4.5 star hotel had a broken cable.

And ... most hotel TVs are stuck on the wall pretty high, sometimes far from power sockets so you would have to bring long cables and/or Bluetooth peripherals.

Re:just take the PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if it's a regular modern TV with an HDMI port it might be bolted to the wall in such a way that you can't get to the port.

Re:just take the PC

[Mindscrew]

What kind of motels are you guys going too?

In 5 years of traveling weekly; I have never had an issue plugging in an HDMI streaming stick into a hotel TV.

Re:just take the PC

[ooloorie]

Mic, camera or just looking for the data connection.

None of that is relevant to plugging in a phone or compute stick into the HDMI port.

Re:just take the PC

[AHuxley]

Connecting a computer to another computer. A nations security services have had years to think about networking and consumer grade plug and play features that a hotels offer as an advanced smart tv.

Re:just take the PC

[n329619]

Better pack my 65" TV with me them.

Re:just take the PC

[AHuxley]

Design the smart TV into the room. The remote is the only thing the guest can access. Its always "on".

Re:just take the PC

[ooloorie]

Connecting a computer to another computer.

It's an HDMI connection, not a network connection. You can't spy on a computer's network connections from an HDMI display.

play features that a hotels offer as an advanced smart tv

Whether it's a smart TV is irrelevant when you use it as an HDMI display.

Re:just take the PC

[Anonymous Coward]

HDMI 1.1 and on can contain an ethernet channel. I don't know if compute sticks will use it, though.

Conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile LiIon batteries and battery packs are frequently banned from checked in luggage on other flights.

So, no LiIon batteries allowed when traveling in the future then.

Great.

Failsafe

[Anonymous Coward]

Check your laptop with a gun in the bag. Luggage with a gun in it get extra special treatment; if one gets lost they just opened themselves up to all sorts of civil and criminal liabilities.

Re:Failsafe

[OtisSnerd]

Check your laptop with a gun in the bag. Luggage with a gun in it get extra special treatment; if one gets lost they just opened themselves up to all sorts of civil and criminal liabilities.

That won't work at the Philly airport, which is famous for guns stolen from checked luggage. Had a cop friend have his gun stolen from a locked gun case. This rule will also apply to cameras, which will impact the travel industry.

Re:Failsafe

[guruevi]

You don't even need a gun, you just need a aluminum receiver from something like an AK - you don't need a license, it's super lightweight yet it's considered a 'weapon' for TSA/FAA purposes and thus gets all the tags and treatment a gun gets.

Re: Failsafe

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares, travel is dead. We'll just stay home, jerk off and eat our own feces. Like in Europe.

Re:Failsafe

[Anonymous Coward]

That receiver IS the gun in Canada. An AK receiver is prohibited here and you would get jail time for possessing it. Try a flare gun instead - cheaper and more legal.

Re: Failsafe

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry you live in a liberal communist shithole soon to overrun by muzzies. You'll wish guns weren't illegal and oh so scary to you cucks pretty soon.

We don't need laptops anymore

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It is will just erode the market share of laptops. We really don't need lug around a keyboard, screen, pointing device and a battery anymore. Just a simple nexus-4 sized pack with memory and cpu. Docking stations that can take this device and add a keyboard, mouse, pointing device and a screen will hit the market. Hotels will provide it, may be for a fee, may be free. We will have one dock at work and one at home. We might buy and keep more such docks for visitors and guests. This is going to be the future. Will happen whether laptops get banned on planes or not. If laptop ban goes global this will accelerate the timeline.

Re:We don't need laptops anymore

[Serge_Tomiko]

This is exactly Microsoft's plan. New ARM processors are fast and versatile enough such that a small mobile device will work as a normal computer for most every person. No other firm has seen this coming.

Re:We don't need laptops anymore

[AHuxley]

Any provided device waiting at a hotel would usually be altered by the security services. They have a while given the arrival data, reservations to get any devices in the room ready. If the room is changed, they can enter later and activate the same collection.

Re:We don't need laptops anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

And when I need to work at a client, I need their docking station, with complementary keylogger.

And when I need to work around without stopping at a hotel I need to take with me the docking station (lol)

No, laptops are not going anywhere. The only reason the sales are down is because we are hitting the "good enough" target with 4-5 year products, a 3 year laptop is not crap anymore.

Not to mention the absurdity of trying to work on a mobile operating system. You want me to work on android? ios? it's a joke, right?

Re: We don't need laptops anymore

[Miamicanes]

Yeah, just *try* running a CPU that's in the same class as a quadcore+ i7 @3.0+ Ghz... with a high-spec gaming-quality GPU... in a device with the form factor of a Nexus 4... and run it at full speed. If it DOESN'T melt itself, it'll be hot enough to give your hands & fingers second-degree burns.

Re:We don't need laptops anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah that's what Ubuntu tried some time ago... .convergence I think it was called. It was abandoned AFAIK.
You'd need to add virtualization to phone OS if you want to go there. Android & iOS is not enough for everyone's job.

Re:We don't need laptops anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

The docks will copy all your data and share it with the NSA...

Re:We don't need laptops anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Key loggers

Re: We don't need laptops anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you do that?

Or are you attempting the bogus "I can find one use case that doesn't work so the entire idea is useless" argument?

Re:We don't need laptops anymore

[jezwel]

Sure they did. Ubuntu tried to crowdsource the Edge a few years back. Google & Microsoft storing your data in the cloud and running web based apps was part of the plan to reduce differentiation in hardware.
Agreed though - Microsoft could be on a winner if they get a new Windows ARM Phone 10 running Win32 libraries natively to work properly and with their dock.

Re: We don't need laptops anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

About 1% of users actually require that kind of power, though.

easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now apple

[Joe_Dragon]

easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now apple better keep this in mind.

apple and Linux are to big to lock out. Also the s

[Joe_Dragon]

apple and Linux are to big to lock out. Also the sever market place is to big to make windows only and hyper-v sucks

We could do all that shit

[fustakrakich]

Or we could elect a different class of politicians instead of following blind tribalism. Sorry, but all this is self inflicted, and every chance they have, the voters only make it worse.

Re:We could do all that shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Observation: The people who voted for the current U.S. administration mostly don't fly.

And are probably pretty psyched at the thought of those who do fly getting screwed over.

Re:We could do all that shit

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not entirely convinced that a different administration would have done things differently on this one thing.

Every administration is afraid of getting the next big terror attack pinned on them. Politicians are motivated by fear as well as voters.

I'm pretty sure this is why Obama ended up continuing or even expanding surveillance despite his earlier criticism of it. It's not that he suddenly loved surveillance, it's that once he was the one who'd be left holding the bag if something bad happened, his priorities shifted way over in the direction of security at the expense of liberties.

Re:We could do all that shit

[Kohath]

How so? Please explain how electing less "tribal" politicians in the west will lead to fewer terror attacks and less need for security.

Re:We could do all that shit

[fustakrakich]

We might find some politicians that are less willing to finance the the terrorists, I mean, 'moderate rebels'... That will reduce the attacks dramatically.

Whatever, it's up to the voters to decide. They should try something else instead of all this blame passing.

Re:We could do all that shit

[Fire_Wraith]

Observation: A lot of them will be screwed when the travel market tanks, because this world isn't a zero-sum game. Foreign travel is tons of money that comes into the USA each year, both in terms of tourism and business travel.

Second Observation: What happens when those major international companies start discovering that it's easier to move operations to a country that doesn't make international travel ridiculously painful?

Re:We could do all that shit

[Kohath]

More explanation needed. Who is "financing" which "moderate rebels" who turn out to be "terrorists"?

Re:We could do all that shit

[Anonymous Coward]

They've rigged the entire electoral process. There is no way to fix it short of bloody revolution.

Re:We could do all that shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Because ass holes like you are what creates terrorism... If we rid the country of people like you, then these very small countries have no reason to target the rest of us.

Re:We could do all that shit

[Kohath]

Because ass holes like you are what creates terrorism

Really? Please explain the 1000s of terrorist attacks in Thailand in this context.

If there are 1000s of terrorist attacks in Thailand, and there aren't people "like me" in Thailand, then terrorist attacks must therefore have nothing to do with anyone "like me". And people like you should stop being such a bunch of hateful liars.

Re:We could do all that shit

[vtcodger]

Why the hell would any sensible person with another option travel to the US? We clearly don't want visitors.

The message is clear. Vacation elsewhere. Do business requiring travel with competitors in countries that don't torment visitors.

Re:We could do all that shit

[shilly]

That is spot-on. Like Trump and Paris, it's all about signalling to the base that he's gonna fuck over people they don't like.

Re:We could do all that shit

[Anonymous Coward]

why should a voter take the advice of a non-voter?

Re:We could do all that shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could elect a different class of politicians instead of following blind tribalism. Sorry, but all this is self inflicted, and every chance they have, the voters only make it worse.

The real problem is that no one is willing to give up their vacation to . You want all this stuff to start .. block of a calendar year and NO one fly anywhere..

Re:We could do all that shit

[fustakrakich]

I don't know. Who is the 'non-voter'?

Re:We could do all that shit

[fustakrakich]

*sigh*

And I would hope you understand what the Saudi arms deal is about.

Re:We could do all that shit

[Kohath]

*sigh*

Oh, So something about 30 years ago. it will be hard to go back and elect different politicians 30 or 40 years ago. Perhaps we should do something in the present or future.

How is this supposed to translate into electing less "tribal" politicians today? And how does that action cause a good future?

And I would hope you understand what the Saudi arms deal is about.

What?

Re:We could do all that shit

[fustakrakich]

So something about 30 years ago. it will be hard to go back and elect different politicians 30 or 40 years ago.

Are you really trying to say it's any different now? And you're not making sense. The tribalism is on the voters' part. Sorry, you're just being obtuse and intentionally twisting what I posted. Trying reading up a little on how the US/Europe are feeding terrorists (oops, I did it again, I meant 'moderate rebels') in Syria for just the most recent example (you can do your own googling). You might even see the elephant in the room on this whole 'Benghazi' thing.

Re:We could do all that shit

[Agripa]

Or we could elect a different class of politicians instead of following blind tribalism. Sorry, but all this is self inflicted, and every chance they have, the voters only make it worse.

A different class? Like politicians from the *other* party which support the same policies?

I agree this is self inflicted, Notwithstanding the above, we get the government we deserve. Want to know who to blame? Look in the mirror.

Re:We could do all that shit

[Kohath]

Sorry, you're just being obtuse and intentionally twisting what I posted.

Yeah, it's hard to piece together little hints and allusions and bits of innuendo into any kind of meaningful statement about anything.

Re:We could do all that shit

[fustakrakich]

I couldn't be more obvious. You're just not interested in anything outside your preferred narrative.

Re:We could do all that shit

[fustakrakich]

A different class?

Yes

Like politicians from the *other* party which support the same policies?

No

Stupid but effective

[mfh]

TBH, laptops aren't something you should travel with anyway. All of your data and personal info is at risk anytime you connect to a hotel wifi. I never travel with my computer or use a public computer with any personal info, logins/passwords...etc.

Even traveling with your phone is a bad idea now that it can be 100% copied by gov'ts as you go through airports. Just lock all your electronic stuff up at home and unplug for a vacation.

If you're traveling on business none of your own personal stuff should be on there anyway and insurance would cover the loss of any laptop from damage during checking it in. Good network policy means all your data on that laptop would be effectively backed up on your company servers so the hardware is essentially disposable.

We're at a kind of transition point for electronics anyway. Pretty soon we'll become very untethered from devices and be able to use our own information safely from anywhere without it getting compromised.

However, this untethering is not something that will happen effectively until companies learn to place significant importance on customer satisfaction, security and safety. Most companies are stuck in a cycle of beefing up their profit by cutting the customer experience down... and that's very short sighted.

If I had to travel for business today, I'd get disposable tech and use a thumb drive with a kill switch built into it like this:

https://youtu.be/fnwC2dmZKlA

Re: Stupid but effective

[Anonymous Coward]

For personal use I have a burner laptop. It's a cheap used thinkpad from eBay. No important data but it's encrypted and such anyway. Take it, you got nothing other than a $400 used laptop with no real useful data local

Re:Stupid but effective

[geekmux]

...We're at a kind of transition point for electronics anyway. Pretty soon we'll become very untethered from devices and be able to use our own information safely from anywhere without it getting compromised.

And how exactly will we become "untethered" from devices? You will need some kind of device to access your information, and devices will continue to be compromised, either by suppliers continuing to prioritize profits over secure designs, or by consumers exercising their right to not give a shit about security, and use poor practices.

One of the simplest ways to secure data would be encrypting a thumb drive. 95% of consumers don't know how to do this today, and don't care to take the time or effort to learn, regardless of the obvious benefit.

Re:Stupid but effective

[mark-t]

If you're traveling on business none of your own personal stuff should be on there anyway and insurance would cover the loss of any laptop from damage during checking it in.

Which is fine, unless you are the owner of said business... and do you seriously think that the insurance against theft or damage during flights is going to be cheap?

Re:Stupid but effective

[mfh]

And how exactly will we become "untethered" from devices?

Probably some kind of subcutaneous chip with your encrypted credentials that allows access to your encrypted data remotely and could be bricked with a single thought if there was impending risk of intrusion.

Another way is if we start using avatars of ourselves for business travel; beam a holographic AI-driven avatar of yourself to whatever business meeting you must attend and skip the queue at the airport! I mean there really is no need for travel apart from tourism if the technology would enable face-to-face meetings to happen remotely.

Flying is expensive and the face-to-face business model is old and bankrupt anyway, really. If your company sells goods and services that people want, they will buy from whatever vendor they can find and take the easiest path to solution they can.

Re:Stupid but effective

[shmlco]

"... and could be bricked with a single thought if there was impending risk of intrusion."

Your data will be fine just as long as you never think about Purple Elephants.

What to do? What NOT to do!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. I really did not need a laptop ban to influence my decision not to go to the USA anymore. I'm not going to impair my privacy for some idiot government and far better goals spending my money towards. So, will I travel to the USA? No. To the UK? Not anytime soon anymore, and certainly not after Brexit or idiot internet regulations. Y'all can go fuck yourself in the proverbial behind. I'm not playing.

More Suppression of the Press?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the final straw in suppression of a free press? Pretty hard to fire a story off remotely without some kind of electronics. Dead tree was fine before with local reporting and such but the public's expectation is different now.

Aside from those concerns, this is one of the things that will bludgeon the world economy. My job is not directly impacted but the company I work for is gone if this is instituted as we do a lot of work all over the US and Canada that requires beefy laptops.

Re:More Suppression of the Press?

[AHuxley]

No much is needed to file a story. A good, fast VPN, a camera, some hardware and software.
Edit the video file, get the images ready, type the text. Send the encrypted story.
Went returning home do not take the laptop as another nations security services might have had time to add some gov malware.
Entering another nation with your own hardware gets other governments interesting in what it has, what it connects to and any crypto or contacts.
So buy hardware just for that nation, edit, report, upload with a VPN and return home with no laptop.

VPN and buy a laptop

[AHuxley]

Fly without a laptop. Arrive in the destination nation. Find a computer shop. Buy new ssd like media. Buy a new laptop that can have its installed ssd replaced.
Remove the factory ssd.
Update, install the productivity apps needed using a very secure VPN.
Use open source OS or a new copy of Windows 10.
Do all work with a VPN thats trusted and tested.
If your company demands you take their special secure "crypto" laptop, its a risk in another nation.
Do not trust any "cloud" brand, product or crypto service as other nations security services will be expecting that and have accessed it many times before.
Do not walk out of your hotel without your laptop. Staff will report that to their nations security services and the time will be used to access the laptop and plant gov malware.
On exit from that nation recycle the hardware after fully removing all data.
Do not return from any nation with any hardware or software. Ensure any uploads went to a secure VPN on an isolated secure network.
Even if the VPN fails the other nation gets nothing extra from your secure network or other projects.
Consider the same for any cell phone. Dont use the cell phone in the other nation for any normal calls or work calls. Buy a local phone only for urgent calls and give your new number via VPN. Expect all numbers called and voice prints to be fully collected by the nations security services.
If you want to take images of the trip, buy a cheap dslr or buy a much better quality cell phone. Use the card to move images to a different laptop, with a different VPN only to send images from.
Dont mix work files and another nations cell phone. Dont take the cell phone back with you. Dont mix the images with any other networks, data later.

Re:VPN and buy a laptop

[geekmux]

Fly without a laptop. Arrive in the destination nation. Find a computer shop. Buy new ssd like media. Buy a new laptop that can have its installed ssd replaced. Remove the factory ssd. Update, install the productivity apps needed using a very secure VPN. Use open source OS or a new copy of Windows 10. Do all work with a VPN thats trusted and tested. If your company demands you take their special secure "crypto" laptop, its a risk in another nation. Do not trust any "cloud" brand, product or crypto service as other nations security services will be expecting that and have accessed it many times before. Do not walk out of your hotel without your laptop. Staff will report that to their nations security services and the time will be used to access the laptop and plant gov malware. On exit from that nation recycle the hardware after fully removing all data. Do not return from any nation with any hardware or software. Ensure any uploads went to a secure VPN on an isolated secure network. Even if the VPN fails the other nation gets nothing extra from your secure network or other projects. Consider the same for any cell phone. Dont use the cell phone in the other nation for any normal calls or work calls. Buy a local phone only for urgent calls and give your new number via VPN. Expect all numbers called and voice prints to be fully collected by the nations security services. If you want to take images of the trip, buy a cheap dslr or buy a much better quality cell phone. Use the card to move images to a different laptop, with a different VPN only to send images from. Dont mix work files and another nations cell phone. Dont take the cell phone back with you. Dont mix the images with any other networks, data later.

Your recommendations include buying hardware while in another country. What the hell makes you think you can trust a foreign hardware vendor? If you're this paranoid, it would be easier to travel with known hardware and use strong encryption, hardware firewalls, and strong VPN services.

Also, more and more electronics are being made in a sealed form factor, thus there are no removable components like SSDs.

Re:VPN and buy a laptop

[radarskiy]

"What the hell makes you think you can trust a foreign hardware vendor?"

The same thing that makes you think you can trust a domestic vendor. ;-)

Re:VPN and buy a laptop

[AHuxley]

Thats the risk. Entering a nation with a laptop that hotel staff and airport staff have seen and reported on. Or buying hardware in the nation and using a new OS, new storage.

Re:VPN and buy a laptop

[AHuxley]

Re "more and more electronics are being made in a sealed form factor, thus there are no removable components like SSDs."
As more new devices are sealed and the laptop might only be needed to send files or display files then the second hand options are wider.
The risk is moving a laptop into a nation or allowing an expensive laptop to be seen in a hotel. Governments get interested in the contacts, files, crypto and can even demand to search the device away from its owner for a while.
Having a computer out of sight with installed "strong encryption, hardware firewalls, and strong VPN" is not a good start.

Re:VPN and buy a laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

OR
1. Don't go to the USA, stick to countries that respect individual rights and freedoms.

Re:VPN and buy a laptop

[geekmux]

Thats the risk. Entering a nation with a laptop that hotel staff and airport staff have seen and reported on. Or buying hardware in the nation and using a new OS, new storage.

Perhaps the easiest thing to do is not even bother with hardware. At all. When the threatscape calls for such extreme measures, it won't be long before any configuration you buy, build, or bring is compromised, especially as increased counter-surveillance actions mark you as the anomaly of interest.

Re:VPN and buy a laptop

[AHuxley]

People will need to present secure documents (the classic slide show), edit movies, edit images, send text back. It really depends on the occupation and why the powerful or secure laptop is needed.
Middle management trying to do a presentation in another nation? Collecting secure data from a factory production line or supplier in a distant nation?
A VPN gives some time limit and security. Better than having airport staff clone the data or the clandestine services add malware during a few hours of "questions" at some airport.
Full encryption might be ok, but what was done to the hardware?
I think the idea of just sending a person will get more consideration too.
The anomaly of interest is now anyone who travels a lot for their company or for work.

Re:VPN and buy a laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, never mind, I think I'll just go fishing instead ;-)

Re:VPN and buy a laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

I think pretty much everyone in sales should be able to follow this with no problems at all!

Re:VPN and buy a laptop

[geekmux]

People will need to present secure documents (the classic slide show), edit movies, edit images, send text back. It really depends on the occupation and why the powerful or secure laptop is needed. Middle management trying to do a presentation in another nation? Collecting secure data from a factory production line or supplier in a distant nation? A VPN gives some time limit and security. Better than having airport staff clone the data or the clandestine services add malware during a few hours of "questions" at some airport. Full encryption might be ok, but what was done to the hardware? I think the idea of just sending a person will get more consideration too. The anomaly of interest is now anyone who travels a lot for their company or for work.

I don't disagree with your suggestions to maximize privacy and security in an ever-growing threatscape. The larger issue is convincing a society who doesn't give a shit about security. At all.

In the average US business, a security manager would likely be fired before successfully demanding and implementing such extreme measures upon the entire traveling community of executives, engineers, and marketeers. People despise this level of effort to secure themselves, and go to great measures to avoid it. It's so prolific that even after something like identity theft or corporate hacking occurs, users don't change behavior.

It's hard to explain that behavior, but it is the reality of the consumer base today. It's odd that when someone's physical life is threatened, they're quick to go out and buy a gun and arm themselves, but when their virtual life is threatened, they seemingly shrug it off and don't give a shit much about it.

what will happen is

[FudRucker]

somebody will make laptop rental services, and with the cloud all your data is an internet connection away, all laptops are wiped of any personal information upon return to the rental outlet,

Re:what will happen is

[religionofpeas]

all laptops are wiped of any personal information upon return to the rental outlet,

Except for the keylogger deeply embedded in the system, of course.

Re:what will happen is

[unixisc]

That's actually the best solution to all of this, like I suggested when this topic was discussed some days ago. Have the company at the destination rent laptops, or even have loaner laptops that one can use. Before leaving, back up all the work on DropBox or Google Drive or OneDrive, and then at the destination, take the loaner/rental laptop, log in and then download whatever files you need to be working on, use it at the conferences and meetings, and when you're ready to return home, just back everything back on to the cloud, and either wipe the login yourself, or let the company do it for you. That way, every laptop is new again for the next user. Don't leave any data on the laptop yourself before you logout/leave.

One assumption in all this: do not use the laptop for personal stuff, like checking your bank account, going to Twitter or watching porn.

Intel's new Compute Card

[Bookwyrm]

Insofar as the Intel Compute Card was a solution looking for a problem, this might be a problem it could be a solution for, though a little more heavy-weight then just taking a SD card or USB stick.

Here's a crazy thought

[rsilvergun]

why don't we pay the folks handling our luggage enough that they don't feel it's worthwhile to steal anything of value that passes their hands? Yeah, yeah, I know. Crazy, right? And before you say "I fly internationally" well, they can pay people better in other countries too, ya know?

Re: Here's a crazy thought

[Anonymous Coward]

That is socialism. Haven't you inherited the American rules of acquisition? Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don't hesitate to step on them.

Re:Here's a crazy thought

[guruevi]

So how much would they have to pay YOU not to take a multi-thousand dollar item once a day ($1M salaries for luggage handlers?)

Re:Here's a crazy thought

[mark-t]

No.... just a respectable living wage. Although it's not a universal truth, it's still generally the case that people who already make enough to take care of their needs and still have enough left over to be able to afford to buy some nice things would be less likely to be tempted by the opportunity to steal such things. The minority that don't fall into this category can be kept honest by the fear of getting caught.

Re:Here's a crazy thought

[guruevi]

Given the opportunity and a negligible chance of getting caught nearly everyone would start to steal things. It's human nature, even people making 100k+ are being caught stealing shit every day.

And it's not like luggage handlers are doing it on the down-low, the entire crews including supervisors and security guards are in on it.

Re:Here's a crazy thought

[mark-t]

Given the opportunity and a negligible chance of getting caught nearly everyone would start to steal things

I would suggest that this might only be true because not very many people are actually paid a respectable living wage in the first place (note, a living wage is not minimum wage.... where I live, a decent living wage is about 2.5 times higher than minimum wage).

Re:Here's a crazy thought

[guruevi]

I work with people that are paid at least 10-20x the minimum wage, one of them just got caught 'misappropriating funds' but the practice of buying personal stuff on government grants or 'disappearing' laptops, printers, missing UPS packages with valuable electronics is commonplace.

Making a living wage is not a problem for most of these people but they still don't want to shell out for a $3k laptop or a $2k TV and who would, if you can get one for free with minimal to no chance of ever getting caught and if you do get caught, minimal to no punishment.

A luggage handler may get fired but no investigation will be started because it makes the company look bad and may uncover more than they are willing to share. So with the people here that get caught misappropriating funds, the image of the organization and the need to accept more and more public money is far more important than any official investigation or report on the practice.

Re:Here's a crazy thought

[david_thornley]

Not everyone. Studies have shown that a large minority of humans are honest and won't steal even when it's easy and undetectable.

Re:Here's a crazy thought

[mark-t]

I'm not saying that dishonest people aren't out there... but I'm suggesting that when a majority of people don't have any incentive to be dishonest because they can meet not only their needs, but also have a reasonable ability to practically meet some or even many of their wants as well, the minority of people who *would* continue to be dishonest in such circumstances would tend to be kept honest by fear of getting caught by the honest people around them.

Now sometimes even that fear isn't necessarily enough to stop them, but if that's the case... then, well, the person is appropriately dealt with when they do get caught, which should be more likely to happen if most of the people around them are at least satisfied with their work situation, and have a positive work ethic. After all, the person you mentioned who was misappropriating funds did get caught... and evidently the people there are paid quite well, so it sort of illustrates my point.

Ready to send your private data somewhere ?

[what about]

How do you know what OS / backdoor is on that laptop/device ?
It is already a huge burden to have a minimum level of privacy on "random" devices.
A device that is specifically given to foreign visitors is surely going to be snooped upon.

So far, the USB computer on a stick is still the best bet.

Re:Ready to send your private data somewhere ?

[dknj]

you don't. but that won't stop company CEOs seeing it and thinking "this is a wonderful way to continue productivity!" and sign up for it en masse. haven't you learned that stupid ideas are the most profitable and thus have the most support?

-dk

Don't fly to the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Non US citizens should consider this. Seriously.

Fire the politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

It's security theater. Fire the stage managers

Sharing economy?

[Hentes]

As absurd as it sounds, this might create a market for new laptop-for-hire businesses.

Re:Sharing economy?

[Dunbal]

I thought of that myself. Such a business would work even better if they received some sort of endorsement from Fortune 500 companies by proving to their IT departments that the machines are up to spec and all data is properly deleted on return.

Re:Sharing economy?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's almost certain that the security services of the target country would put spyware on them, probably even in collusion with the laptop-for-hire businesses, especially if the target countries are the UK or the USA.

Hard Cases and wrap

[SuperKendall]

If this goes into effect, I'll get a hard case that's form-fitting for the laptop, and a larger hard case that and other things go into.

They are virtually indestructible, and if you have a good lock on them extremely hard to open. I had someone try, and fail to pry both locks off a hard case in Botswana.

Outside the US you can use non TSA locks which are much more secure.

Also in addition, foreign airports with questionable luggage handling security offer a plastic wrap service, that wraps a bunch of layers around your luggage and also makes it very hard to get into. Wrap a hard case in that and they cannot even get to the locks...

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[Jason1729]

The airlines at least around here (Canada) are now charging $50 for the first checked bag, $75 for each additional. EACH WAY. The level of packaging you're talking about would take up most of a checked bag.

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[Hognoxious]

If it's that difficult, how do you open it at your destination?

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[SuperKendall]

If it's that difficult, how do you open it at your destination?

Do you know how locks work? Like, that it involves a key or combination that someone has to open the lock - guess who has the key/combination.

Can you guess?

No? It's YOU!

Honestly the wrap looks a bit tough to get through, I've never had it done. Basically either a lot of unwinding or you'd have to cut it open, but since we can't travel with knives...

What you are really after with baggage security is delay though. The people stealing from the luggage have only so long before the luggage has to be moved, and on top of that there's the element of value over time - in the same time it would take to deal with wrap they could be pilfering from 4-5 other bags not as well secured.

Even in the case of my hard case in Botswana they were able to pry off ONE lock of the two. They really, really tried to get the second (from various markings on the case around the lock) but it wasn't happening so they moved on.

Just like every other field of security, defense in depth (multiple layers of security) is always better than any one layer that can be defeated.

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[Hognoxious]

Do you know how locks work?

We were talking about the plastic. Do try to keep up.

Honestly the wrap looks a bit tough to get through, I've never had it done.

In other words you don't know what you're talking about.

Basically either a lot of unwinding or you'd have to cut it open, but since we can't travel with knives...

Which of course the TSA *can* have, because they aren't flying.

The people stealing from the luggage have only so long before the luggage has to be moved,

Umm, wrong. they're allowed to force/cut the locks for "security" purposes.

on top of that there's the element of value over time

Well it's lucky they don't have scanners then.

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[SuperKendall]

In other words you don't know what you're talking about.

I have seen wrap applied and handled luggage with it on... apparently you have not even seen that much? If it does't work why is it a common service in many overseas airports?? Why are you trying to cover your obvious inexperience in traveling with unwarranted and frankly ignorant bluster?

Umm, wrong. they're allowed to force/cut the locks for "security" purposes.

I'm talking about the THEIVES, do try and keep up.

In fact I have flown in a lot of countries overseas with REAL locks on luggage and never had them cut. Sure they can if they detect anything on a scanner they have the right to break in, but generally that does not happen.

In fact as a pro-tip even when you are flying back to the U.S. you can use real locks because the TSA does not handle that baggage.

The thieves have no "right" to break into your luggage and only a limited time in which to try, with poor tools because why would normal luggage handlers carry bolt cutters? As best they'll have screwdrivers or perhaps something slightly more sophisticated, but again not much time.

Well it's lucky they don't have scanners then.

Completing the ignorance trio today, are you?? Of course they have scanners, airlines scan all checked luggage and often it's the people running the checked luggage scanners who pass along to other members of a team which items to break into. But if yours has multiple layers of security they will bypass it to get into other bags that are not as well protected and can be gone through faster.

Re: Hard Cases and wrap

[Anonymous Coward]

TSA routinely cuts any lock standing betwixt them and fondling your undies. They have a set of approved locks which are posted online and which all the crooks have had for years.

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[Anonymous Coward]

The airlines at least around here (Canada) are now charging $50 for the first checked bag, $75 for each additional. EACH WAY. The level of packaging you're talking about would take up most of a checked bag.

Which airlines?

Air Canada allows first bag free on international economy flights and $28.25 on domestic economy flights.

WestJet charges $30 for the first bag on economy flights.

I chose economy because above that prices change (get lower) depending on membership status, etc.

Re: Hard Cases and wrap

[Anonymous Coward]

Any serious criminal would have a battery operated Dremel tool with cutoff wheels. Or a battery angle grinder.

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[quetwo]

Many of the US carriers have started charging for international flights. United, Spirit, Frontier, US Air are all doing it now. Delta the last flight I took with them a few months ago, but if everybody else is doing it, they usually follow suite. And these are for business class and below. First class still has free luggage all the way through,

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice, but irrelevant to the fact that Jason1729 is just pulling numbers out of his ass.

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[nedlohs]

I'm talking about the THEIVES, do try and keep up

What makes you think that the TSA (and equivalent) people can't be thieves?

Re: Hard Cases and wrap

[Anonymous Coward]

At the Johannesburg Airport, the theives xray the bags to know which to break into. Plus a knife will cut through the plastic wrap and a hot knofe (or some similar device) can cut through the hard case. In third-world countries, it's a crap-shoot. The theives are the airport employees at Joburg.

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[joemck]

Never mind all that. Most airports I've been at, you could pretty easily walk into the luggage claim area of the terminal, mill around a bit, grab a bag off a carousel, and walk out. Only real reason it doesn't happen much is that you never know what's in the bags, and quite often it's just going to be full of dirty laundry. But if this goes into effect the chances of random bags being worth stealing will go way up.

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[nedlohs]

True, Though there's also a lot of security cameras and security personnel around. Stealing a bag once seems simple enough, but I suspect you are going to get caught pretty quick if you make it a habit. "Sorry, I thought that was my bag" might work once but at some point the security guy it going to ask for ID and what flight you came in on...

Whereas the TSA people are the security personnel and part of their job is riffling through people's bags...

Re:Hard Cases and wrap

[Jason1729]

Go f- yourself.

My only mistake was saying Canada that way. Last flight I took was Detla from Canada to the US. $34US first bag, $47US for the second. Close enough to $50 and $75.

I guess technically not a Canadian carrier, but you're still an asshole.

Because

[Anonymous Coward]

Cloud storage of all your data is much more secure than US customs... You realize you are allowed to encrypt just your data files, right?

Simple

[zmooc]

Start a laptop rental business.

If only Chromebooks came with...

[SpaghettiPattern]

If only Chromebooks came with a shell of some kind and a way to run Eclipse, I'd buy one as a throw away item.

Re:If only Chromebooks came with...

[OrangeTide]

Terminal problem is pretty well solved: termux, crosh, and others.
Eclipse isn't likely to ever happen unless someone ports it to asm.js, poor alternatives: Codiad, Project Orion, codenvy.io, and others.
Going into dev mode and installing crouton is a good compromise, but then you're really running Linux/Ubuntu/Debian and not ChromeOS.

Laptop renitng shops

[angel'o'sphere]

I will sett up laptop renting shops all over the world.
Hopefully you have a back up of your own that can be accesed remotely or an usb stick with what is relevant for you during travel.
Probably a bootable usb stick or usb drive would be best.

Re: Laptop renitng shops

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not the solution. I can just travel with a Kangaroo or an Rasppery Pi 3. Only local acessory will be a throw-away keyboard and a rented monitor

Don't go to the US

[Anonymous Coward]

The same solution as for all the other draconian security theatre nonsense: don't go there.

Re:easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now app

[iMadeGhostzilla]

That's exactly what I'd do. There is no law against carrying a 3.5" HDD/SDD in your shirt pocket.

A boom for remote teleconferencing companies

[knorthern knight]

When airline travel becomes (literally) a pain in the ass, teleconferencing will grow big-time.

Re:A boom for remote teleconferencing companies

[Anonymous Coward]

When people become real environmentalists instead of just squeaking on about Trump teleconferencing will grow big time too but I'm not holding my breath.

Re:A boom for remote teleconferencing companies

[vtcodger]

"When airline travel becomes (literally) a pain in the ass, teleconferencing will grow big-time."

You'd think so. But airline travel has been an increasingly miserable experience for decades. Hasn't really done all that much for teleconferencing so far. I think perhaps we (you and I) underestimate humanity's capacity for pain and tolerance for aggravation.

(Probably explains why people still use Windows as well)

Re:A boom for remote teleconferencing companies

[Anonymous Coward]

While my electronics going "boom!" in the office/at home is preferable to them exploding in the plane I'm traveling on, I'd really rather avoid battery fires in general.

Re:A boom for remote teleconferencing companies

[Anonymous Coward]

It already has. The last two EU-based offices I've worked at, and all the offices that my friends work at are rolling out very expensive high-end teleconferencing tools. International travel has gone from "the norm" to only a few times per year at most.

The drive for this hasn't only been a possible laptop ban... it's been a rapidly growing flat out refusal by staff to accept business trips to the USA. No one I work with (in a very large tech company with thousands of employees) wants to go there anymore. Offer a trip to China/Malaysia/South America... no problem finding staff more than willing to go... trip to the USA comes up and all you hear are crickets chirping. There is still a business need... and the easy way to fulfill it... video conferencing. It works in most cases... most business travel is for meetings anyway.

Fuck them

[Ryanrule]

Take it anyway.

Cloud computing

[OrangeTide]

I'll expense a Chromebook or netbook at my trip's destination, or get a loaner from IT if I'm visiting one of my company's sites. I'll throw the Chromebook in the garbage before I leave.
We beat the terrorist, but add millions of tons of electronics to landfills.

Re:Cloud computing

[guruevi]

You know you can wipe those machines pretty effectively these days. No need to trash anything. Just rent your computer, wipe it before your return it.

Re:Cloud computing

[OrangeTide]

use somebody's nasty old computer? gross.

Re:Cloud computing

[Anonymous Coward]

When it's a small minority of customers doing this it's a viable strategy. When every passenger that used to fly with a laptop does it: return policies are modified to make it impossible.

Company policy is already to travel light

[sanf780]

Company broadcasted sevelar months ago that the new policy is to travel with disposable laptops that do not hold any valuable information other than VPN clients. Believe it or not, there are other countries that can and will take your laptop because they think of the children. I mean, those countries do not allow any pornographic material in the country because of reasons. And I am not talking of the US but of some arid country in the middle east, and PRC. It may take weeks for you to recover the laptop.

Re:Use The American National Laptop

[OrangeTide]

Since the world is adopting the American National Operating System (Win 10)

Isn't Linux developed by an American?

Creepy Nazi voice: Vere ist your paperz?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hands over phone, tablet, laptop, USB sticks, and SD cards. "Here's my notebook." "No, we don't have the time to read that."

Keeping bad Europeans and Scientists out

[Anonymous Coward]

The goal seems to be to annoy and sabotage business people and scientists from foreign countries in an attempt to end collaboration and finally make Murica grate again. I have already heard from fellow researchers that they might not submit papers to US located conferences to avoid all that border control and laptop inspection stuff. However, there is a solution to that. (a) we could use overhead projectors again. They are better than digital slides anytime, and (b) we could become Americans, we are white and Christians and then we vote for some decent politicians, like Bernie. He us a moderate.

Free Rental Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Head on over to the nearest Amazon Showroom, Aka, Best-Buy, Staples, Walmart, Target, etc.

"Purchase" a laptop, and use it for up to 14 days, free!

Just make sure you use a credit card, so you get insurance in case of theft or damage. Return it when done.

You are doing people a favor!

Returned items are sold at a discount, so people otherwise unable to afford a laptop, now get a 10% open-box discount!

All you need is a USB stick with the OS of your choice, and whatever data you need.

Just make sure you stay within the 14 day rental window!

Compute Sticks / Raspberry Pi's

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a cheap $40 intel compute stick, good enough, and if it gets stolen, meh.

Or a raspberry Pi, $35, and good enough for what I need to do.

Then of course, there is the free rental service, courtesy of the Amazon Showroom network, aka, BestBuy, Target, Walmart, Staples, etc. 14 day free rental policies rock!

Laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, who uses a laptop anymore?
I use my Surface. And when I need my files I VPN home.

Jesus Christ, get a grip.

Re:Laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

>I use my Surface

lollll at least i can still get a good chuckle from Slashdot once in a while, using a Surface, hahaha oh god

Checked Laptop likely to be checked by security

[andrew.howlett]

I checked my macbook pro a couple years ago. My baggage didn't arrive at destination with the other bags. I reported the missing bag to the airline, described its contents (ie included my macbook). They told me it is unusual for a laptop to be included in checked luggage and therefore was probably retained for increased inspection. Sure enough, it arrived on the next flight from Seattle covered with inspection stickers.

Re: easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now ap

[Anonymous Coward]

There will be. And then you will be carried off to a death camp where you will be raped in the nostrils by rabid dobermanns.

I suppose I'll stop taking my personal laptop

[darthsilun]

And if my company issued laptop is stolen from checked baggage – on business travel – my company will just have to suck it up I guess.

Would Twitler listen if all 500 of the Fortune 500 company CEOs told him it's a bad idea?

After every trip I'll just wipe it and reinstall. I don't keep anything of value on it anyway – the time it takes to do that is pretty negligible.

you know how this will go...

[jmccue]

This is what I see happening if the ban goes into affect

1. traveler needs to register the Laptop with the TSA and pays $, maybe a yearly fee(?)
2. The TSA takes the device and maybe puts spyware on it along with a 'lock' or 'sticker' or something certifying the laptop is allowed
3. every so often it can be searched by the TSA or you have to get it re-certified
4. now you are allowed to take it with you

If business users are not allowed to work while flying I can see airline profits dropping and airlines complaining like crazy :)

Re:you know how this will go...

[vtcodger]

Don't overlook the $40 fee for slapping a seal on the battery compartment that certifies that the battery has been checked and if it's actually a bomb, it's a cleverly made bomb.

Re:I hope someone has the common sense to ban

[guruevi]

The problem is Muslims are like Jews. It's both a religious and ethnic group and the distinction between who is a 'true believer', figuring out who is an ethnic Muslim and which of the various sects they adhere to is hard. Most Muslims (80%) indeed believe in some form of Sharia or Jihad, but that means there are still ~200M of them that don't.

Christianity has the same problem, ~10% of their membership is more than willing to commit murder when their pastor tells them so - just look at Jehovah's Witnesses, LDS (Mormons) and Christian Scientists, more than willing to sacrifice themselves and their children physically, emotionally and sexually to their leaders. Most 'believing' Christians actively make excuses when they quote scripture instead of condemning the belief system in the first place.

Wrong Approach

[Anonymous Coward]

If the laptop ban goes global, then you badger, cajole, insult, intimidate, or even blackmail your politicians who support it. Don't stand for it. It's a stupid idea by someone in power who terrorists have effectively terrorized. Londoners don't even want to leave their houses because of terror attacks. Terrorist are trying to restrict global travel using the same. Be level-headed, and don't let them scare you.

Pelican case for laptop and starter pistol

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you do not need to use the laptop on the flight, just acquire a proper pelican case as checked luggage for the protection of the laptop and your starter pistol (and declare it as a weapon). You get to provide your own lock and it will be tracked.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/09/expensive_camer.html

INTERNATIONAL is not Domestic travel impacting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people don't fly internationally inside the USA. This is a non-sequitur article.

Trusting google is NOT an option, just like trusting MSFT is NOT an option.

Possible solutions to the NSA's hentai tentacles--

[wierd_w]

Given that the NSA and pals dont truly feel alive unless they have their tentacles all up in your shit when you enter the international border, along with the ever increasing insistence that they need to search your devices, citizen-- Perhaps it is time we re-evaluated how we store data, and what we store.

The things the NSA are looking for are bits of metadata to connect you with world events. Breadcrumbs in your browsing history, your IM's log feature, the documents in your documents folders, etc.

Now, given that many people are switching to SSD based devices anyway, and are interested in maximizing device health and life, and that people serious about their systems tend to use some flavor of Linux-- Use tmpfs mountpoints at all the places in the FS that this software wants to shit stuff all over the disk. The data goes to digital oblivion as soon as the power is turned off, the writes are prevented from actually hitting the SSD and burning write cycles. Win-win.

For personal data, as much as I hate the idea of cloud solutions-- this might be a good reason to use one. Using a VPN to your home network with 2 factor auth to get in, and a mapped network share, one need not store any personal files on the system at all. The legal basis for their border searches derives from international customs law abuses. They have wrangled getting physical access to the hardware at the border as a custom's check. However, if the data they are hungry for does not exist on the physical system, they will have a much harder time legally demanding that you provide access to your VPN, since that device is firmly within the territorial borders, and their access does not grant that to them.

Taken together, the only things they are going to learn are what your preferences for software are. (though they will still have physical access, and may choose to install keyloggers or whatnot. That is easy enough to rectify though, if you set up the system right.)

Re:Theft and Damage - Netbook with OpenBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

I put an ancient netbook running OpenBSD in my luggage. It works perfectly fine for me, but whoever steals it will be very disappointed.

Re:easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now app

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh - no need for a HDD or SSD. You can install a whole system on a SD or USB flash memory device. I have a few 256 GB ones lying around here.

Sorry, how much is your laptop worth again?

[SuperKendall]

The airlines at least around here (Canada) are now charging $50 for the first checked bag, $75 for each additional. EACH WAY.

Yep, defiantly a reason the laptop ban sucks. There's a lot of travel I do only carryon (even some international)

That said usually there is not a checked bag fee for international flights, though some airlines have created a special level of hell with some kind of economy basic fare where that's no longer true even internationally I believe...

The level of packaging you're talking about would take up most of a checked bag.

Don't you travel with clothes? They made great padding. You just get a slightly larger hard case than the suitcase size you'd normally check to accommodate.

The main problem more than padding though its weight, the hard cases weigh a lot more just empty than normal luggage. So very probably you'd be taking two suitcases unless you reduce what you pack.

But since I value my laptop quite a bit, $150/trip is not that much to make sure my laptop is really safe.

I would seriously consider going without a laptop for some trips but that's just not viable for me currently.

Re:Sorry, how much is your laptop worth again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, defiantly a reason the laptop ban sucks.

Sorry. It's "definitely". Defiantly is an attitude you take when you oppose something.

Cloud Data is so much safer.

[jovetoo]

Really, what could go wrong by putting your data on a server owned by a third party, located in a country where it can be retrieved without your knowledge?

Re:easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now app

[MightyYar]

I mostly do this now - when traveling for pleasure, I only bring a cheap Chromebook so that if it is lost/stolen I just buy a new Chromebook locally and move on with life. For business I bring a company laptop, but my data is all backed up so a loss/theft would be a PITA but once on the VPN with a local laptop I'd be back in business.

removable battery laptops

[Anonymous Coward]

All this will do is prompt a new wave of laptops with removable batteries. After all, it is not the laptops that are supposedly the problem, but the batteries. Take the batteries out, no problem. Most airlines have power at all seats now, and if they don't, they will soon.

It's not just laptops...

[Zocalo]

It's any gear larger than a phone, which means all your expensive cameras and lenses as well. I was hoping to see a few ideas I might not have thought of from fellow photographers already given there's over 100 comments, but since I appear to be the first here's my thoughts for travelling with a backpack's worth of high-end camera gear:

Firstly, define "global". If we're just talking about any flights flying to/from the US/UK (or any other countries that start doing this), then the obvious initial step is to route around the problem by flying via airports that don't transit the US and UK. If one of your endpoints is in the US/UK, then that's tougher and depends on your location - driving over the Candian or Mexican border may be an option for the US, while for the UK CDG is only a Eurostar and change from London, and Dublin a short trip from Northern Ireland.

If we *really* mean "global" - e.g. every international flight, regardless of endpoints - or the above is unworkable for any reason, then it's going to have to be a Peli Case or similar, and rolling the dice with theft by airport staff and genuine loss in transit. Where practical, I'd hope to mitigate against that by shipping ahead of time as freight - there's better insurance cover anyway, and I'd expect international couriers to start exploring opportunities in this area to make things easier and more cost effective if the ban does go global. If I do have to travel with the gear, then I'm thinking of going for a padded Pelicase I can just put my regular backpack and a few other items in, which means it's going to be big and heavy and will need to be run though oversize baggage. Actually, I'm probably going to make sure that it does, because while that means special handling and more cost, it also means better tracking and in some instances to put the airline on the hook for the full value of the contents if it goes astray. I'll probably put couple of "Fragile" stickers and maybe some of those impact detection stickers on there as well.

Finally, and regardless of the above, screw the compromised TSA locks. I use proper padlocks and security gets confronted with an inventory of the case's contents should they decide to bolt-cutter it - good padlocks are not that expensive, and it's a much better deterant against opportunistic theft by anyone with the magic key.

Re:It's not just laptops...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I got my Pelican case, I specifically chose one that was big enough to hold my camera bag but small enough to fit inside an old suitcase. That way, everything is kept secure without advertising that there was anything worth stealing inside. Unfortunately, that method eats up a lot of the weight budget and can put you over some airlines' weight limits (which vary by airline and can't always be worked around by paying more). The lack of standard weight limits is a real problem here, especially if you end up with a canceled flight that gets rebooked on a different airline due to technical failures or volcanoes. These days, I ship gear ahead of time whenever possible, but that adds more time and expense and I still have a few critical items with me in carry-on, so it might be time to go shopping for a case to fit inside my old carry-on bag that's probably too big for most international carriers anyway...

Stop flying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop flying, see how long it will last then.

Re:easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now app

[Anonymous Coward]

This assumes that the 'local laptop' is not compromised...

WHO CARES

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you even bother?
The damn CPU has a sub-ring-zero backdoor in it. There is nothing you can do to protect yourself aside from shredding the laptop and hoping the next one you buy isn't compromised. Assuming the sub-ring-zero rootkit from the factory has not been activated to spy on you and store or send your data back to the intelligence agencies.

Re:Use The American National Laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

He is now.
Apparently he conformed to the new standard.

Re:easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now app

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it does raise the question: what is a laptop?

If I remove the battery, can I take it on board?

If I remove the battery and HDD, can I take it on board?

If I remove the battery, HDD, RAM, keyboard, and separate the screen from the body, can I take it on board?

What if I take a very small form factor PC with me? Like a NUC, or similar? Are they allowed? That way, I can pack a monitor (of some kind) into my checked bag and not worry about tampering, theft (it's less valuable than the whole system, or the data) or other issues: and hand carry my storage and trusted computing platform with me.

It's all a waste of time, since if this ban pushes through it will change the world in ways we can't even imagine right now. I certainly anticipate some back-lash from other countries, for example, how retarded will the USA look when other countries make arrangements to allow laptops on flights between them, and only flights in and out of the US will be restricted? Most savvy businesses will simply choose to do business with "sane" countries instead of the USA.

Re:I hope someone has the common sense to ban

[PPH]

It's both a religious and ethnic group

Muslims are not an ethnic group. There are Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Persian, Arab, various African as well as African American Muslims.

[1] Persians and Arabs hate each other, which is a bigger factor in their behavior than a mutually shared religion.
[2] How the hell African Americans ever got sold on Islam I'll never figure. It was the Muslim Arabs that rounded them up and sold them to the slave traders in the first place.

Re:Use The American National Laptop

[OrangeTide]

He moved to the US in 1997, I think 20 years in a country is a pretty substantial amount of time, it's certainly the majority of the Linux kernel's life.

Re:I hope someone has the common sense to ban

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, a vast majority (80%) who believe in Sharia or Jihad is not the same kind of problem as a small minority (10%) who cling to outdated Christian beliefs. Secondly, Christianity as a group of religions has reformed itself and moved beyond its archaic roots. Islam has not. There absolutely needs to be a reform of Islam to make it compatible with the modern world, and until the vast majority of Muslims not only accept that but truly believe it and make it happen, they can cling to camels while the rest of the world flies, for all I care.

Re: what to do!

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading all the arguments thus far on this fucking fuckery, this one seems to make the most sense, along with covfefe. +5 Insightful

I never check luggage

[mspohr]

For the past 10 years or so I have never checked luggage. I find that I can put everything I need in a carry on size backpack. I had to drag around heavy suitcases, wait to check them in, and wait to retrieve them (hopefully not lost). I'm in and out of the airport in minutes. I travel a lot internationally for work and vacation. I've even been able to fit all of my SCUBA gear in my carry on bag on an extended work trip to the South Pacific.
So, what do I do? I definitely don't want to start checking bags.

TAO intern job?

[CODiNE]

I'm imagining some poor Tailored Access Org intern who sits in the luggage hold wearing a parka, and a portable oxygen mask crawling over piles of luggage trying to get at some CEOs laptop before the flight ends.

They always tell the luggage handlers to set marked bags aside for mid-flight data exfiltration but they just laugh and put the marked bags at the bottom of the piles.

Why are we trying to solve this problem?

[RogueWarrior65]

The laptop isn't the problem. The full-auto MP5 isn't the problem. The box cutter isn't the problem. The shoes aren't the problem. The underwear isn't the problem.
We erroneously solving problems that don't need solving while ignoring and/or refusing to solve the root causes i.e. people because *gasp* such solutions offend our delicate sensibilities.

Re:what to do!

[unixisc]

Short Microsoft stock. Since their attempts at both the phone market as well as the Surface has fallen flat, and the surface just serves as a laptop, chances are that business people will see the need to use phones increasingly as a substitute for laptops, thereby replacing laptops entirely for uses where people have to travel, and where telecommuting ain't enough.

Use a Fast Remote Desktop

[monk]

I'll just use a generic, low end laptop with maybe Arch or Ubuntu and one of our fast remote desktops. Works great and I don't need anything special on the client since it runs in the browser. You do have to trust Amazon or Azure and Frame to some extent, but that's better than trusting random baggage handlers and the TSA.

You could do something similar with a phone, but would need a keyboard and monitor and maybe a dock like the HP X3. I'd love to just have a generic deck that could cast to a TV and use a bluetooth keyboard/touchpad combo. I'm sure that's coming with the direction phones are going.

But I agree the real fix would be to elect leaders that can solve real problems instead of knee-jerk grandstanding. I'd rather fly with no security at all than give up my freedom. (Disclaimer, I work for Frame, but my opnions are my own)

Don't forget multiple ID10t's

[Anonymous Coward]

If you travel alot you've likely had many times your bags have gotten temporarily lost. If your important work data is in there that means you can't work and that means significant money loss.
2nd to every IT expert here saying to run a boot to flash drive setup. Remember all those annoying call you get from people that can't even do basic things like send an e-ma. Now you want them to try to run a linux OS off a USB.
Between the horrible baggage handling losing and delaying luggage and the fact most people can't handle the already "easy" tech setups this would spell business hell

Re: what to do!

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? The balls argument is still holding more weight at this point. How does having a "phone" change anything?

Re:I hope someone has the common sense to ban

[unixisc]

Within Muslims, toss in Western converts - White, Black, Hispanic... Of which, much of it occurs in jails w/ incarcerated criminals. Once they are converted and out, they resume their crimes, but this time, w/ a sense of purpose. Since under Islam, any crime against infidels is legit, they can do whatever they like, and then rationalize it in the name of Islam.

Demographically, Arabs are big, but not the biggest group of Muslims. Biggest would be South Asiatics (600M) - Pakis, Bangladeshis & Indian Muslims, followed by Arabs (450M), then East Indians (250M) - Indonesians, Malaysians, Bruneians & Filipinos, then Turkic & Iranian peoples (150M each). African Blacks & others would make up the remaining 200M.

Like you said, nothing like Jews, but at the same time, they are a real existential threat to all of their neighbors. In the subcontinent, they would like to resurrect the Mughal empire. In the Arab empire, they are busy either obsessing over the existence of Israel, or persecuting non-Arab minorities, even if Muslim, such as the Darfuris and Kurds. In Indonesia, Jihadists are busy trying to Islamize all the islands that have not become fully Muslim. In Malaysia, Bhumiputra is apartheid by Muslims against non-Muslims, and there is a Malay Jihadist movement in South Thailand. In Mindanao, there is a Jihadist movement trying to separate Mindanao from the Philippines and make it another Islamic state. Turkey is busy exploring how to become the leader of the Sunni - and thereby, the larger Muslim world. In the stans, Jihadist movements are affiliating w/ ISIS and Chechen movements and plotting to recreate the Timuride empire. Iran has been busy exploiting Shi'ite sentiment wherever it can, while in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, it's leveraged its ethnic commonality to influence those countries.

Not your typical 'live & let live' crowd. But then, neither are the Leftists

Teleconferencing solutions

[unixisc]

Whatever happened to teleconferencing: WebEx, Join.me, GoToMeeting, et al? I recall during the Clinton or Bush administrations, when the Indian Prime Minister (then a chief minister) Modi was denied a visa to the US despite being invited, he attended the session via teleconference, thereby neither violating any laws, but at the same time satisfying his would be hosts. For conferences that are about sharing presentations & documents, it should be relatively trivial to set up a network connection via VPNs and then let both sides present and talk to each other. Granted, they don't get to see each other, shake hands, visit the deli together or sleep together, but other than that, everything else that's a goal of the conference would be achieved. Icing on the cake: taking fewer flights helps reduce greenhouse gases and global warming, and also helps put evil airlines like United out of business.

Re:Teleconferencing solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

This. My organization is scattered all over the US and Europe. We meet daily via video calls, webex, whatever. I have physically been in the same room with my manager less than six times in five years, yet when we do get together, it's no big deal - we all look just like we do on video. We happen to be a Cisco shop, and use their gear - it works well enough we rarely need to travel.

Re:I hope someone has the common sense to ban

[Serge_Tomiko]

Most Persians are Shia. The vast majority of Muslims do not consider that religion to be Islam. Undoubtedly, there is an element of residual nationalist tendencies there. Persia waxed and waned for millennia, but it was always a world power. A world power conquered by desert nomads. Can't be easy for them.

As for American blacks - true Islam is rare and most Muslim scholars consider the Nation of Islam similar to Shia. It incorporates elements of Islam, but is not Islam. While it's getting ridiculous that people still ascribe blame to any one group for slavery when it was a universal institution worldwide, Islam promotes unity much more than Christianity does today, particularly since Catholicism abandoned Latin. Many rituals, such as the Hajj, do in fact reinforce some semblance of equality (at least in the eyes of God).

The TSA is really bad at math.

[dweller_below]

The proposal to ban laptops from the cabins of planes appears to be attempting to take advantage of the following logical fallacies and cognitive biases:

• * Zero-risk bias: Prefer to reduce a small risk to zero, over a greater reduction of a larger risk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
• * Nirvana/Perfection fallacy: Prefer to abandon functional good for unachievable perfection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
• * Identifiable victim effect: We respond more strongly to a single identified victim, than a faceless group of victims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Remember that time they said they needed porno scanners? It turned out that the porno scanners didn't work. https://radsec.org/secure1000-... And, DHS upper management (Chertoff http://www.motherjones.com/moj... ) got rich off the sale of the porno scanners. This shows that we should not blindly accept TSA/DHS proposals.

The TSA success rate at finding known weapons and explosives is 5%. IE, they only find 1 out of 20: https://www.theguardian.com/co... This means that the laptop change will not actually make a difference to the real risk.

If they are worried that a well funded group will make explosives that look like a laptop, why would they only do laptops? Why wouldn't an attacker make explosives that look like a suitcase? A CPAP? A baby stroller? Why can't an attacker disguise explosives as a big enough item that it doesn't make any difference where it is on a plane? If they can't find an explosive shaped like a laptop, they are not going to find an explosive shaped like other things. Are they going to ban all carry-ons and checked items?

On the face, It seems looke like they have decided to increase their security theater.

While we wait for the TSA's analysis, lets review a few facts. Here are some reference pages on various types of death in the US:

• * https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fasta...
• * http://www.nsc.org/NSC%20Image...
• * https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs...
• * https://www.theguardian.com/us...

So, your chance of dying of various things in the US is:

• * US Citizen killed by terrorists from 2005 through 2014: (about 1 in 240K deaths.)
• * Killed by lightning in the US: (about 1 in 160K.) For every terrorism death, there are about 1 and 1/2 deaths by lightning.
• * Dying in a plane crash: (about 1 in 10,000) For every terrorism death, there are about 25 deaths by plane crashes
• * Being killed by police in the US: (about 1 in 2300) For every terrorism death, there are about 105 deaths by police
• * Drowning in the US: (about 1 in 1200) For every terrorism death, there are about 200 deaths by drowning.
• * Dying in a motor vehicle accident: (about 1 in 100.) For every terrorism death, there are about 2,200 deaths by motor vehicle accidents
• * Heart disease & cancer in the US: (about 1 in 7 deaths.) For every terrorism death, there are 35,000 deaths by heart disease and cancer.

There hasn't been a big increase in deaths by terrorism. Or laptop. Why aren't we banning laptops in order to protect people from lightning? It would make just as much sense.

It looks like you could show a decrease in deaths by

Re:The TSA is really bad at math.

[mishehu]

Lost in the noise is the fact that at least according to the KXAN article I saw about this a few days ago, the Trump administration's budget for October would "significantly" cut the TSA's operating budget. This smells like a vague attempt to justify returning the budget due to an imaginary engineered threat. (In other words, an attempt to justify the need for the TSA and the big fat check they get.)

Re:easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now app

[MightyYar]

Uhhhh, yeah, I'm not in any kind of national security kind of work. If the Chinese government wants to watch me work they can go right ahead.

Naked

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon, everyone traveling by plane will be required to do so completely naked, with every luggage and other personal item in the cargo hold.

Re:easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now app

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, lots of travelers are going to do this... Do Slashfags ever realize how batshit crazy they come off as compared to the rest of the civilized world?

Just cancelled my vacation in September

[Anonymous Coward]

There's this possible laptop ban, and the social media list. I don't have Facebook or Twitter, I'll bet that it must be very suspicious. I do have YouTube ( Home on the range. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdsXwmnRZcQ )

Then there's the travel list for that last 15 years, are you shitting me. I can't remember that. I can barely remember 2016 and 2017, but lets see.
2016:
Florida
Arizona
Germany
Germany
Germany
Nevada/Arizona
Sweden
2017:
Arizona
Sweden
Germany
--------
So 13 years to dig up now. Not going to be easy.
I think I just won't bother to travel to the US right now. I also wanted to attend VMworld but now I'd rather go to Barcelona.

Been using chromebooks as laptops for years now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Been using chromebooks as laptops for years now...
Wiped google's crap and never looked back.

Love the 13in form factor, sub-2lbs weight, 10+ hrs battery life, 1080p screen. Core i3 is about the highest CPU, but what do you want for $350.

I really, really, really miss the DELETE key and F11/F12 keys. Also, I wear out the keyboards within about 2 yrs. Because these are so cheap, a new keyboard is $100. Tried to replace just the keyboard on an earlier model, but it turned into a "whole thing." Plastic rivets suck (and can't be reused).

4G of RAM and m.2 SSDs can be limiting - anyone running Eclipse will be disappointed, however. Get a better job.

But chromebooks will be banned if laptops are. TSA monkies can't tell the difference ... and they shouldn't have to.

My chromebook won't boot chromeOS anymore. It uses a stock EFI boot firmware at this point, so any OS can be installed. I'm running Ubuntu-mate fully encrypted and dual booting a minimal Ubuntu just for show and tell reasons. Someday, I might be stopped by the TSA and I have no interest in unlocking the encrypted partitions for them. They can keep the machine if it comes to that.

If they ban laptops on domestic flights (doubtful), then I'll just travel with a raspberry pi v3 + HDMI cable and bt-keyboard instead. Not ideal, but probably sufficient for my remote access via ssh needs and for media to kill time in the hotel.

Re:easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now app

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Dell Latitude models have a very small HDD that sits in a slot on the side that you can pull out in mere seconds (if you don't leave the screws in).

airline industry

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll kill the airline industry tbh.

Two options

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Airlines could rent out known OK laptops with basic apps (Office, Browser etc..). You could bring a USB drive or use a cloud based service like Google Drive or Dropbox for access to your files.
2) Buy a tablet (assuming they don't also ban these)

roll your own crypto

[bugs2squash]

Roll up keyboards are available. I would have thought that a "crypto" feature could be built in, so that you can open the app from your usb drive on an untrusted PC using normal keyboard mode, then turn on the crypto and then type into your app once it has started with the app decrypting the keystrokes as you go.

They can log all the keystrokes they like then, I'm sure it could be made relatively difficult to marry the keystroke up with the screen output and really sensitive things like passwords are typically not echoed back anyway.

Sure there are other ways to snoop, but a keylogger seems to be the biggest fear in this thread.

So what about this?

[JustNiz]

Just encrypt and remove the harddrive and ship it to where you're going separately, or even just carry it separately to your laptop and don;t tell them its the drive for it. I'll bet a Whole different set of rules would apply when they have to prove that "thing" is infact a hard drive, and they can only presume it came out of the same PC they want to search. If you're an engineer and travelling on business you could even claim that they shouldn't plug it in because they will damage it and its actually not your laptop's storage but one of the very expensive components for some new prototype which is the purpose of your business trip.

Take the HDD out

[jago25_98]

I used to take the HDD out. Been a while since I've done that. Not sure if you can get laptops with removeable hard drives anymore...

Two words: Victorinox Spectra

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like this little thing has a built-in laptop compartment.

Back to older comments

[indytx]

It seems as if someone has already asked a similar question here

Laptop ban and insurance

[Anonymous Coward]

When the partial ban was announced I contacted my insurance agent. At present a checked laptop would be covered by my insurance if it went missing from checked baggage. We didn't discuss how one proves that, but one step at a time. Other, non-covered electronics would be a problem (for me). Would a usb powered external drive be forbidden from the cabin? Harmless and inert, it probably would be given TSA's past performance (or lack thereof).

My Bose sound cancelling headphones are bigger than a cell phone, so those would probably be banned from the cabin. Luckily I have a smaller ear-bud version also, but not nearly as comfortable.

Thank you gw bush for 9/11. Things have been going downhill ever since.

Re:I hope someone has the common sense to ban

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a very good way of putting it.

For another comparison, compare Muslims who support Sharia law (which most people don't really understand) with Christians who would answer affirmatively to something like "Do you think the Ten Commandments should be a law?" and you'd probably come up with even closer percentages.

Yeah, Islam is having a crisis right now, but saying "Muslims are the problem" is just ignorant and racist.

the only answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop flying.

There are wonderful things to see and do in your own country that don't require you to participate in the Security theater BS.

This seems to be more and more of an isolation tactic by the US, maybe they figure that more business will stay states side, maybe they really are worried by the terrorizers.

The facts are that the ship has a new captain and is on a new course, we are all just passengers now. Until the the entire crew (politicians) decide they cant stand him any more there is really nothing that can be done. The only real shred of hope is for people to start voting in new people en mass, even if those new people have no experience in politics it wont create any more chaos than the current captain is causing (explicitly or implicitly).

A smart phone is enough

[OricAtmos48K]

A smart phone holds my data, presentations and communications. I can easily live without a laptop for 2-3 days out of the office.

Re:I hope someone has the common sense to ban

[guruevi]

There are indeed Muslims of other nations, just like there are Jewish converts. But the majority of Muslims is Muslim because their entire country, their families, their social structure etc. is built around it.

If Muslims were 'just a religion', they wouldn't have countries where theocratic rule is the norm.

Laptop will be ruined

[xokapuz]

My concern is not the theft or privacy issues. You always can encrypt, take of hdd/ssd, create an image and wipe laptop. Theft is also preventable, I always use TSA lock on my bag.

But it will be ruined in the luggage. People who load/unload the luggage are so sloppy, they don't give a damn about fragile items.

Once I was transporting a bottle of an expensive alcohol. I wrapped it in plastic bag and put in the middle of my bag, surrounded by lots of clothes. On arrival I got only lots of pieces of that glass mixed with alcohol. The bottle was extra thick, they managed to destroy it.

I need my laptop all the time. Well, not in the cabin, but on every travel. I rarely carry something big, so I travel with carry-on bags mostly. So my position on that: screw them, if it will go global, will have to think twice to take the flight, instead of night train, for example. So far I'm glad I'm not living in US =)

Here's what you do...

[TheOuterLinux]

Realist method: Hear me out; buy a pistol. A lot of airlines actually allow unloaded pistols as baggage if they are locked in their own boxes in which they only have the key. However, they then allow you to lock you luggage that contains this locked box with the gun inside. You could then put your laptop in with it, with your own external lock, to which no TSA agent in a busy airport is going to bother to break open. The gunbox is specifically designed to let scanners know what's up.

The more fun method:Bring a typewriter into 12 hour flights. If they want to see your "data,: hand them your ink reels.

gov laptops on offical business???

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh this is going to be a pain... I work as a gov contractor, and I simply cannot just strip everything out of my laptop while on travel (I have data and programs that I am working with/on, and often several TB of data that I am reviewing and processing -- yes all on my laptop). I also cannot turn over the password if asked (do you know that is a security breach in and of itself, and must be reported immediately to a security officer...). It is explicitly stated agency policy to carry the laptop while traveling. Mind you I am not working with any personally identifiable information (PII), classified or sensitive information, but this is going to actually make business and gov travel even less safe. Uggg.. this is going to be a pain.