Aircraft bombs may mean end to in-flight Wi-Fi, mobile
New detonation options
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The ability to use Wi-Fi and cellphones on planes may be curtailed just as it was about to take off, following an aviation threat uncovered last week.
Plastic explosives found in laser printer cartridges that traveled from Yemen to the UK and Dubai were connected to cellphone-based detonation circuits, prompting concerns that the bombs could have been triggered by calling or texting the handset, New Scientist and other publications said. New Scientist quoted several security experts who said the discoveries cast doubt on the wisdom of allowing in-flight communications involving the internet or cellphones.
Using voice over IP, text messages, or a simple phone call to trigger an explosion would give airborne suicide bombers new and potentially more reliable methods to detonate their deadly payloads. It might also allow terrorists on the ground to do much the same thing.
The speculation comes as in-flight internet services were just taking flight. About 2,000 passenger aircraft are expected to offer satellite broadband service by the end of the year, compared with a couple dozen in 2008. Mobile carriers point out there are plenty of other ways to detonate a bomb, and say that phones don't constitute any additional threat.
There is no evidence the people behind the bombs found in the UK and Dubai planned to detonate them remotely using the cellphones. The handsets may have been used as timers only.
The New Scientist article is here. ®
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COMMENTS
Be
Be totally safe,
All passangers must travel naked. Scanners are not sufficent.
All caveties must be investigated. A suicide bomber has no sense of decency.
No baggage will be allowed. Scanners are not sufficent.
No food will be provided. Caterers can not be trusted.
Aircraft will be kept under armed guard at all times by security cleared Troopers. The land is not secure.
All fuel will be tested before leaving the fuel depot. It will remain under armed guard at all times. The citizenship can not be trusted.
All citizens on or within 100 miles of an airport must be security vetted. Everybody is a potential terrorist, and anyone could use a stinger missile.
The new air stewerds will be combat troopers with gas masks and fletchette rifles. We can take no chances.
Pilots will live on base, they will not be allowed internet access, they will under go daily psychological and loyalty examinations. All pilots will have a kill chips installed to ensure in case of terrorist thoughts they will be terminated.
Or, live like normal people and deal with the risk. At the end of the day you're far less likely to die as a westerner than you are as someone living in Africa, Middle East, or large sections of Asia and South America. Of course people wont deal with it, they'll piss their pants and cry and demand more security (well they wont but that's what we get. Most of us don't give a toss and know that our lives are far safer than a good 60% of the rest of human population.)
Theatre
It's all bullshit anyway, the gubbermint are basically allowing the terrorists to keep the US in fear by playing up the threats. Terrorist atrocities happen, it sucks but it's true. You can't stop them at every vector so why not just minimise the impact by not scaring everyone with crap checks that serve no purpose.
Back when the US was busy funding terrorism against the UK we just got on with out lives and eventually we got them all round a table and told them to grow the fuck up, the reaction to bombings such as 7/7 in the UK compared to the many vaporous threats in the US shows just how different we are culturally. Can't the US just man the fuck up?
Oh and on a side note, if a big section of the world is filled with people who are so desperate to hurt you that they'll blow themselves up to make their point maybe, just maybe, you might want to reassess whatever it is that you're doing that's got them so riled. America is the Evil Empire and the 'terrorists' are the blokes in the xwings doing whatever they can to strike back at the bastards who pillaged their land, nicked their oil and left Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru smouldering outside their mud hut.
"The ability to use Wi-Fi and cellphones on planes may be curtailed..."
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