Potential new laptop and electronics ban.....

[LDAHL]

Indeed, it's all about the theater. If they had been really concerned about security, they would have done something about laptops decades ago.

It would seem to me that you could conceal more death and destruction in a laptop than a pair of wingtips.

I've heard of certain Samsung products spontaneously combusting with no malice aforethought.

[LDAHL]

Businesspeople in the front of the plane have some power, that's way. They need access to their laptops to continue working throughout a flight so as to be on 24/7/365 to maximize corporate profit. Certainly you understand that, given your pro-American posts in the past? Rob

Well, I do certainly approve of corporate profits. Especially corporations I own some tiny sliver of. They will pay my daughter's college tuition someday if God and the markets are kind. And I am quite pleased to be an American. Sometimes I'm even a little smug about it.

I haven't made a formal study of it, but I have to say that most of the device use I've seen on planes hasn't been corporate drudges serving late stage capitalism: it's been more along the lines of Facebook, Candy Crush and YouTube.

[sweetana3]

There is more to it than doing work on the plane. (We play games, read, watch movies, etc.)

But even more than that small item is that most corporate/government/notforprofit computers can contain very valuable proprietary information that should not fall into the wrong hands. There have been numerous instances of lost hard drives containing private info or that allowed access to other files. Sure, in a perfect world, nothing would be less than perfectly secure but it is not and the hackers are out there waiting for the opportunity. The airlines have constantly shown they cannot protect these items.

[bae]

There is more to it than doing work on the plane. (We play games, read, watch movies, etc.)

But even more than that small item is that most corporate/government/notforprofit computers can contain very valuable proprietary information that should not fall into the wrong hands. There have been numerous instances of lost hard drives containing private info or that allowed access to other files. Sure, in a perfect world, nothing would be less than perfectly secure but it is not and the hackers are out there waiting for the opportunity. The airlines have constantly shown they cannot protect these items.

If you are travelling with business-sensitive/privileged data on your laptop, and do not have your storage properly-encrypted/protected, your business needs some remedial data security education.

"Hackers will steal my data from my laptop in my checked bags" is a red herring.

BTW - there's a legitimate way to check in baggage with real locks on the bags. Non-TSA locks. That you must keep in your possession at all time. And the TSA folks aren't allowed to touch the contents without you being present. I actually heard the approach advocated at a hackers' convention.

[ToomuchStuff]

Indeed, it's all about the theater. If they had been really concerned about security, they would have done something about laptops decades ago.

Although the cell phones now, have more power then the laptops of decades ago. Heck there are several things (Raspberry PI, etc) that are smaller then a cell phone, and have direct wire access (and one can carry scissors on a plane).

[bae]

Although the cell phones now, have more power then the laptops of decades ago. Heck there are several things (Raspberry PI, etc) that are smaller then a cell phone, and have direct wire access (and one can carry scissors on a plane).

It's not about the computing power. It's about the interior volume of components that could hold substances that could cause problems on planes, while being difficult to scan/evaluate....

[ToomuchStuff]

It's not about the computing power. It's about the interior volume of components that could hold substances that could cause problems on planes, while being difficult to scan/evaluate....

I wasn't even thinking of that, because in my mind, there are other ways that seem easily accessible to destroy a plane.

[jp1]

It's not about the computing power. It's about the interior volume of components that could hold substances that could cause problems on planes, while being difficult to scan/evaluate....

In that case wouldn't a better plan than just getting it a little bit away from the passengers be to have x-ray images of all the main brand laptops that have been produced over the past 4-5 years on file and as a laptop goes through the machine at security a computer compares it to the database of images. If it matches one it's clear, if not it's subject to a manual inspection.