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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

"suppose all those lookalikes will be pulled out and have their serial numbers checked"

I can almost guarantee the TSA will invest zero dollars or time into deciding which MacBooks are okay. This is Apple's problem to solve. Zero time, money or attention from the TSA or the airlines will be invested. If the FAA bans any Macbooks, all "Apple looking thingies" will be effectively banned.

Source: 3 decades of govt and airline experience.

Advice: Buy a Dell sticker to cover the apple logo on your MacBook. Or some similarly silly thing like an "Apple Store FAA compliant sticker" program. (I'm linking back to this comment later when it happens :)

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Might a passenger, properly warned, be liable if he brings a banned laptop on the plane anyway and it catches on fire?

I don't think OP was implying that. There are Macbooks that look identical in appearance to the affected devices but are perfectly fine.

They absolutely should be criminally liable for risking the lives of everyone on board because they won't take a different laptop, or none, with them.

If the search is only 5% effective then the deterrent needs to be something you wouldn't risk a 5% chance of happening, year in prison, or a fine of 2 times your average annual income seems about right?

You mean something like dying a fiery death because your laptop caught fire on a plane?

That's a lot rarer than a 5% chance. If 5% of these laptops exploded every few hours, there wouldn't be many of them left by now.

If the actual negative effects are a lot rarer than 5%, then the expected punishment should probably also be lighter.

> I can almost guarantee the TSA will invest zero dollars or time into deciding which MacBooks are okay. This is Apple's problem to solve. Zero time, money or attention from the TSA or the airlines will be invested.

how is it apple's problem then? by the way you've described things, it doesn't seem like it's anybody's problem. it could be a marketing problem for apple, but it doesn't seem like they care about those anyway.

That's what I mean. It's a public image / marketing problem if the TSA starts blanket banning apple laptops.

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