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Comment by closewith | Hacker News Reader

> they don't stop bombings (there are much better targets for that, which don't involve killing the bomber),

I think you should read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_airliner_bombing_a...

The only reason you believe aircraft bombings aren't being stopped is because you live in a world where rigourous security has stopped all aircraft bombings.

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Yeah. The "security theater" absolutely does play its part in stopping attacks. Without it, airplanes would be an extremely easy target for any nutjob to commit mass murder in. They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic. Over past few decades many airliners have crashed because out of control fire in the cabin / cargo hold. I really don't want it to be easy for any random person to cause such fire.

Did you drop a sarcasm tag? Anyone can make a fire on a plane as they allow lighters on a plane, and batteries, and any number of flammable objects. None of that is facing any scrutiny nor stopping crazy people from being crazy.

I've heard that cell phones often catch fire on planes, and the crews know how to deal with that. I guess they have to because the odds of one going up are pretty good across so many flights.

It's easier to deal if it's in carry on bag. This is why batteries are forbidden in checked luggage. Once it all burns the airplane has got to land asap and it's an emergency.

My checked luggage did not pass xray multiple times because they detected powerbanks. I had to come back and take it out. However it also did pass xray a couple times with powerbanks so it's not a reliable system.

Alternatively, I checked 3-4 20k mAh powerbanks in my luggage on my flight to Utah and it never got flagged or detected.

like yes I pointed out it doesn't always work. sometimes I don't even know if anybody is watching the screen

Ironically, both India and China forbid lighters on planes. Famously you see a collection of them around the bins just outside the airport as all the smokers leave them for others.

"Take a lighter, leave a lighter" - Guess you can just pick up one on your way back out when you return home!

Flammable liquid and all high temperature lighters are forbidden, as are Li-ion batteries over 100kWh.

You can buy up to 5L up to 70% alcohol after security, no? Sounds pretty flammable

Can get that up to 99% with the right salts and some vigorous shaking.

s/100kWh/100Wh/

But you can still have multiple batteries (I think up to 10 or so) as long as each individual one is less than 100Wh.

Yes it's possible to make a fire on a plane, but it would be even easier to cause a big fire if there was zero monitoring of bags. As flawed as airport security is, it should generally catch things like somebody trying to get a carry-on bag full of gasoline or extremely large lithium-ion batteries on board.

I take security that catches 50 or even 20% of threats any day over 0 security.

> Without it, airplanes would be an extremely easy target for any nutjob to commit mass murder in.

They still are, but I'm not comfortable spelling out details. The 95% TSA failure rate should lead you to this conclusion naturally.

> They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic.

People have plenty of such things with them as it currently stands. Plenty more can be trivially brought on board in a checked bag or even pocket. But again I'm not going to spell it out.

> I really don't want it to be easy for any random person to cause such fire.

Well that's unfortunate because it already is. I think the primary things protecting passengers are the cost of entry (the true nutjobs don't tend to be doing so well financially) and the passengers themselves. Regarding the latter, the shoe bomber was subdued by his fellow passengers.

Most would-be attackers are not suicidal, I suppose. You would have to be in order to start a fire on a plane that you are on.

> Most would-be attackers are not suicidal

That's definitely not an assumption in the threat model.

I could have said that better. I meant to say, the fact that you have to be suicidal to do the attack definitely reduces the pool of attackers.

Most airplane attackers are, or at least since airplanes no longer take off with checked luggage from someone who hasn't boarded.

Non-suicidal hijackings have pretty much been eliminated by cockpit doors as well as 911 changing people's reactions.

Once you pass security, you can buy as many very flammable bottles of alcohol as you'd like

> They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic. Over past few decades many airliners have crashed because out of control fire in the cabin / cargo hold. I really don't want it to be easy for any random person to cause such fire.

It is that easy for a random person to cause such a fire.

It’s probably not that difficult to figure out how to overcharge lithium ion batteries so that they’re prone to catching fire or exploding when connected to a resistor that will overheat them.

Wireless relays are commodity items you can order online from hundreds of vendors.

Trains are a much easier target in most countries. Generally only the high-speed / cross border ones have any security at all. Until maybe 10 years ago you didn't even really need a ticket to get access to one (now ticket barriers are common).

There's a pretty strong trend in that timeline of two types of "bombings":

(1) Bombings in which the bomb is supplied by someone who isn't flying on the plane;

(2) Failed hijackings in which there was no intent to bomb the plane, but a bomb accidentally went off.

also, people always immediately think of terrorism, but TIL that life insurance policies are responsible for way more plane bombings than I thought

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