How exactly would you get through TSA with that...
remember they almost shot and killed that MIT student that was wearing some circuits as art on her shirt
remember they almost shot and killed that MIT student that was wearing some circuits as art on her shirt
Now this happened some years before the spread of home computers, and computer terminals were not a familiar sight to the average person. When the two friends got to the hospital, a guard stopped them and asked what they were carrying. They explained that they wanted to take a computer terminal to their friend who was a patient.
The guard got out his list of things that patients were permitted to have in their rooms: TV, radio, electric razor, typewriter, tape player, ... no computer terminals. Computer terminals weren't on the list, so the guard wouldn't let it in. Rules are rules, you know. (This guard was clearly a droid.)
Fair enough, said the two friends, and they left again. They were frustrated, of course, because they knew that the terminal was as harmless as a TV or anything else on the list... which gave them an idea.
The next day they returned, and the same thing happened: a guard stopped them and asked what they were carrying. They said: "This is a TV typewriter!" The guard was skeptical, so they plugged it in and demonstrated it. "See? You just type on the keyboard and what you type shows up on the TV screen." Now the guard didn't stop to think about how utterly useless a typewriter would be that didn't produce any paper copies of what you typed; but this was clearly a TV typewriter, no doubt about it. So he checked his list: "A TV is all right, a typewriter is all right ... okay, take it on in!"
[Historical note: Many years ago, "Popular Electronics" published solder-it-yourself plans for a TV typewriter. Despite the essential uselessness of the device, it was an enormously popular project. Steve Ciarcia, the man behind "Byte" magazine's "Circuit Cellar" feature, resurrected this ghost in one of his books of the early 1980s. He ascribed its popularity (no doubt correctly) to the feeling of power the builder could achieve by being able to decide himself what would be shown on the TV. --ESR]
[Antihistorical note: On September 23rd, 1992, the L.A. Times ran the following bit of filler:
Solomon Waters of Altadena, a 6-year-old first-grader, came home
from his first day of school and excitedly told his mother how he
had written on "a machine that looks like a computer -- but
without the TV screen." She asked him if it could have been a
"typewriter." "Yeah! Yeah!" he said. "That's what it was
called."
http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/t/TVTypewriters.html
----
If you went ahead and assumed that TSA agents are really just cleverly projected computer algorithms (androids perhaps?), your predictions concerning their behavior probably wouldn't be far off.
Fixed that for you.
This resulted in me being detained for over an hour while they ran every possible test on it, inspected every single item in my carry on and even photographing every individual page in my notebook. I was then followed until I got on the plane and even had to confirm that I was on the plane before it was cleared to depart.
This was on a US domestic flight. I have flown with prototypes in Europe several times (international flights) and have never had any problems.
Either way: bringing nonstandard electronics, even things that are much less sophisticated than acceptable things like laptops etc. can cause you major headaches when the TSA is involved.
I'm wondering if you'd be better off carrying prototypes in a separate, custom piece of luggage, like a Pelican case. Something that says 'this is expensive and important', rather than 'someone made this in a garage'.
I fully acknowledge that "custom" and "different" are not equivalent concepts, but well, that's the rationale.
I've gone through with lockpicks, booze, arduinos, rpis, various components and boxes full of electronic bits. Only major issue I've encountered was accidentally packing items in a box that shipped reloading supplies.
Edit: yeah, the same police force who had just freaked out over LED advertisements earlier that same year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare
Major Scott Pare of the State Police: "Again, this is a serious offense ... I’m shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport."
Switch out 'wear' with 'carry' and we've got a future headline starring this device! Or indeed any device with exposed wires / circuits.
It's about as bright as carrying a realistic-looking toy gun into an airport.
And while I'm asking random questions, where did the cliche of the anarchist with the spherical black bomb with a fuse coming out the top come from? This icon was used for system errors on the original Mac, but it must be way older than that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_(symbol)
In 1922, Buster Keaton's "Cops" features a bomb-throwing anarchist: http://images.greencine.com/images/article/keaton-bomb-2.jpg (Buster unknowingly lights his cigarette with it)
And 1919, a 'Red Scare' cartoon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Come_unto_me,_ye_opprest....
But this has got to be older, as this type of throwing bomb was obsolete in the early 1900s. There's the Haymarket affair (1886): http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/haymarket/just...
I'm guessing that's the incident that ties this bomb to political activists. But the design is a lot older; the badge of Napoleon's grenadier guards is an image of this type of bomb, but the round throwing bomb is way, way older: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ming_Dynasty_fragmentatio...
Recognisably the same bomb, from the 14th century.
There is an idea that it originated in WWII, when some German bombs featured overly complicated designs that purposely didn't explode all the time, because a live bomb is arguably worse than an already exploded bomb.
As far as the whole "potentially being shot." thing. I am unclear of what to say there. They are investigating a potential threat, if it was indeed a threat. The guns are necessary there. I am not clear how wearing an exposed circuit board connected to a 9Volt battery with what looks like putty is different from me waving a toy gun around in a bank. Should that imply that if someone had something that looked like a weapon, the cops shouldn't draw their guns? Sure, I don't disagree with the statement that not all bombs are open circuit boards. Neither are all open circuit boards bombs. How do you however practically implement an alternative solution in such a scenario? Complaining about the cops is useless unless you are bringing up a solid alternative.
There is no factual basis for linking her activities to a bomb threat. Bombs do not look like that. Perhaps a bomb could look like that, but a bomb can look like anything, like a rolling suitcase.
My solution is to allow cops to step in only if they have reasonable suspicion to believe a criminal act is taking place. An unrecognized object should not be considered a weapon unless it is being used in a threatening manner. Walking around an airport should not be considered threatening behavior.