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The ink cartridge bombs discovered on several flights in recent days contained SIM cards and circuitry which may have been intended to serve as a trigger mechanism. The electronics in the bombs shipped from Yemen are merely timers, and could not have been used as call-activated triggers due to the technological limitations posed by distance and altitude, but it's not impossible. Terrorists could not have used a regular cellphone to call an airplane-borne bomb because it probably wouldn't be able to reach a tower that could bounce the signal properly.
That being said, in-flight Wi-Fi gives them more options, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), for contacting a device on an aircraft. Alternatively, suicide bombers could possibly call a bomb in the luggage compartment of the plane. Other experts argue that "the use of mobile phones on planes does not constitute any additional security threat."
Foiled terrorist plots often end with stricter security procedures, but cellphone use and in-flight Wi-Fi are arguably much more important to us in today's society than not being able to bring fake pocket knives on board. Hopefully, security experts will figure out a way to keep the bad guys at bay while the good guys can continue to enjoy the luxuries of the modern world.
User Comments: 52
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At least one problem with this. The Federal Agents and others cannot use communication to notify each other OR be notified of terrorist activities.
I believe at the moment, all of the passengers being able to use phones is a great idea, because of that. All Federal Agents / Air Marshall's probably notify eachother of an incident right after solving whatever issues they have with terrorism, thereby aiding in preventing any non-exactly synchronized attacks.
And as a side note, why don't we ban your stomach. Your stomach might be nice to have, use and indulge, but you sir, your stomach is a threat to national security. So "think logically, just like the implementation of body scanners, since we aren't scanning into your stomach, your stomach is hereby banned because terrorists could fashion timed bombs through ingestion. Similar to cocaine trafficking over the border.
-General Zap (AKA Nathan Paul Davis)
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"Just have logical view what if terrorists are capable of knocking out planes using wi-fi or something else imagine they disrupt the plane's navigational systems, just imagine if they send out such a signal to all the planes flying then like millions in air are in jeopardy & billions in the ground can see planes heading towards their homes. "
Yes. Because that made perfect sense and was not fear-mongering at all.
The Department of Defense should be worrying about the Chinese or other sub launching missiles off of our coast right now. 1 Nuke can create an EMP to kill all US electronics not protected by Faraday cages. It just takes one.
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