The US particularly is extreme in this regard. The TSA has become such a large employer that it's now unthinkable to scale it back.

9.11 was of course tragic, but that problem was solved by locking the cockpit door. And yes, no-one wants to be on a plane with an explosive device, but those are really rare. Not least because that same device is easier to use, with more effective results, in pretty much anywhere else.

And after all that money spent, it's unclear that the TSA would actually prevent any serious attack.

Outside the US things tend to be a lot more relaxed. (So much so that special checkpoints are arranged for flights to and from the US to conform to US requirements.)

Agree. It is simply idiotic how they conveniently gather hundreds of people in a crowded spot who are all pulling and tinkering with stuff from their backpacks. A bad actor can easily cause more deaths there than on a plane nowadays.

Everytime I go through that charade, I roll my eye at everything they do since it is so obviously useless and unnecessary. The worst thing is, apparently, some people really believe in it.

Well, by regulation, an aircraft is a “national property”, so a blast in an aircraft is seen as “national incompetence”. The security check is just a filter, an attack there is seen as general terror. The stakes are very different. It is also easier to de-escalate someone with a gun or other dangerous objects at the security check, people at that location are well trained to handle such situation and extra support is just a radio away, in aircraft, not only is the situation extra dangerous because other people sitting will act immensely irrationally or panic, the crew is only trained in minor de-escalation, and it is difficult to call a backup security in mid air and any shots fired in that environment is 1000x more dangerous.

> The ones that exploded were the ones that happened to have certain phone numbers and were in range at the time.

Nitpick but the pagers don’t have phone numbers, right? As I understood it, they are using a completely separate network from the phone network and are waiting for a message starting with a specific code which identifies them. But I don’t think you could send an SMS to a pager for example, without some gateway in the middle.

My Thinkpad can be definitely modified to insert an explosive object and it is fairly innocent looking as no one knows whatever the device has in it. Of course the scanner will detect some mild traces of certain explosive chemicals if the inserted object is not correctly shielded.

This doesn’t match my understanding of the operation. The reporting I’ve seen said that Mossad became aware that Hezbollah was in the market for a large order of pagers and quickly set up a shell company to sell them the exact batch of compromised pagers that they subsequently detonated.

Ahh, so we must have more e-waste because terrorism means we can't replace our batteries with anything not under the full control of Buy n Large.

It's not "high-powered" what I bring on planes. Just a regular walkie talkie (usually digital DMR) with up to 4 watts or so.

There's even ones that look like a 2005's mobile phone, like this one: https://www.radiocommunicationsonline.com/products/motorola-...

I thought of getting one of these for airline travel because they'd raise less eyebrows but in practice it wasn't needed. Also, the regular models I use are much more convenient for ham use (having a promiscuous mode to listen in to all traffic even not addressed to my DMR ID, and huge database capacity for callsigns).

A Garmin GPS also has this "military" look about it (due to its ruggedness of course), and some can also do satcom (with InReach functionality) which is pretty strictly banned in some countries like India. In the Middle East this is not a thing, and sat phones are actually a huge think (they even have their own sat network called Thuraya). Probably because of the large swathes of desert without any infrastructure. So I'd expect less eyebrows raised about the garmin there.

But yeah like I said I am never going to end up in Dubai anyway.

Airline websites are mostly OK. Border crossings too. Even though X-passports are very rare, they are becoming much less so and of course customs officials deal with thousands every day so they still un into them regularly. I don't have one yet but I heard no problems with them from other NB people in decent countries.

As for no being permitted in Dubai and Qatar etc, I consider this more as a 'feature' than a 'bug'. These countries are known for harrassing non-gender-conformant people anyway and this way I have a fully documented way to refuse a Dubai transfer if my work wants to send me somewhere with a Dubai connection. Rather than pleading because I don't want to run the risk I can now just give them a hard and documented NO. My employer publicly prides itself on being LGBTQI+ inclusive so they can't refuse that.

The biggest problems centered around this seem to involve more local government. Old local council or federal systems not able to deal with it, or the communication between those systems not handling it properly because some ancient validator routine somewhere drops the message, leading in all sorts of procedural gaps. It's a bit reminiscent of the Y2K problem.

The thing is, these explosives were meant to be hidden. I'm sure the swabbing and scanning would not work because Hezbollah would have access to the same tech.

It's a bit different from other military uses that are more open.

i find this story very weird. hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. which airports allow terrorists to travel through them with pallets of electronic devices?

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a normal leather "attache cache" is fine. the regulation says

"Security-type attaché cases, cash boxes, cash bags, etc. incorporating dangerous goods, such as lithium batteries and/or pyrotechnic material, except as provided in 2.3.2.6 are totally forbidden. See entry in 4.2–List of Dangerous Goods."

i.e. not a normal leather attache case.

This isn't true. I've flown MEL->SIN. They also fly SYD->SIN

Yes they do. New Jersey to Athens is a popular one. These are called freedom flights.

https://simpleflying.com/emirates-fifth-freedom-routes/

Yes. The middle east is geographically well located for intercontinental traffic. So Emirates (and Qatar) serve has big hubs for long-distance travel.

Dubai Airport is large, and runs 24x7. I've had a couple long layovers there (in the airside hotel) and its amazing to see the never-ending, round the clock, activity in the terminal.

Indeed the shops etc in the terminal cannot be closed - there are literally no doors on them.

Equally reporting flight boards are amazing. There are flights from everywhere to everywhere.