Bruce Schneier points to this underwhelming story purporting to explain that the liquid ban is really vital to airline security and not just security theater. Color me unimpressed.
Although I wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to view it, there’s apparently a video showing a large explosion made from the components in question at Sandia Labs. Fine, I’m sure there are some liquids out there that, if mixed together under the right circumstances, can produce a large explosion. The question is whether it’s possible to do that in an in-flight airline restroom, where you have very little space, no stable work surface, no access to lab equipment, not a whole lot of time, and no ventilation.
If the powers that be really wanted to convince us that this was a real threat, they should release details about what the ingredients are, so other labs can reproduce the results. The “national security” excuse doesn’t make any sense here: the terrorists obviously already know what ingredients they were using, so there’s no point in keeping the secret away from them. Moreover, if there were a real threat, public disclosure might have real benefits: labs around the country could work on developing new equipment to detect the ingredients in question, and passengers could be on the lookout for telltale signs that a liquid bomb was being mixed.
Finally, as Schneier points out, the really ridiculous part is that the TSA’s Byzantine liquids rules just don’t stop terrorists from getting a significant amount of liquid through the checkpoint. Schneier says that he was able to smuggle in 12 ounces of non-saline-solution liquid in a saline solution bottle. If it takes more than 12 ounces to make the plane go boom, you can have multiple terrorists go through the checkpoint, or make multiple trips.
The bottom line is that if every container of liquid is a potential bomb, then no liquids should be allowed through security at all. The TSA obviously isn’t that concerned, so it makes me skeptical that there’s anything more to the story than bureaucratic ass-covering.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.