A laptop ban would be a disruptive privacy risk

I made this comment elsewhere[0], but I&#x27;ll repeat it here:<p>I recently took a flight from Belgrade via Istanbul to Birmingham (UK). Hand luggage only, no checked luggage.<p>At Istanbul they took my laptop from me, gave me a receipt, packed it in bubble-wrap, put that in a suitcase with lots of other bubble-wrapped laptops, and put it in the hold.<p>Yes, I got it back in the baggage reclaim area, but it was cold - <i>seriously</i> cold - I didn&#x27;t dare turn it on for several hours to let the disk warm up slowly.<p>This is making international travel a complete crap-shoot.<p>Take precautions people. Backup your data, don&#x27;t travel with your valuable laptop.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14436259" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14436259</a>

It&#x27;s not only a privacy risk, it&#x27;s a <i>fire</i> risk, if li-ion batteries are put in the hold.<p>Sadly, if they do roll out a hand-luggage ban on electronics, I can see it becoming a complete ban due to existing regulations (e.g. EU) that prohibit the checking of li-ion batteries due to the fire risk.<p>I now feel like something of a tit for pointing out that security theatre is ridiculous while one is allowed to carry li-ion&#x2F;lipo batteries on one&#x27;s person, as you could just fold your iPhone in half using a tray table as a lever, and then use the ensuing white hot long lasting flame for whatever nefarious purpose, as they now appear to be closing this window.<p>If one is outright banned from transporting electronics it will be chaos - will I need to buy a new phone in every location I fly to? What about business travellers - are we going to see a resurgence in portable manual typewriters, and flights sounding like a hailstorm?<p>I am so sick of this idiocy.

Another security risk that the article doesn&#x27;t really get explicit about is tampering of your laptop to install [hardware] keyloggers and such. Just because it&#x27;s in bubble wrap or whatever doesn&#x27;t mean the authorities can&#x27;t pick it out and do what they want with it.<p>As far as mitigation of all this paranoia and destruction of reasonable social &amp; business order, I hope group charter flights become more widespread &amp; affordable, avoiding all the bulk passenger plane nonsense.

It&#x27;s a risk of delivery too. The recent outages at Airlines (Delta&#x2F;United etc) left travelers without their bags for days.<p>If I&#x27;m a business consulting company, airlines are no longer reliable enough to ship my employees.

This is even worse if travelling from countries like Argentina. Here everybody knows they people who handle checked luggage will steal anything of values. It&#x27;s even considered risky to leave nice-looking shoes in there. Last time my dad travelled they took his shoes and a pack of chocolates from it.<p>I&#x27;m sure other not-so-developed countries have it quite similar (eg: several in Latinamerica and probably Africa).<p>Checking in a laptop? Anybody would laugh in your face for suggesting it. Not sure how we&#x27;re gonna start handling travelling to the US.

Does someone have a nice guide to do full disk encryption, and other recommendations so that we can at least be a little certain our data isn&#x27;t being tampered with?

Fly to Vancouver, bus&#x2F;uber to Seattle, fly to US destination?

Probably the best solution is those using usb drives and portable software for data

Microsoft Surface - does it count as a tablet or a laptop to the TSA?<p>I will be travelling a lot between the US and Canada, so need to decide between Surface or Macbook.

Methinks there&#x27;s a opportunity for a booming phone and laptop rental business at airports...

what&#x27;s my market play for the upcoming decline in business travel &amp; sales pop in productivity phablet hardware &amp; software?

It should only be a battery ban.

And airlines won&#x27;t profile and interview as does EL AL because why?

How common is this, and how can we expect it to evolve ?<p>This is the first time I hear of a laptop ban on internationnal flights. Any informative links would be appreciated.

Why is everyone so dismissive of the bomb threat? I can guarantee everyone involved (airlines, TSA, etc) would just as soon you keep your laptop rather than having to deal with the hassle of scanning, wrapping, loading, and delivering them.