Techdirt Crowdsourcing: How Will The TSA Idiotically Respond To The Laptop Terror Bomb?

The terrorism arms race marches on, apparently. You may have heard of the recent attack on a passenger plane taking off from Somalia. By all accounts, the attacker managed to get onto the plane with a laptop that contained a bomb, which he detonated during takeoff. The result? The bomber was sucked out of the hole he created in the plane and died, while a couple of other passengers were mildly wounded. The universe, it seems, is not without either a sense of justice or humor.

Still, you absolutely know that this will create a typical shitstorm at the TSA. Security theater stops for nobody, after all, and this latest attempt is sure to put a focus on any computer devices passengers are bringing with them on flights. Laptops and tablets are already screened by the TSA, of course, but somehow this guy got on the plane with his bomb-filled notebook. Even though it happened outside the US (so not directly a TSA failing), it's not difficult to expect that things are predictably and stupidly going to get more strict on the rest of us. We thought it might be fun to engage in a little crowdsourcing of predictions as to what the TSA reaction will be. In our writing room, your esteemed Techdirt writers came up with some ideas to help you get started:

• If you have not upgraded to Windows 10, passengers will be forced to do so at the security checkpoint.
• If you run a machine using Linux, yeah, you're not getting on the damn plane.
• The TSA will have a special USB key that it will plug into every computer. It won't actually detect explosives, but it will download any nude photos you have of yourself on the machine for TSA employees to enjoy. They love that shit, after all.
• All laptops must be in a vaccuum sealed plastic bag and cannot be opened until the plane has landed.
• Any laptop over a certain weight will immediately be tossed in the same bin as all of the breast milk, insulin, and contact solution.
• If your machine contains a copy of Minesweeper, you are shot on sight.

We know our community can do much better than the above, however, so feel free to comment with your own predictions for how the TSA will battle the scourge of laptop explosives that probably don't actually exist. As a side note, one wonders how useless all of that in-flight WiFi equipment is going to be in the near future.

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