News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe by enraged_camel on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:02AM (#14314298)
The risk with laptops in the cargo hold isn't the blast force of explosions causing a hull breach, but fires. Now any terrorist who wants to bring down a plane simply needs to rig their laptop batteries to catch on fire, which is much, much easier to do than rigging it to explode.
Re:U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe by tim333 on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:41AM (#14314415)
Looking at a youtube video of a laptop battery fire https://youtu.be/pizFsY0yjss?t=3m15s

I find it hard to see that taking out the metal box http://www.eyeno.net/2007/07/15/american-airlines-paul-bunya...

and then the plane.

Re:U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe by dom0 on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:00AM (#14314482)
These boxes are probably aluminium, which should be ignitable by another metal-fire.
Re:U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe by ulrikrasmussen on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:12AM (#14314320)
Doesn't planes have automated extinguishers in the cargo hull? I actually don't know, but it is something I would assume.
Re:U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe by manicdee on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:34AM (#14314393)
Batteries contain their own oxidiser and fuel, so the only way of extinguishing a better fire is to remove the heat (fire triangle: fuel, oxidiser, heat).

The best lay-person's method for extinguishing battery fires is flooding with cold water, which will be hard on an airplane at the best of times.

Re:U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe by tgummerer on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:17AM (#14314345)
The article goes into more details on that. Basically the fire extinguishers are not powerful enough against lithium-ion battery fires.