Laptop scan at airport

[goombawaho]

Hope this is not too off topic. The TSA guys at the airport - you know, the ones that check to make sure you don't have too much liquid, etc., etc. They took my laptop. They said "Sir, we're going to have to scan your laptop in this machine." So, I said "OK". What else are you going to say??

Anyway, it was cube-shaped about three feet in all dimensions. It looked like a large microwave from the late 70s. They put it in there and "cooked" it for a while and then gave it back to me. Delicious.

Apparently I passed all tests because I was not strip-searched. Does anybody know what that thing was?? My guess - it sniffs the laptop for anything chemically suspicious in case some naughty person thought substituting the batteries with something else was a brilliant idea.

I've taken a different laptop through the checkpoints and they never did anything other than XRAY. And, on the same leaving Detroit, they didn't do anything except XRAY. But Ft. Myers gave me the royal sniffing treatment on the way home.

 

[BadBigBen]

I haven't traveled in a long while, but it does sound like it was an Explosive Sniffer...



Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting questions to a professional forum.

 

[Grenage]

I suppose the real way to find out would be to replace the battery with some C4 and see if you get led off to a side-room.

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer

 

[Nelviticus]

It's called a placebox (pronounced plass-ee-box). It doesn't have anything inside it except machinery that makes whirring and clunking noises. They put your laptop in there to make you feel that the security at airports can detect malicious intentions.

Nelviticus

 

[Lemon13]

as u thought, its a device that scans the sucked out air for chemicals

i travel on a regular base, sometimes they just wave u trough, seldom they ask to power on the nb, once they scanned it with that chemikal scanner device

 

[goombawaho]

Ah, thanks for confirming Lemon13. I found it odd that they had never scanned me before using a smaller IBM laptop, but the first trip I went on, they scanned the larger laptop I carried. But, as I said, only one airport scanned on the return trip - not both, so it must be random or they are semi-incompetent.

 

[BadBigBen]

probably both...

next time you travel make sure your clean shaved and wearing a suit... ;-)

I remember being pulled out of line several times during my college years, why cuz I have long hair and whore a scraggly beard...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[Nelviticus]

I have long hair and whore a scraggly beard...

Ben, that word doesn't mean what you think it means!

Nelviticus

 

[goombawaho]

^^^^ I laughed. Freudian slip?

 

[Sympology]

Side issue about airport scans...becareful what you pack

Semi NSFW

This was pulled from an offical press release about airport securityat BHX. The PDF has now been pulled, but the image still remains here.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/06/brum_airport_shocker/

Most people spend their time on the "urgent" rather than on the "important."

 

[BadBigBen]

Nelveticus - Ouch... I should proof read what I write...

Goombawaho - Freud & Dr. Ruth put together...

and ALL I meant was wore...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[goombawaho]

I'm now sorry I started this thread. No, my laptop bag contained no "marital aids" or other such devices. I'm sure those people have seen it all - weird piercings, cross-dressers - the whole gamut.