Rattle wrote:

Federal law enforcement officials, fearful that terrorists will exploit emerging in-flight broadband services to remotely activate bombs or coordinate hijackings, are asking regulators for the power to begin eavesdropping on any passenger's internet use within 10 minutes of obtaining court authorization.

The scenerios I can envision as to why they would want these legal powers -- I don't see a terrorist link. Or terrorism being a significant or special element. Except that it opens doors and awakens fears.

I think. This is what I see.

It is a simple technical matter, easy to regulate by the FAA, to prevent a terrorist from being able to detonate a payload on the plane: make all network connections require some physical, inflight interaction to activate, with no ground-to-air inbound connections. If you can do an inflight interaction, your conspirator can detonate the bomb anyway.

Or wait -- maybe the terrorist plants a bomb, gets on their flight, and triggers the explosion. It would make oh so much sense to do it that way -- where if they detect your action, or can trace that the detonation came inflight, your destination is known and escape options limited. Like an open WiFi link, or cell phone call, would be a less likely vector (oh wait, let's regulate those too).

Or, ok, they will only coordinate their terrorist plans while in-flight. I'm just not convinced. It seems like other criminals would have better use for inflight internet activity. Or business people.

RE: Wired News: Feds Fear Air Broadband Terror