well, on sunday i was caught in part of this in denver. on a connecting flight i was randomly selected for additional screening at boarding.

the security professional asked if i had heard of the new screening procedures for computers. i said i had. she asked me to turn the computer on, but once they saw it light up, i could turn it off.

i told them it must completely boot up before i shut it off, otherwise i might incur damage to the software. they were suprised that something like that could happen as they have never heard of it before. being that they are high paid security professionals, i am sure they have $3000 notebook computers with $25,000 of software on them.

anyway, while it was booting up, they kept telling me to shut it off and i kept telling them no, i cannot do that until it is done starting up.

all the while, the next randomly selected passenger was waiting to be screened. i guess i clogged their well oiled machine.

one note. the person behind me had scissors removed from her sewing bag. i am happy to report that no garments were manufactured on the flight and we arrived in orlando safely, although with the same wardrobes we boarded with

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keep a floppy in the "A" drive - it'll go thru the attempt to boot, but won't and you can shut down... I also know there are some key combinations you can use to abort boot w/out damage, but I don't know what they are.. so I just use a non-start diskette in the "A" drive.

floppy drives are so 90's. i have an extra battery in the bay. i usually hybernate the beast just for such events, but i didnt this time.

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Set a boot password. It will stop and ask for the password near the end of the POST, before it tries to boot the OS; you can safely turn it back off at that point.

--Laird

Had to laugh. Same thing happened to me at SFO. Was selected for a secondary screening, and I turned on the computer at the same time they told me not to. That added about 30 seconds or so to the procedure.

In my carryon they also found a plate of aluminum, with stuff taped to it and wires coming off that were attached to a taped-up battery pack, with some electronics dangling nearby. They asked me what it was. I told them 'a new, high-tech heating element from China.' They believed me because, I guess, I was telling them the truth.

I had two cell phones, and they only had me turn on my Thai unit. They also found several digital cameras, a pda, digital recorder, remote-activated alarm unit, and a few other interesting electronic articles that they could have cared less about. However, for some reason they found a pair of my sunglasses fascinating.

thank you for the technical advice.



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I can't help but mention the second-last episode of "24" on Fox. Wasn't there a gun hidden inside a 'laptop' that they turned on at security and once they saw the screen light up they let Kiefer Sutherland into a political rally?

[This message has been edited by PunishedEdmontonian (edited 02-04-2002).]