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Aircraft bomb find 'could mean the end of in-flight Wi-Fi' | Last week's discovery of explosive packed in laser printer cartridges connected to a mobile phone could mean the end of Wi-Fi connections for passengers in flights. A cellphone connected to a detonation circuit could have allowed a
terrorist to trigger an explosion by calling or texting the phone, reports New
Scientist. Recently, the aviation industry was gearing up to provide in-flight
entertainment systems that feature both cellphone and Wi-Fi connections for passengers,
but the bomb find could change all that now. Roland Alford, managing director
of Alford Technologies, an explosives consultancy in Chippenham, Wiltshire , UK
, said he expects the technology to be scrutinised in the security reviews being
undertaken by the UK government and US Department of Homeland Security in the
wake of the discovery of the printer bombs. In-flight Wi-Fi "gives a bomber lots
of options for contacting a device on an aircraft", Alford said. "If it were to
be possible to transmit directly from the ground to a plane over the sea, that
would be scary. Or if a passenger could use a cellphone to transmit to the hold
of the aeroplane he is in, he could become a very effective suicide bomber," said
Alford's colleague, company founder Sidney Alford. Manufacturers will not welcome
this fresh security concern, having finally gained airworthiness approval for
their in-flight cellphone and Wi-Fi systems by proving that their microwave transmissions
do not interfere with avionics. "The position of our security experts is that
the use of mobile phones on planes does not constitute any additional security
threat," said Aurelie Branchereau-Giles of OnAir, a company based in Geneva ,
Switzerland.
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