Wino, it's not that you can't come up with some sort of binary bomb that might work a bit, it's that there are an infinite variety of ways to commit terrorism that would work a lot better at a lot lower risk of discovery.
9/11 was perpetrated with box cutters: we can't take box cutters on board any more. but can you really not think of ways of making equivalent effective weapons on board? I can make a serious knuckleduster from four coins and an in-flight magazine; I can buy a big bottle of Bombay Sapphire at FL350 and turn it into something far nastier than a box cutter.
I know this stuff, and I'm as placid a fat pacifist coward as you'll find. What do those fired with anger and fearlessness know?
9/11 won't happen the same way again, not because of the TSA
confiscating peaches from children but because pax -- even those like me -- will never sit there and let it happen.
Pretending otherwise is not making us any more secure. Increasing the stress and misery of flying is no way to reduce risk. The more the authorities impose what look like stupid restrictions, while absenting themselves entirely from any kind of discussion or public oversight, the more the billions of travellers will resent them and distrust what they say.
We're being lied to - and if we're not, we're not being trusted to know the truth. That's not good. It doesn't make us safer, and it doesn't help aviation.
R