comqsat
28th Nov 2002, 16:07
Yesterday I was on a flight back to the UK from Delhi, and the passenger sitting next to me was using his laptop. We got talking and since I was an electronics engineer and this guy was showing me his fancy laptop, and I noticed when it booted up the builtin wireless networking checked for the presence of network.
It struck me that such network card is an RF transmitter, and they really shouldn't be used on an aircraft and I showed him how to switch off the wireless networking. In my experience most laptop users are novices and just power up the equipment and use it.
Increasingly new laptops are coming ready equipped with WiFi builtin.
During the flight I asked the crew about such devices and they said that such devices should not be used. What surprised me was that no explicit warning was given about laptops with WiFi, since most users would not know what happens during the bootup sequence.
What is the risk, and have airlines cottoned-on to these devices, especially since users are unlikely to realise their shiny new laptop contained an RF transmitter ?
SiMon
It struck me that such network card is an RF transmitter, and they really shouldn't be used on an aircraft and I showed him how to switch off the wireless networking. In my experience most laptop users are novices and just power up the equipment and use it.
Increasingly new laptops are coming ready equipped with WiFi builtin.
During the flight I asked the crew about such devices and they said that such devices should not be used. What surprised me was that no explicit warning was given about laptops with WiFi, since most users would not know what happens during the bootup sequence.
What is the risk, and have airlines cottoned-on to these devices, especially since users are unlikely to realise their shiny new laptop contained an RF transmitter ?
SiMon