How Would You Hijack an Airplane?

You know how in movies the bad guys always come up with a nearly air-tight plot to destory America, mankind, or whatever — only to be thwarted in the final hour by death-defying heroics?

Bruce Schneier, author of the Schneier on Security blog, things there’s some similarities between those seemingly plausible plans for destruction, and the ongoing battle between would-be terrorists and the TSA: We screened for guns and bombs, so the terrorists used box cutters. We took away box cutters and small knives, so they hid explosives in their shoes. We started screening shoes, so they planned to use liquids…

As such, he’s started a contest: invent your own terrorist hijacking plot.

Here’s the idea: invent a terrorist plot to hijack or blow up an airplane with a commonly carried item as a key component. The component should be so critical to the plot that the TSA will have no choice but to ban the item once the plot is uncovered. I want to see a plot horrific and ridiculous, but just plausible enough to take seriously.

Think you have what it takes to invent something so terrifying — yet plausible — that the TSA would be forced to ban wristwatches? Zippers over three inches long?

Give it a shot in the comments section of this post on Schneier’s blog.

[via BoingBoing]