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Comment by Perdition | Hacker News Reader

>Show me a case where an IN-FLIGHT transponder shutdown is a needed issue

How would the system determine it is in-flight and thus prevent a maintenance shut down? You would need another device to determine in-flight from ground operations, and thus another device that can malfunction and thus can be defeated by an attacker.

>Give me any reasonable response to why this is not something that should be fixed.

Give me a reasonable response why spending a bunch of money to fix this rare issue is worth it over other safety improvements? Old aircraft, poor maintenance, and overworked pilots kill many times more people than hijackers.

P.S. Why don't we track buses? Why don't we track cars? Why don't we track everybody?

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  How would the system determine it is in-flight and thus 
  prevent a maintenance shut down?

You would connect it in parallel with something that cannot be shut down in flight.

If you had a transponder in parallel with each engine, on the ground you could shut down all engines; or for an in-flight fire you could shut down a single engine; but you could not shut down all engines (transponders) while in flight.

  Why don't we track buses? Why don't we track cars?

You've heard of LoJack, right? We track cars worth far less than a jet airliner.

>If you had a transponder in parallel with each engine, on the ground you could shut down all engines; or for an in-flight fire you could shut down a single engine; but you could not shut down all engines (transponders) while in flight.

Dual transponders linked to engines is not a safe design. You are significantly increasing the chance of an aircraft crash for a slight reduction in uncertainty of the location of crashed/hijacked aircraft.

>You've heard of LoJack, right? We track cars worth far less than a jet airliner.

People voluntarily deploying tracking systems is different from mandating tracking systems.

Cars and buses are at a much higher risk of hijacking per passenger/travel distance than planes.

>P.S. Why don't we track buses? Why don't we track cars? Why don't we track everybody?

Buses are at alt==0 and never over an ocean - you're an idiot for comparing the two.

Why don't we track everybody? Do you understand what the NSA has been doing?

I'm sure you have valid points to make, but I would ask that you reconsider how you make them. From the guidelines[0]:

    In Comments

    Be civil. ...

    When disagreeing, please reply to the argument
    instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an
    idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be
    shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

[0] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>Buses are at alt==0 and never over an ocean

And what does that have to do with it? In the event of a passenger jet crashing into the ocean an enhanced transponder system would not raise passenger survival by any notable rate (because aircraft crashes where the passengers survive and aren't immediately rescued are incredibly rare in the modern age).

Aircraft hijacking where the craft and passengers go missing is incredibly rare even among hijacking incidents.

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