[Noisebridge-congress] Any tips in carrying all kinds of electronics in check-in luggage ?

[Alex Merlin Glowaski]

Have traveled internationally a few times with a bunch of electronics crap,
both in checked and carry-on luggage. They occasionally open up my
carry-on, especially in Europe for some reason, but it's quick and painless.

The one time I was concerned about a checked bag, I stuck a cartoony note
on top telling what the stuff was and what I was gonna do with it. Nothing
happened, and this may have had zero to do with it, but it eased my mind a
little. :)

On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 5:55 PM, Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:

> I have the answer to this.  A few years ago Lilia and I flew a bunch of
> different places with the nuclear analyzer we made, which uses a NaI(Tl)
> scintillator... Sodium-Iodide doped with Thallium.
>
> It's a big artificial crystal - about 4cm diameter by 4cm tall.. and it's
> very very dense.  After all, it's purpose is to interact with gamma
> "photons" and scintillate them into flashes of light.
>
> It turns out that such crystals show up BLACK on the xray machine - unlike
> everything else ever.  So whenever this thing is in your bags (and i always
> brought it on my carry-on bag) they really noticed it.
>
> At one airport, they very politely told us that we would need to wait for
> the explosives expert to come look at the item.  Then they very politely
> started asking the usual friendly questions like "so, where are you from?
> What do you do there?  Where are you headed to?  What will you be doing
> there?" until he arrived and told them that it was perfectly safe.
>
> I won't be bringing it (it's not exactly in working order right now) and I
> don't plan on bringing anything nearly that dense, so I figure it will
> probably be fine for me and for you too.  They just look at the X-rays.
>
> Oh one more thing - apparently there's this new rule where, upon returning
> to the U.S.A. on an international flight, you have to be able to turn on
> your laptop or else they will take it away.  It's OK if you have to plug it
> into the charger, but if you don't have your charger and your battery is
> dead and your privilege doesn't save you, they will take your laptop.
>
> -jake
>
> On Sat Jul 25 Henner wrote:
>
> So like many of us travelling to Camp, I will probably have all kinds of
> stuff in my check-in luggage such as the LED panels, switching power supply
> and all kinds of wires that will probably look pretty alarming if you are
> looking at an X-ray of the luggage...
>
> So I am a bit worried that I might end up without electronics..
>
> It is commonly known that they will open international luggage anyway, so
> the question is how to make sure that TSA and others that rummage through
> my stuff don't see this as a threat but just simple electronics.
>
> I intend to clearly mark things, for instance write stickers 'Display
> panels' so that it is more clear to someone inspecting the luggage contents.
>
> Are there any other good suggestions ? Mitch, you are travelling a lot
> internationally, probably often with electronics - do you have some good
> suggestions to improve the probability to get these things through unharmed
> ? Or am I just overthinking this ?
>
> Thanks
>   Henner.
>
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