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> its pretty hard to get your bombs set to blow up at the exact right time.

You can use GPS tracking and a program running on the phone. With this setup, you can guess when the plane will pass over a major city and blow it up according to population density.

I would assume someone would already have sent the phones with their programs to acquire more information on signal strength, cell towers and all the data to make something like this work before attaching explosives to the devices.

Someone probably is right now going over other packages sent by similar routes, possibly by associates of this guy and those who picked them up at the destination. I am quite sure this was not his first attempt.




GPS won't work inside a metal shell, which is what cargo compartments on airplanes are (passenger airplanes have windows).


Not sure about that (planes being radio-sealed). Planes are getting more and more composite materials to save weight. One of the key features of the 787 is the composite fuselage that I am not sure will effectively block GPS signals. Also, many cargo planes are remissioned or dual-use passenger planes that still have windows:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XMBDcG2dmr-Z1QoGBdXu2g

If all else fails, some phones are coming with gyroscopes...




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