Packing and the friendly skies: Deviant Ollam on how to be able to really lock your luggage and avoid those horrible “TSA-approved locks”

Another Shakacon presentation, this one from Deviant Ollam.  The short answer: fly with firearms.

Security consultants have expensive gear when they travel, and because of TSA regulations increasingly have to “trust people with questionable ethics”.  Deviant’s bags used to get opened a lot: by the TSA — and by others.  Once on the way a conference all his lock-picking gear got stolen.  After that he decided there has to be a better way.  And sure enough … there is.

Federal standards for transporting firearms in your checked luggage:

  • your luggage needs to have a hard case
  • the weapon has to be declared on check-in and unloaded
  • you need to lock it yourself, and it must have a non-TSA lock

w00t!

It’s not just”functional” firearms.  Flare guns, starter pistols, replica weapons … all of these fall under the same rules.

Deviant’s full presentation has a bunch of additional tips — for example, carrying a print out of the rules.  Here’s a video of his presentation from CarolinaCon earlier this year.

Deviant Ollam – Packing & The Friendly Skies from CarolinaCon 2009 on Vimeo.


Comments

7 responses to “Packing and the friendly skies: Deviant Ollam on how to be able to really lock your luggage and avoid those horrible “TSA-approved locks””

  1. Thanks for the nice writeup, man! If people want more info, they are free to check the “Firearms” section of my web site. The specific section for this topic is…

    http://deviating.net/firearms/packing

    … and there you can find the whole write-up, accounts of trips from armed travelers, a “rating system” that catalogs the policies of all major domestic airlines, the “legal advice sheet”, and much much more!

    Also… i should point out that while the LayerOne video of this talk is alright, the best video that exists out there was from CarolinaCon and is located here…

    http://www.vimeo.com/3923535

    I edited that video to include high-res versions of my slides. It’s both easy to follow and enjoyable to watch. (Jon, if you want to change that video pointer in the blog post it would be great!)

    1. Thanks for the additional info, Deviant … I updated the post to include the CarolinaCon video.

  2. Jon,

    I have an idea which involves bringing internet freedom to the Iranian people. I’m not exactly sure how to bring something of this caliber into action without the proper support and guidance. I figured I’d contact you since your an employee of Microsoft and also head a committe for internet freedom. I’m pretty confident in this idea, but I worry that it may jeopardize the safety of my family and I if this plan were to succeed.

    -Chris

  3. A point to note if you’re checking in luggage is that many of the travel accessories that are sold as luggage security items (locks, cable ties, security seals, etc) do not actually work to protect your luggage. You’d think for the money spent on these things it would take time to break into a bag, but it’s as simple as several seconds with a paperclip or even a pen. And people wonder why there is a problem with luggage theft.

  4. If you have costly things in your luggage and it is very important to you then make sure you have effective luggage security. Locks don’t work and can be tamper easily. For more info check out here http://www.securoseal.com.

  5. My advice is don’t take costly things in your luggage .

  6. Онлайн магазин сейфов и металлической мебели http://www.prosafe.com.ua/. Большой выбор. Официальная гарантия. Доставка по всей Украине.

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