Hi All,

In Europe carrying a tabacco tin wrapped in paracord and electrical tape will certainly do more than just raise brows of people who notice this. Police officers or security staff will immediately relate this sort of contaner to either drugs or some sort terrorist activity and crush down on it.

I've started thinking about the possibility of gutting an older and bigger type of cell phone and stuffing it with suvival goodies.

Anyone here thought of that? Could this work and pass unnoticed?

Any comments are welcomed.

Luca

Problem is; if you do not declare it when boarding a plane in the USA, you will be guilty of a felony.

Bountyhunter

Hi,
WOW! What a GREAT idea! I'm going to try it! Thanks, Mollyann

Bountyhunter, could you clarify this? Is the phone illegal, or using it to conceal items?

Interesting idea. I would only tear open a non workign cell phone since even a cell phone with a dead battery and no service could still be connected to a car battery via its charger and dial emergency services so its something useful to stash under a seat in a car for a last resort communications system.
Also with the media coverage of "cell phone guns" a phone being used for something other thana phone may cause some panic.

Now you think that tin can rises eye brows of security? How about gutted cell phone? Don't get me wrong I think it's a great idea and you don;t get ask 3000 questions about it from bystanders since it looks like a cell. But going thru a check point (xray/metal detector) what will raise more questions: a tin with unknown content or guttet cell phone with unknow content? I'm just saying... I like what you proposed and I may even try it (except I use old cells for target practice). But while we are at it why not use an old walkman, radio or camera?

Matt

It could work if you make sure that nothing rattles and the weight is approximately the same. When you just want to keep it low profile you might leave the tobacco tin with its original paint and not wrap anything around it. As some smokers put their lighters or pipe tool set in the tin even some rattling may not raise suspicion.
When police or security get the impression that you try to conceal something, they are going to give you trouble even for items you could have brought without problems. For a police officer it´s more plausible that you where too lazy to give a tin a new paint job than that you had no bad intentions when you prepared that cell phone. After all that´s what´ll count in the end.
In conclusion I´d say that even though it´s a good idea I´d not try this one.

Neither in and of themselves is illegal. What is illegal is trying to carry certain cutting or stabbing objects onto the plane.

If the cell phone has a knife, scalpel blade, P38, or wire saw in it, they would definitely bust you big time because they would assume you were trying to circumvent their security measures by hiding these items in a gutted cell phone and did not declare them as you were boarding.

Bountyhunter

A reasonably sized, more-or-less inconspicous container that you could comfortably carry some decent amount of PSK type gear in is a tape cassette case. With a little work with a sharp / hot knife you can remove the internal prongs that are intended to hold the tape in place. Simply put your gear in a ziplock the right size and slip the baggie into the cassette case. Keep the Madonna album cover in place to complete the camoflage and you're GTG. Still wouldn't try to get this one past a security checlpoint but it would certainly pass with most of your friends as innocuous and since it used to be a Madonna album they are really unlikely to try to open it and play the tape so they will leave it alone and not discover it's contents. You may take some ribbing for likeing Madonna tho......

Hi all,

I see there are mixed feelings about the phone as a good place to hide a PSK. One of the things I would like to clarify is the fact that I was thinking about this in a European context. Europeans tend to be a lot less mobile than Americans: most of us only fly for our annual vacation trip.

I think with the recent terrorist attack in Madrid security checks will be up again. So I would never consider taking this sort of phone-PSK through a luggage check. I was thinking about an urban scenery (what an awfully military term, I must have played too many war games as a child <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />). The most serious theat from any security force wanting to check you over here is the occasional police road block centered on speed, alcohol and drugs. Since soft drugs are used quite liberally among youngsters all over Europe, the tabacco tin would raise al lot more questions than "another stupid dead cell phone".

Even though basically there isn't anything illegal in an ordinary PSK, it would look very suspicious. I guess the general public is equally less prepared in Europe as in America or any other continent.

Admittedly, as with anything: if they do catch you when you're triyng to hide something: they're gonna come down on you.

By the way: I love the cassette and the walkman idea a lot. Especially if the walkman could be stripped only of the cassette part and keep a functional radio .

Luca