> a flight attendant told passengers over the PA system that they "must turn off Bluetooth immediately," or else the aircraft would have to turn around.
So if the person just takes back their bomb threat everything is ok? Or did they think the terrorist labeled their Bluetooth bomb “bomb” and this would disable it?
If you ever take a course on private security one of the subjects is how to identify real threats.
There are other techniques, but lets say you get a phone call threatening that you must evacuate a building, because there is a bomb. Your first action should be immediately to joke with the caller, show you don't believe the threat, start laughing.
The real terrorist, and with a real bomb in place, will hang up right away....
If the bluetooth speaker is named "bomb", its more in the domain of calling Swat, because somebody might be reading a Python book. They might have some snakes on board...
This is wildly inaccurate to the point of being dangerous advice. The goal during a bomb threat call is generally not to challenge, mock, or provoke the caller into a reaction. It is to keep the caller talking for as long as possible and gather information that could help assess the threat and assist law enforcement or security. There is no reliable rule that says a "real terrorist" will hang up if laughed at or that a hoax caller will stay on the line. People making threats behave in many different ways and simplistic tests like this are not a dependable way to determine whether a threat is real.
I was talking about this with someone the other day… How many real terrorism threats have been preceded by the terrorist telegraphing their intentions with a phone call beforehand? My prior is that this number is essentially 0 and we should ignore bomb threats as a society.
Probably not super common but it does happen from time to time.
And imagine ignoring a bomb threat and then it's real, you probably would not want to be responsible for that.
The Weather Underground often warned the targets of their bombings via phone call. (I guess their goal was to attack gov't institutions and make a political statement, not to kill lots of people.) This was in the late '60s-'70s.
The IRA (Irish terrorists, for Americans confused at the acronym, or maybe confused at what the IRA did) did occasionally phone warnings and occasionally the information was accurate. Code words were used to authenticate the threat.
Logically that probably makes sense, but it would require everyone in the chain of command agreeing to that policy, and there’s no way that would ever happen from a liability standpoint.
People prank others all the time with goofy names [1] (2014) So are we at the point where that will change and devices will have to just assign random sanitized dictionary names? "Connect to my 'apple horse bunny farm'" There are programs that can flood an area with tens of thousands of fake access points (scapy-fakeap). Or thousands of drones for that matter. [2]
You can't rename most Bluetooth speakers. "Bomb" was the name the selling brand gave the speaker.
By making everyone turn off their Bluetooth, the kid whose speaker had turned on probably couldn't even see the device broadcasting the name. People linked to one by a company made Hellotec but Hama has a similarly named device, and plenty of other speaker manufacturers try to make a pun out of "boombox" by naming their devices "bomb" (iJoy, ZEB-MUSIC, and presumably other such brands).
Maybe if someone asked the passengers if anyone knew about this "bomb" Bluetooth device the kid would've remembered, but in this case I can't blame them. On the other hand, asking passengers if they know something about a bomb is probably the quickest way to cause a panic.
The entire thing seems like a ridiculous overreaction. What kind of terrorist would call their bomb "bomb"? This is "Al Qaeda Free WiFi" all over again.
Someone needs to explain to me how the name of a Bluetooth device has any bearing on anything. Isn’t the real security not letting a bomb on the plane?
Also, now anyone who wants to disrupt a flight can switch their WiFi or Bluetooth name to Bomb or “Free Palestine” and the flight gets disrupted? Get out of here.
Not directly, no, but they’ll build a file for what they consider extremist views. Just look back to the Civil Rights Movement era for the list of things people said that would get them an FBI file - we have a long and storied history of surveilling anyone and everyone who says things that go against what political power desires.
That being said, I do think any cabin crew pitching a fit over such a hotspot name is absolutely in the wrong. That’s not a threat, that’s personal opinion, and it’s not the hotspot owner’s fault the crew conflates Zionist ideology specifically with Jewish Faith in general like an ignorant fool.
An aircraft is not really public. The Captain and FO have a tremendous amount of power they can wield to make sure a flight passes without incident. A plane is not the place to make statements.
Granted though, the FBI didn’t actually get involved. But why let facts get in the way of rage?
What’s with the ‘so-called’? That’s what the country is called. Israel. But I’m not sure that you’re aware but there was a really big one 25 years ago this coming September. Maybe you heard of it?
Cognitive dissonance can explain a lot. If you don’t think the current regime is genocidal (whatever that even means) then you might get very concerned that anybody who says it is genocidal is a dangerous lunatic or terrorist sympathizer. Even saying something obviously truthful like “there are good people on both sides” becomes a threatening provocation. Hate is a system.
Not sure why this is downvoted. This was an example from the same article.
And the answer is that the FBI wasn't involved. That was a threat the pilot made, which comes psychologically from the same place as terrorist bomb threats (and also "eat your vegetables or you'll die early" parenting). You want to control someone's behavior so you threaten maximalist retaliation.
The Reddit thread on this was equal parts amazing and hilarious.
Real time insights from not one, but 9, redditors on the flight.
Main post: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/57lugEMhxl
All the redditors on board: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/Fh2KoqG4SY
A passenger with a hilariously illtimed username: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/W86tRI6ZVf
Those new obfuscated links prevent old.reddit to work.
Is there a way for you to post proper direct links?
> Main post: https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...
> All the redditors on board: https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...
> A passenger with a hilariously illtimed username: https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...
You can click on any of the links and replace "www" in the url with "old", then you'll have things more or less like how it used to be.
> Those new obfuscated links prevent old.reddit to work.
Can't you just set the old theme in your profile? That's what I do.
https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tsk81w/ua_...
> a flight attendant told passengers over the PA system that they "must turn off Bluetooth immediately," or else the aircraft would have to turn around.
So if the person just takes back their bomb threat everything is ok? Or did they think the terrorist labeled their Bluetooth bomb “bomb” and this would disable it?
I guess they assumed there were two scenarios:
1. It was unintentional; someone had a bluetooth device called BOMB for some reason that made sense before boarding the plane. They would turn it off.
2. It was intentional; someone wanted to send a warning and chose this channel - they would leave the device on.
3. The level of tech illiteracy combined with airplane security theater is an affront to all thinking people.
It wasn't a bomb threat: https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speake...
> This website has been temporarily rate limited
If you ever take a course on private security one of the subjects is how to identify real threats.
There are other techniques, but lets say you get a phone call threatening that you must evacuate a building, because there is a bomb. Your first action should be immediately to joke with the caller, show you don't believe the threat, start laughing.
The real terrorist, and with a real bomb in place, will hang up right away....
If the bluetooth speaker is named "bomb", its more in the domain of calling Swat, because somebody might be reading a Python book. They might have some snakes on board...
This is wildly inaccurate to the point of being dangerous advice. The goal during a bomb threat call is generally not to challenge, mock, or provoke the caller into a reaction. It is to keep the caller talking for as long as possible and gather information that could help assess the threat and assist law enforcement or security. There is no reliable rule that says a "real terrorist" will hang up if laughed at or that a hoax caller will stay on the line. People making threats behave in many different ways and simplistic tests like this are not a dependable way to determine whether a threat is real.
You are supposed to take every threat as real. Which is also why calling in a fake threat is considered a big federal crime to deter clowns.
I was talking about this with someone the other day… How many real terrorism threats have been preceded by the terrorist telegraphing their intentions with a phone call beforehand? My prior is that this number is essentially 0 and we should ignore bomb threats as a society.
Here's one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing
Two: https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nye/pr/2012/2012nov08.h...
Three (not sure if the caller was the one planting the bomb here): https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/01/bomb-aimed-a...
Probably not super common but it does happen from time to time. And imagine ignoring a bomb threat and then it's real, you probably would not want to be responsible for that.
The Weather Underground often warned the targets of their bombings via phone call. (I guess their goal was to attack gov't institutions and make a political statement, not to kill lots of people.) This was in the late '60s-'70s.
The IRA (Irish terrorists, for Americans confused at the acronym, or maybe confused at what the IRA did) did occasionally phone warnings and occasionally the information was accurate. Code words were used to authenticate the threat.
Logically that probably makes sense, but it would require everyone in the chain of command agreeing to that policy, and there’s no way that would ever happen from a liability standpoint.
The IRA bombs in civilian areas in the uk almost always had phone calls that preceded the bombs going off.
Oh gosh, sure, terrorists always name their devices "bomb" in the open.
People prank others all the time with goofy names [1] (2014) So are we at the point where that will change and devices will have to just assign random sanitized dictionary names? "Connect to my 'apple horse bunny farm'" There are programs that can flood an area with tens of thousands of fake access points (scapy-fakeap). Or thousands of drones for that matter. [2]
[1] - https://observer.com/2014/03/park-slope-kiddie-shop-hunts-fo...
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jn_6EmYxE
A 16 year boy apparently named his Bluetooth speaker “bomb” and couldn’t turn it off, as it was probably in checked luggage. Woof.
You can't rename most Bluetooth speakers. "Bomb" was the name the selling brand gave the speaker.
By making everyone turn off their Bluetooth, the kid whose speaker had turned on probably couldn't even see the device broadcasting the name. People linked to one by a company made Hellotec but Hama has a similarly named device, and plenty of other speaker manufacturers try to make a pun out of "boombox" by naming their devices "bomb" (iJoy, ZEB-MUSIC, and presumably other such brands).
Maybe if someone asked the passengers if anyone knew about this "bomb" Bluetooth device the kid would've remembered, but in this case I can't blame them. On the other hand, asking passengers if they know something about a bomb is probably the quickest way to cause a panic.
The entire thing seems like a ridiculous overreaction. What kind of terrorist would call their bomb "bomb"? This is "Al Qaeda Free WiFi" all over again.
It was a bomb speaker: https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speake...
What kind of company doesn’t want to pay $5 per month for a paid workers plan for their website?
A lot of non-software businesses probably outsource their websites to some bottom barrel consultant in LCOL countries.
That, or they're such a small business that they never expected one of their random products to be HN hugged to death.
Website already HN'd into oblivion it seems
Reddit got there first.
Oh man, talk about unfortunate set of circumstances. It looks like a cartoon-like bomb too.
I'm assuming that's where the name comes from
Yep, I found the product listing via Google. It says Bomb
What a usability nightmare this site is: 3-4 popups before I could even read the title. No thank you. And this is with an adblocker turned on.
Don't these sites realize how many users they're losing?
IM THE BOMB AND ABOUT TO BLOW UPPPPPPPP
Someone needs to explain to me how the name of a Bluetooth device has any bearing on anything. Isn’t the real security not letting a bomb on the plane?
Also, now anyone who wants to disrupt a flight can switch their WiFi or Bluetooth name to Bomb or “Free Palestine” and the flight gets disrupted? Get out of here.
> "Free Palestine, F Zionists"
Does the FBI usually get involved when someone says these words in public in the US?
Not directly, no, but they’ll build a file for what they consider extremist views. Just look back to the Civil Rights Movement era for the list of things people said that would get them an FBI file - we have a long and storied history of surveilling anyone and everyone who says things that go against what political power desires.
That being said, I do think any cabin crew pitching a fit over such a hotspot name is absolutely in the wrong. That’s not a threat, that’s personal opinion, and it’s not the hotspot owner’s fault the crew conflates Zionist ideology specifically with Jewish Faith in general like an ignorant fool.
An aircraft is not really public. The Captain and FO have a tremendous amount of power they can wield to make sure a flight passes without incident. A plane is not the place to make statements.
Granted though, the FBI didn’t actually get involved. But why let facts get in the way of rage?
The "Palestinian" movement _invented_ airplane hijacking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings_an...
So yes, the FBI will get involved in this case. In this context it is something to worry about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking
Looks like the first one was a Hungarian in 1919.
Which is kind of ironic, considering modern terrorism was basically an invention of the Zionist movement in Palestine.
And when was the last time such a hijacking took place outside of so-called “Israel”?
> so-called “Israel”
What’s with the ‘so-called’? That’s what the country is called. Israel. But I’m not sure that you’re aware but there was a really big one 25 years ago this coming September. Maybe you heard of it?
u/fortran77 used the term so-called “Palestinian” movement (edited since), so I simply responded with the same rhetoric :)
No that was because they hate our freedom, not because of decades of occupation and war all over the middle east funded by US taxpayer dollars.
In the UK you can get arrested for saying less.
The government of Israel has more freedom of speech and control over the US than voting citizens do.
Imagine getting your jimmies this rustled over expressing antipathy for a genocidal regime, and sympathy for an oppressed people.
Cognitive dissonance can explain a lot. If you don’t think the current regime is genocidal (whatever that even means) then you might get very concerned that anybody who says it is genocidal is a dangerous lunatic or terrorist sympathizer. Even saying something obviously truthful like “there are good people on both sides” becomes a threatening provocation. Hate is a system.
Not sure why this is downvoted. This was an example from the same article.
And the answer is that the FBI wasn't involved. That was a threat the pilot made, which comes psychologically from the same place as terrorist bomb threats (and also "eat your vegetables or you'll die early" parenting). You want to control someone's behavior so you threaten maximalist retaliation.
... I can't believe what I am reading...
"Bluetooth speaker name had been set to a "four-letter word, [...] BOMB".
Luckily, it wasn't named "Nuclear Bomb from Cuba" because US Authorities would not have other choice than to nuke Cuba.
Seriously? What those people are doing when they see a fence with "ASS" painted on it? Do they believe that too?