I once consulted on some aviation-related software (not the safety work prominent on my resume), and a company announcement came through, that you must never use a few specific words commonly heard in software development. The two no-no words I recall were "crash" and "bomb". Don't write them in code or documents, don't say them on the phone or videoconf, etc.<p>Those terms have senses that people in aviation take extremely seriously, for extremely good reasons. A miscommunication can trigger a lot of life-critical emergency mode sudden effort and stress for people. Effort and stress that is occasionally extremely necessary.<p>It made sense, once I thought of it.<p>In this particular case, it sounds like it wasn't the teen's fault, nor even a teen being slightly edgy. Just an innocuous product that broadcast a very unfortunate name over Bluetooth. Not something most people would've predicted would be a problem.<p>Yet, under the circumstances, with the information available, it also sounds like personnel were correct to follow the processes that were designed to prevent terrible disasters.
This is trying to sanewash totally insane levels of risk aversion.<p>Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"? Do you think this behaviour has any meaningful true positives?<p>This is the kind of brainworms thinking that has people throwing our their 150ml liquids out at TSA and taking their shoes off.
<p><pre><code> > This is trying to sanewash totally insane levels of risk aversion.
</code></pre>
To add more credence to your point, let's not forget this beautiful line in TFA<p><pre><code> | During this incident, a Wi-Fi hotspot named "Free Palestine, F Zionists" prompted the pilot to issue a warning to the cabin, telling the passenger responsible that they had "30 seconds" to remove the name or the FBI would meet the aircraft.
</code></pre>
This is clearly not a threat. I'm not trying to make a political statement and not going to say what side of this issue I'm on, but whatever your side is you have the right to express it. There's no threat in this WiFi name. You can, and should be able to, name your WiFi hotspot anything. Even any "Free <X>, Fuck <Y>" forall X,Y. Being on the plane doesn't remove your right to free speech and there's no clear and credible threat in this statement.<p>We've just grown accustomed to security theater. Don't forget, this security theater has resulted in more deaths than 9/11 ever did[0,1,2]<p>[0] Indirectly. The friction in air travel leads to more people driving, which is objectively a more deadly form of travel. We're talking several orders of magnitude, so even a low percentage of people shifting from air travel to car means substantial numbers. That means <i>your</i> risk of dying or being injured in a car crash also increases because it means more people are on the road. It's not a function of how good of a driver <i>you</i> are, it is a function of how good of a driver <i>they</i> are. So you really do want more people flying<p>[1] <a href="https://www.govexec.com/management/2012/11/tsa-killing-us/59651/" rel="nofollow">https://www.govexec.com/management/2012/11/tsa-killing-us/59...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=677549" rel="nofollow">https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=677549</a>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings</a><p>Just greping for 'Israel' or 'Palestine' gives 13 incidents, the latest occurring in 2000.<p>It's a quite large share of the hijackings on the list, much more so that I'd have imagined <i>de novo</i>.<p>Reading through a few of them, most of the hijackers had a fair bit of mental instability (duh?). So, I could totally see them naming a bluetooth something crazy if they had them those days.<p>Also, most of the incidents ended up being fairly well handled and there weren't many casualties. But if I were a pilot and I were getting paid regardless of turning the plane around or dealing with a possibly fatal multi-day saga, I'd likely just turn the plane around too.
1. Are super-organized, highly-capable, fully-sane terrorists the only threat? Or does the threat model include mentally-ill / personality disorder people, who might make mistakes, or taunt those whose job it is to stop them? Or include people of either kind, who create diversions? Or include people who make a statement in an unexpected way?<p>2. Did the captain, flight control, and everyone else who needed to decide, have definitive information that the report was only an innocuous Bluetooth advertisement for an innocuous consumer device, and somehow knew that no other threat was going on? If not, then I'd commend whomever decided to follow protocol, and err on the side of inconveniencing a lot of people, rather than risk tragedies that the protocol was designed to prevent.
Landing the plane because of something that could be interpreted as a bomb threat without waiting to be sure it was intended that way seems like a precaution on the far end of reasonable, but still reasonable.<p>Demanding that people disable Bluetooth does not seem reasonable. If there's an actual bomber, tipping them off that you're reacting to their threat might lead them to set off the bomb early. Similarly, demanding that someone shut off the "Free Palestine, F Zionists" WiFi network or the flight crew will call the FBI is counterproductive; if that's cause to call the FBI, just call them. A warning lets the person cover their tracks.<p>For the record, "BOMB" is probably cause to call the FBI and "Free Palestine, F Zionists" by itself almost certainly isn't, but is something to mention when calling them about "BOMB".
Here's the options:<p>- You have an actual bomb that's been slipped onto someone else's stuff that is cellphone triggered; perhaps when you get to UK cellular service, perhaps after cabin altitude + time, or whatever. Making the announcement doesn't hurt at all. You want to turn back in this case.<p>- You have a person who has a device with a name in bad taste, either because of humor or malice. Making the announcement doesn't hurt at all. You would rather not turn back in this case. They might turn it off.<p>- You have a person who is controlling the actual bomb on the plane. Making the announcement or turning back or even continuing -- it doesn't matter. Your moves are visible to them.
Now take your scenarios and weight them by their probabilities<p><pre><code> - 0.001%
- 99.998%
- 0.001%
</code></pre>
If you think I'm exaggerating here, you're right, but in the conservative direction. There are 44k flights <i>in the US</i> PER DAY. There have been 8 bombings, *<i>since 9/11*</i>[0]. 4 of those involved US craft (not all passenger craft either), and *<i>0*</i> of them succeeded. My numbers are an over-estimate if you take all 8 and count it against a single day of US flights. If we take those 8 bombs, across 24 years of US flights you get closer to 0.000002%, and that's still conservative.<p>I'm sorry, but the risk is just stupid low. There's only 2 lotteries in America that you have a better chance of winning than these absurdly conservative odds (no lottery if you use non-conservative statistics).<p>I'm sorry, but even if there were a dozen bombing attempts a year this would still be an absurdly safe activity given the shear volume of flights per day.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_airliner_bombing_attacks" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_airliner_bombing_a...</a>
It seems pretty obvious to me that this situation was being treated more like a disruptive passenger issue than an actual terrorist threat of a real bomb. So more like the Minneapolis plane diverted to Wisconsin the other day because of an unruly passenger. They took everyone and their devices through screening after deplaning, and it sounds like they found the teenager who owned the device. That was the point of turning around.<p>They probably do have to treat it seriously just in the unlikely chance it turns out to be some mentally unstable person's way of legitimately making a terroristic threat. But it also needs to be treated similarly to a drunk and violent person who needs to be duct taped to their seat until they can get handed off to the authorities.
Terrorists doing completely stupid stuff, like naming a cellphone "bomb" that they plan to use to control a bomb is par for the course. Forgetting to turn off bluetooth is a plausible next mistake.<p>Terrorists have a pretty long history of making these kinds of basic operational errors, and if you don't act like they may be real, you miss the opportunity to disrupt/prevent these operations.
The whole conversation is moot anyways. What's the actual odds of getting on an airplane that is going to be the target of a terrorist attack. I'll tell you, they're approximately 0. Far less than 0.0001%.<p>If you act like they're real you're just going to end up suffering alarm fatigue because the number of actual instances is just so astonishingly low.<p>Besides that, the terrorists win by creating fear. No damage is necessary. People being afraid to fly is the terrorist's main goal. To get you to think they could be anywhere and are everywhere. It's called a terror campaign because the literal goal is to create terror. Casualties are just a good way for them to achieve that goal, but far from the only way. We spend billions a year to fight a near non-existent threat.
Terrorists also work on creating alarm not just hiding their operations.
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The thing that surprises me is they flew back to Newark for almost 90 minutes. It doesn't make sense to me.<p>(1) Either you believe the threat is credible and you put it down at the nearest suitable airport in the least amount of time. Say Sydney at about 200km to your west, or FSP at 150km in the direction you're going (not a great fit, but doable). In both cases you could probably land within 20 minutes, a bit more if you aim for Gander (Fun history for that airport, great as an emergency diversion).<p>(2) or, you believe the threat is not credible. At this point you might as well continue the flight. Flying 90 minutes back does not seem (to me) to meaningfully reduce the risk if someone is actually planning to trigger a bomb anyway.
In this particular case, I think the point is less 1 or 2 but more point 3<p>(3) the contrapositive, where you continued the flight, it really was someone stupid enough to name the broadcast name of a bomb "BOMB", it goes off, and now you have to explain to the press "we thought nobody would be stupid enough to really name it 'BOMB'"<p>So you assume it's a low risk event, and tell everyone onboard to turn off their devices to remove the chance it's just someone making a bad joke or a coincidence, and then you end up with the outcome of trying to avoid having to say that in a press conference where everyone is already primed to think you didn't do enough.
I don't know what it's like to be a pilot, to be responsible for not just your own life and million dollar aircraft, but the hundred-so passengers onboard.<p>But I do know what it's like working in a draconian safety-crazy job where if you're caught not following a safety-related SOP you're basically fucked.<p>I can't blame them too much.
It’s possible conditions weren’t good enough at potential alternatives.
If someone is planning on triggering a bomb on a plane, and they haven't done so, you can assume they have a target you haven't reached yet. So going back is not only the safe option, but also the location the people & plane came from.
> <i>I'd commend whomever decided to follow protocol</i><p>Protocol would be quietly diverting to the closest airport. They didn’t do that. They chugged back to Newark. After making a visible scene on the PA. This was a hissy fit.
Literally no pilot ever has been able to know that no other threat was going on.
A minor grammar nit. Its commend whoever decided to follow protocol, not whomever. You choose the case of who(m)ever based on its function in the dependent clause not the clause’s function in the sentence.
A minor spelling nit. It's "it's", not "its", when used as a contraction for "it is". ;)<p>Sorry, you teed it up too well. I had to!
> Are super-organized, highly-capable, fully-sane terrorists the only threat? Or does the threat model include mentally-ill / personality disorder people, who might make mistakes, or taunt those whose job it is to stop them?<p>I want to think the answer is both. But I cannot think of an example where #2 has actually happened in history resulting in injury or death.
> Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"?<p>The bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103 (the Lockerbie bombing) was hidden inside a Toshiba 'BomBeat' RT-SF16 radio.
You word "kind" unzips to three distinct categories:<p>1. failing hard: Is $trigger_word in the context of an attack, or is it innocuous? Failing hard then assessing the context question later is at least a simple system to design and implement safely. And an adversary can't pentest it. I mean they can, but they'll fail hard every time <i>no matter the context</i>. And that is very expensive for the attacker.<p>2. failing soft: throw away your too large container of liquid. I'm not sure what this liquid container rule prevents. In any case, an adversary can pentest this as often as they can buy a ticket, and they'll just blend in with all the other grumpy passengers forced to throw out their containers of liquid and continue on through security.<p>3. don't touch the spaghetti makefile: add a specific rule about removing shoes <i>after</i> the relevant attempt at an attack. Also, let's keep it for decades because no politician wants the liability of having voted to remove a TSA rule in the case of a future attack.<p>Conflating these all under a single "brainworm" category tells me you are <i>exactly</i> the kind of person who shouldn't be in charge of designing a secure system!
Not about the UA flight, but the grandparent's first point. I can see how it's not simply superstition or theater. Critical info gets communicated either over fuzzy radio or 220 character ACARS messages. You wouldn't want to introduce into that context any spurious usages of phrases that would result in wasted time disambiguating whether a garbled transmission was referring to the Very Serious Bad kind of "crash" or referring to something comparatively trivial like the ticketing system being down.
The problem is that there isn't a simple canonical way to disambiguate, despite that being the obvious and superior solution.<p>Taboo is a shitty communication feature. Taboo demands active silence in a system with too much entropy for that to be feasible. It would be far superior to train everyone to say "good crash" (and respond appropriately) instead.<p>Words only have meaning in context. The whole point of instating a taboo is that you control the context. Rather than use that control to introduce danger to words, we should use it to isolate danger from words.
That would not solve the problem. On a radio, you could have a moment of interference and only receive 'crash' when someone broadcasts 'good crash'. It is better to avoid certain words entirely. There is also no reason to use those specific words when you could describe, e.g. a software crash as a software problem, error, issue, etc.
No sane terrorist will also call about a bomb on board, but those are taken seriously, too.<p>And as correctly mentioned by others, we shouldn’t be concentrating on an ideal game theory spherical terrorist in a vacuum.
What if it is not the terrorists naming them? What if it is a good samaritan trying to warn the pilot but this is the only way they can get a message out?
> <i>What if it is a good samaritan trying to warn the pilot but this is the only way they can get a message out?</i><p>Then you quietly divert to the nearest airport. Asking for the speaker to be turned off on PA and then chugging all the way back to Newark makes it plain nobody was acting seriously.
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You watched too many movies.
If the terrorists goal is to create maximum fear and confusion, why not?<p>The staff's primary concern probably was not an actual bomb, but a prankster intentionally trying to create panic with elderly and technically illiterate.
I'm sure whichever fictional panic you've imagined would've been far more serious than the one caused by this absolute overreaction.
Maximum fear and confusion by stirring up the elderly on the plane? I'm sure more of that was accomplished by announcing it and then needing to turn the plane around.
You can't compare a decision made in possession of all of the facts in a calm environment with full hindsight, with decision made in the moment with limited information and hundreds of lives on the line.
> Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"?<p>If they knew it was a BT speaker, they wouldn’t have returned.<p>OTOH, who would name a bomb with a Bluetooth transceiver in a way that advertises its function. I’d use something like “pacemaker” so that nobody would ask me to turn it off.
> Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"? Do you think this behaviour has any meaningful true positives?<p>You know how they ask you if you have any contraband or if you’re a terrorist or whatever?<p>You’d be surprised at how many people get busted because they answer truthfully
> You’d be surprised at how many people get busted because they answer truthfully<p>Would I? For contraband maybe with naive tourists who just don’t know that what they’re carrying is considered contraband, but I would love a source on a single terrorist being caught because they confessed after being asked in a form.
The pictures on the ground posted by some Redditors were even more ridiculous. What looked like over 100 police cars surrounded the airplane after it landed. If there was an actual bomb onboard why would the bomber wait for the plane to land?<p>It's as if multiple airline employees' and other officials' brains were simultaneously unable to process any sentence that starts with "If it was an actual bomb, then why..."<p>Instead, everyone applied the same rudimentary "IF [bomb mentioned in any context] THEN [take the most extreme actions written in the playbook]."
But it seems that those actions were in fact <i>not</i> taken, otherwise they should have landed and the nearest airport, which they didn't. So either the captain knew it wasn't an emergency (but then why did he do it) or he/she violated the protocol by delaying landing.
Genuine terrorism relies on the creation of fear and alarm in their target group... not just concealment.
“Forensic investigators, reviewing the black box communications, discovered that the pilots had identified and were aware of a device named ‘bomb’ on the airplane but elected to take no action.”
on the other hand someone could just be that stupid and if so at least you caught it, err on the side of caution basically
> Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"?<p>Yes. Not every time. But some of the time. Like imagine someone likes to stay organized and they have a bunch of bluetooth devices and gives them all logical names, speaker for speaker, keyboard for keyboard and bomb for bomb. They make a mental note to change the name of bomb before deploying it but then life happens and they forget to fix it.
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I have no desire to defend people's linguistic games that were extremely low value. I do not think these games pass a cost benefit calculation. But fighting against these memes also doesn't pass a cost benefit calculation.<p>Having said all that, turning a plane around is a meaningfully larger cost on everyone involved than having a commit/merge hook that tells you to rename a variable.<p>Engineers still say blacklist, even though I avoid it in my own communications, it's not the end of the world.
I've never heard of that before, is it common behavior?
There were some pretty public tantrums on open source mailing lists. It's pointless to revisit them.<p>Though I still see the occasional hissy fit over git master branches that were never renamed.
All new code projects at work cannot have a master branch.<p>However I never heard of anyone complaining about recording masters or golf masters.
Only among one side of the political spectrum.
Totally different situation. People are removing those words as a sign of respect and a very small number of people are chasing down those that don't because it implies an open lack of respect.
No, it means none of that.<p>It's code.<p>No one that matters looks at it or cares.<p>Making unnecessary changes to code does zero in solving any societal ills.
Soooo it's fine to name all your variables slurs then? Like, yes, hyperbolic, but the contention was that the SWE community is overwhelming cis while het dudes from the US and we were making it unwelcoming to anyone else.
I haven't met anyone who is actually uncomfortable with the term "master," only people concerned about what others might think of them. It's not really being inclusive; it's just signaling inclusivity. Surely the time would be better spent, I don't know, volunteering to tutor underprivileged students or something? Or just living your damn life.
I have met several people who are uncomfortable with the 'master/slave' terminology. In my experience, those who do not experience much racism in their day to day lives do not find it offensive, and vice versa. Therefore, it is at least slightly offensive in my opinion.<p>Once I was explaining how my day went to an ex, and my day happened to involve the terms, and they were absolutely floored that those terms were still used. Then the whole conversation was about racism in tech, and that had significantly less aura than my story of how I fixed everything. Beware ye olde words, lest ye scare thein hoes.
Why not spend the 5 seconds it takes to do that refactor and then tutor the kids?
> <i>it's fine to name all your variables slurs then?</i><p>Hyperbole. Renaming “master” directories was a total circlejerk endeavor by the same crowd that came up with Latinx.
> Soooo it's fine to name all your variables slurs then?<p>Except that never happened. It's fantasy.<p>What did happen was words like "black hat" and "white hat" got re-classified as hateful language.<p>I'm actually surprised the conference was spared by the mob.
My personal experience is also that some of the more extreme noninclusive language policing in some circles has faded away to a significant degree.
Anecdote: I worked with software for battery EV power-train diagnostics, one of our devs decided to add emojis to success and error messages.<p>He added a fire emoji to one success message. When testers saw it they were afraid that the customer would think it was a thermal runway problem. Had to do a last-minute revision of the software before shipping the new version.<p>I was already pretty anti-emoji / personal touch / fun features / easter eggs in professional software. But having to pull a 2-hours overtime to crank out a new release definitely settled me on the side of never again.<p>edit: To be clear no one actually thought it was a problem, but our QA were very much serious about reducing any potential for confusion when dealing with >1million USD machinery.
Whether you think emojis are ok or not, there are times and places.<p>That’s not a time and place.
> one of our devs decided to add emojis to success and error messages.<p>Was this LLM-driven development? I'm so glad that phase is over.
If the "terrorists" had changed the name of their bluetooth speaker, as asked, would they have been correct to proceed?
Aviation documentation in general is expected to use special, constrained variant of english (Simplified Technical English) where one of the requirements is that every word has preferably only one meaning, and there's a standard dictionary of those meanings that were selected.<p>Similarly there are various things like Aviation English for actual live comms, though they have less specifity, not to that level.<p>And yes, this is related to being clear and understandable both when communicating something live (you might have to dictate from a manual over the radio!) but also over native language barriers
I read somewhere years ago of panic ensuing when a pilot greeted a colleague on the radio with "Hi, Jack". Whether it happened for real or not, the idea of a simple word causing fighter jets to scramble is just crazy although fully understandable in the world post 9/11.
This reminds me of the story I read of someone trying to take a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorimeter#Bomb_calorimeters" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorimeter#Bomb_calorimeters</a> onto a flight, in the pre-9/11 era. Fortunately he was allowed to after some questioning, but it did raise some eyebrows. I imagine trying to ship one of those would also arouse some attention.
Now wait for manufactures introducing mandatory flight mode on devices (with Apple leading the way) that “trusted partners”, like airlines will be able to force-activate themselves.
The abbreviation "BoM" (bill of materials) is commonly used in engineering. It's also pronounced just how you might suspect. I wonder if it's consciously avoided in sectors like these.
I can appreciate the concern over these words among the flight staff.<p>But at the same time in the wake of these type of incidents and seeing how they are responded to, if I were a group that wanted to harm economic interests I'd invest in malware that I'd spend years silently spreading and then at some future date flip to a mode where infected devices detect when they are likely to be in-flight via GPS data and have them randomly change wifi hotspot and bluetooth identifiers to 'bomb' to inflict chaos and economic damage across a system that is apparently incapable of dealing with that.<p>I don't blame people who are responsible for the lives of others for overreacting in a one-off situation, but such overreaction could be weaponized.
Sorry but this just sounds like complete lunacy
> In this particular case, it sounds like it wasn't the teen's fault, nor even a teen being slightly edgy.<p>Told to turn it off and refused to do so. Why are you defending the selfish little prick?
I don’t buy it.<p>I understand protecting people’s sensibilities by avoiding these words. That part makes sense. Same basic politeness as not using curse words in my variable names.<p>But to turn an entire flight around because of a Bluetooth device name? How does that make any rational sense?<p>Look at it from a Bayesian perspective. There’s some probability P that there’s a bomb on a random plane. Now, given that a specific plane has a Bluetooth device named “bomb,” what is P for that specific plane?<p>I argue that P is unchanged. I’d be interested if anyone disagrees with this assessment.<p>Given the probability is unchanged, why do anything?<p>I don’t think even the people involved believed there was any danger. They had closer airports they could have diverted to. Going all the way back to Newark makes no sense if you actually think there’s an increased chance there’s a bomb on the plane that might detonate at any time, or a hijacker who might decide to make an attempt, or any other threat.<p>Going back to the origin airport instead of a closer one is what you do when there’s some mundane problem like the weather being unsuitable at the destination, or a non-critical equipment failure.<p>So how does this make any rational sense? It doesn’t. It’s performance. Everyone wants to be seen Taking Things Seriously. Nobody is permitted (either explicitly by rules, or implicitly by social expectations) to say “somebody is being a real jerk, but there’s no point in diverting.”
This is a hilariously stupid reaction to a stupidly hilarious decision made by a speaker manufacturer.<p>And also a new vector for a ransom-attack on the Bluetooth namespace in certain environments via malicious BLE advertising. The worst thing that could have happened here was for someone to take this seriously.
Which bomb would advertise itself as such.. this is something I’d expect in the movie Airplane!, not something to happen in real life.
You would think so, at the same time we live in a world where the £80 million Louvre heist was made possible by the fact that their surveillance system's password was "Louvre" [0].<p>[0] <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/louvre-security-password-museum-heist-burglary-b2859831.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/louvre-secur...</a>
I completely agree from a logical perspective. However if the plane blew up and it came out that some passengers had posted online that there was a “bomb” blue tooth device and they didn’t turn around… the court of public opinion would be pretty harsh. This was more or less their only choice from a liability perspective.
The court of public opinion would probably be upset an actual bomb made it through the security theatre while their water bottle did not. If there was actually someone intending to actually bomb the plane, giving them the entire flight back to the origin airport decide to go through with it or head back to the waiting authorities would not go over well in the court of popular opinion either.
The article mentions that terrorists have used fake bomb threats to achieve some other goal, which makes sense
> <i>if the plane blew up and it came out that some passengers had posted online that there was a “bomb” blue tooth device and they didn’t turn around</i><p>This story is just stupid. If you actually think you have a bomb onboard, you divert to the nearest airport. (And if you think you discovered a bomb accidentally left discoverable, you don’t ask for it to be please turned off.)<p>The pilots and crew knew they were being idiots. Whether due to power tripping or CYA, who knows, but I’m not surprised this happened on United.
<i>And if you think you discovered a bomb accidentally left discoverable, you don’t ask for it to be please turned off</i><p>That was the most hilarious part for me.
Isn't that what they did?
> Nope. Look at the flight track. They went all the way back.<p>Good point, I was thinking they were over the ocean and that was naturally the closest airport, but it looks like they could have landed in e.g. Nova Scotia in a shorter time period.
Nope. Look at the flight track. They went all the way back.
I expect pilots called company, and risk assessment made the decision. Pilots can and do make flight safety decisions, but operational control is an airline decision.
Would it though? I'm unconvinced.
Bomb threats are a thing.
What makes it serious to me going all the way back to New York instead of the closest airport in a situation believed being risky ...
What's to prevent terrorists from going through TSA, waiting in the scanning line when everyone is still going through, and then planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag? I never open my carryon once I have packed it.<p>This reminds me of the SNL sketch where TSA employees had no answer for someone bringing two separate bottles of 3.9 ounces onto the plane.<p>I'm sure Sean Duffy, of Real World and now Sec of Transportation, will fix this.
Nothing. TSA is a joke. At first, the security theater arguably had a legitimate psychological purpose. The airline industry nearly collapsed after 9/11 because people were so scared of filing. But that was a generation ago—the psychological trauma in the aftermath of 9/11 dissipated ago. But we’re still stuck with the TSA because in the meantime it turned into a massive jobs program.<p>We’d be better off spending TSA’s $8 billion budget on paying people to dig holes and fill them back in.
Why would a terrorist want to plant a Bluetooth device on someone else's bag when all it would accomplish is a minor delay of one flight and would result in a prison sentence after security camera review??
Remember: Kim Jong-Un’s brother was not killed directly by North Korean goons. They hired two women they convinced they were working on a prank show to spray him with the poisons.<p>You’d do something like that.
Why stop at one bag for one flight?<p>> would result in a prison sentence<p>That doesn’t seem like a significant deterrent here.
People accidentally sneak weapons through TSA all the time.<p>There are many anecdotal examples out there. More scientifically, they had a horrific detection rate in some audits.
You're supposed to wait to walk through the scanner until your bag is in the x-ray machine, or far enough along to not be tampered with. Doing that, I'm still always waiting on the other side to see by bag come out the other end.
Seems like an effective DoS attack - ground all planes in the US by sneaking cheap bluetooth speakers into people's luggage with provacative device names
This is the SNL sketch in question: <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@hamtelevision/video/7276358099089231147?lang=en" rel="nofollow">https://www.tiktok.com/@hamtelevision/video/7276358099089231...</a>
If you’re a terrorist, I’m pretty sure you can think of dramatically more consequential things to do than cause a handful of planes to potentially divert. That’s a wildly pointless prank for something that will invariably wind up with you being arrested.<p>Why do that when you could simply attack people waiting in the security line? That would actually cause terror and shut down an entire airport for days.
Even worse, what's to prevent the terrorists from temporarily renaming their Bluetooth bombs to something innocuous just before going through security and only renaming it back when they need to conveniently find them again while pairing?
The same thing that is stopping them from suicide bombing the super crowded security checkpoint line before ID checks.<p>Nothing really.
Or going into the baggage claim area with a bag containing an explosive device, then acting like they grabbed the wrong bag and putting it back on the carousel, and then leaving.
We need to put a checkpoint before the checkpoint so that never happens!
> What's to prevent terrorists from going through TSA, waiting in the scanning line when everyone is still going through, and then planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag? I never open my carryon once I have packed it.<p>I make it a point to hold up the whole line until it is my turn to go through the xray. It gets fun when they mandate a pat down in lieu of the millimeter wave scanner but refuse to have someone available for it.<p>It’s the only way to honestly say you have kept your bags under watch. If anybody tries to send in my bags without me , I immediately speak up in a loud stern voice, “That is not your bag!”
I’m not saying this as an ad hominem and simply to throw insults, but with the hopes that it will encourage you to change your behavior.<p>The <i>only</i> thing this accomplishes is making you the kind of asshole who interferes with other people that are just trying to make their flight on time. You are not highlighting flaws in the security system. You are not taking a principled ethical stance against tyranny. You are just acting like an asshole for the sake of being an asshole and making life just a little bit worse for everyone else around you.<p>This is not something to brag about. This is something to be ashamed of.
By taking a stand and inconveniencing the world around me, I hope to induce change for everyone.<p>What’s the alternative? Lose track of my stuff or risk it being stolen?
No, you don’t.<p>You are being an asshole to prove a point. But I am going to assume that you are an intelligent person, and since you are, you know as well as I do that nobody you are treating this way is in a position to do anything about the situation. Nobody in line is going to empathize with your stand when you are disrupting their travel. You are doing this so you can feel high and mighty, but you know damn well it isn’t behavior that will induce change.<p>The alternative is to either a) allow others to pass until you witness your bag enter the scanner or b) accept that nobody is going to steal your stuff directly in front of law enforcement officials and just go through the scanner.<p>Stop acting like an asshole.
Some people deserve to be insulted. It’s fine.
> <i>make it a point to hold up the whole line until it is my turn to go through the xray</i><p>How? I’ve seen idiots do this. I just go around and ahead of them.
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.<p>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).<p>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.<p>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.
When you rename a Bluetooth device from your phone, does that affect the name it broadcasts, or only the label applied in the list of Bluetooth devices in the phone?<p>I know for certain if you change the setting General > About > Name in an iPhone it changes what everyone sees when they look at their list of available Bluetooth devices.<p>I assume other Bluetooth devices are the same, no? Otherwise how do you distinguish which one of the three million Bluetooth devices within range is your friends Bluetooth speaker you’re trying to connect to?
iPhone BT settings also let you rename devices, but I think that's just a local setting, not like the BT spec has a rename feature. Not sure cause uh, my iPhone broke. But for sure there are speakers that have their own apps that let you rename them.
> I know for certain if you change the setting General > About > Name in an iPhone it changes what everyone sees when they look at their list of available Bluetooth devices.<p>> I assume other Bluetooth devices are the same, no?<p>No. The iPhone is allowing you to configure what name it broadcasts. But you cannot just tell another device what to broadcast. That device must have its own mechanism for changing its name.<p>For example, many Apple wireless peripherals can rename themselves after your user account once you connect them at least once. That has to be a function of the peripheral though, it's not performed by the device you connect it to (past telling the peripheral the new name, of course). Third-party peripherals usually do not have this functionality.
> Third-party peripherals usually do not have this functionality.<p>What do you mean by <i>”usually”</i> here?<p>I’m certain all the regular name brands, eg JBL Bose Sonos B&O etc enable the device itself to be configured with a user set name via their app. I’m certain because I’ve used them and done so.
I've never had a bose device that allowed this - is that new? And for JBL, it's only the latest gen (or maybe starting with gen 3?) that started allowing it.<p>As for other brands I own: Jlab, jawbone, pyle, and anker don't seem to have any such functionality that I can see.<p>So it's far from ubiquitous, sufficiently so that it makes no sense to presume that a bluetooth name is a message from a passenger and can be understood to have any intended meaning.
Yeah, you can 100% rename select JBL Speakers.<p>I don't see why people are hung up on this. Imagine even just 2 or 3 of the same model "JBL SpeakerName" nearby, how would you know whos is whos? Renaming is common.
Rename is a fairly common feature on Bluetooth speakers and headphones, for example my Bose NC-700.
<i>but Hama has a similarly named device</i><p>...I mentally appended an "s" to that, and was momentarily very confused.
Even better. The news made it sound like it was an intentional act (at best a prank) by the kid.<p>If it’s a commercial product doing it, I can’t even quantify the levels of facepalm involved.
It was a bomb speaker: <a href="https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speaker-2bh15" rel="nofollow">https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speake...</a>
Calling their speaker Bomb was asking for trouble and I’m surprised this hasn’t occurred before now.<p>It reminds me of when RED released a camera called Weapon, and I heard of people putting tape over the name when going through the airport.
<a href="https://ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/tesancdn/hellottec/2_BH_15_S_Bomb_Kilavuz_210425_CNVRT_e4892c5701.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/tesancdn/hellottec/2_BH_...</a>
What kind of company doesn’t want to pay $5 per month for a paid workers plan for their website?
The kind of company that normally is well within the free tier for years until their product is unexpectedly part of a news cycle.<p>In all likelihood the site being down right now is actually a PR win.
A lot of non-software businesses probably outsource their websites to some bottom barrel consultant in LCOL countries.<p>That, or they're such a small business that they never expected one of their random products to be HN hugged to death.
Companies that focus on product and not “investor value” through nice looking working websites
It probably worked fine until today, and will be back to working fine in a few days.
Oh man, talk about unfortunate set of circumstances. It looks like a cartoon-like bomb too.
Website already HN'd into oblivion it seems
Wait so they thought there was a bomb on board but if they “turned it off” they’d keep flying? or they knew it wasn’t a bomb but turned around anyway to teach everyone a lesson? i’m not sure which is worse
> <i>it was probably in checked luggage</i><p>Which would violate FAA regulations if it was powered on (as it obviously was):<p>"When portable electronic devices powered by lithium batteries are in checked baggage, they must be completely powered off and protected to prevent unintentional activation or damage."<p><a href="https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/portable-electronic-devices-with-batteries" rel="nofollow">https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/portable-electronic-devi...</a>
How exactly do we know it was in checked luggage vs carry on luggage compartment.<p>Without tools, its not exactly easy to point-point a Bluetooth signal. Nor are passengers meant to be roaming around the aircraft whilst in flight (i.e to access carry on luggage compartment and turn it off).
It might've been off when packed, but all the vibration turned it on at some point.
When did Airlines start scanning Bluetooth devices?
The Reddit thread on this was equal parts amazing and hilarious.<p>Real time insights from not one, but 9, redditors on the flight.<p>Main post: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/57lugEMhxl" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/57lugEMhxl</a><p>All the redditors on board: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/Fh2KoqG4SY" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/Fh2KoqG4SY</a><p>A passenger with a hilariously illtimed username: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/W86tRI6ZVf" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/W86tRI6ZVf</a>
Those new obfuscated links prevent old.reddit to work.<p>Is there a way for you to post proper direct links?
> Main post:
<a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_flight_turn_bluetooth_off_or_were_turning/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...</a><p>> All the redditors on board:
<a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_flight_turn_bluetooth_off_or_were_turning/oovlz2k/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...</a><p>> A passenger with a hilariously illtimed username:
<a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_flight_turn_bluetooth_off_or_were_turning/oovnwxf/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...</a>
You can modify your regex to only match when it's not a shortened url - then the short one will redirect to the real www.reddit.com address, before the redirect matches.<p>(Don't have the correct regex on hand right now, as I changed browsers and decided to use Old reddit redirect extension instead of scripting, but it worked in my previous browser)
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.
They work with old reddit redirect extension on firefox
> <i>Those new obfuscated links prevent old.reddit to work.</i><p>Can't you just set the old theme in your profile? That's what I do.
only if you actually log in. not everyone does.
I got permanently banned for the "Christianity is just worshipping a Jewish zombie who is his own father who will save you if you invite him into your head, symbolically drink his blood, and eat his flesh" copypasta, so not everyone can log in :)
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Very interesting, but a hell of a way to dox yourself for being on the flight manifest.
The entities that have access to flight manifests have far easier ways to identify who's behind your account. It's not a threat model worth seriously considering.
Are flight manifests public?<p>Internal flights in New Zealand don’t need ID. So if you knew you were going to posting your terrible flight experience, you could fly under a fake name.
After this the number of the same occurrences will increase....
There are simple android apps that brings you literally near to the offender device this is not hard to do.
But the question is, was this not spotted at airport? Or the name was set like that just in middle flight?
People prank others all the time with goofy names [1] <i>(2014)</i> So are we at the point where that will change and devices will have to just assign random sanitized dictionary names? <i>"Connect to my 'apple horse bunny farm'"</i> There are programs that can flood an area with tens of thousands of fake access points <i>(scapy-fakeap)</i>. Or thousands of drones for that matter. [2]<p>[1] - <a href="https://observer.com/2014/03/park-slope-kiddie-shop-hunts-for-owner-of-lulus-anal-bleaching-wifi/" rel="nofollow">https://observer.com/2014/03/park-slope-kiddie-shop-hunts-fo...</a><p>[2] - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jn_6EmYxE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jn_6EmYxE</a>
Pranks aside, this becomes remarkably scary when you think about all the ways that a malicious/compromised device could cause chaos.
I really don't appreciate you posting my unhashed password to the public like that
Well next time pick one that browsers automatically filter out, example "hunter2" <i>browsers automatically filter some passwords per W3C standards, notice you can't see my password.</i> [1]<p>[1] - <a href="https://bash-org-archive.com/?244321" rel="nofollow">https://bash-org-archive.com/?244321</a>
I pine for the day when news is this:<p>- Flight 767 returned to airport after seeing a bluetooth device named "BOMB"<p>- After asking all passengers multiple times to turn off all devices and not getting the "BOMB" to go away, they flight had to return to the airport where officials were waiting to search the plane.<p>- This was not intentional, but a product that calls it self "BOMB" <a href="https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speaker-2bh15" rel="nofollow">https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speake...</a><p>- Passengers on the plane commented of the event as it was going on in this reddit thread: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/57lugEMhxl" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/57lugEMhxl</a><p>I guess I shouldn't pine, I can just have AI summarize all sources for me, and stop dealing with poor reporting that tries to drag 3 bullet points into multiple pages for the sake of selling ad space.
FYI Reddit "s" links require login, an unnecessary burden. For your purpose here a direct link would have sufficed:<p><a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_flight_turn_bluetooth_off_or_were_turning/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...</a>
Oh, I thought how stupid it was to return the flight based on Bluetooth device name, which is just a random string identifying a thing. But I think it's also strongly discouraged to bring devices called bombs on a plane?
I'd love that as well - can we not get LLMs to summerize and give us non-click bait versions of these events.
The product website has been hugged to death.
One thing I learned as a globe trotting cypherpunk: always respect sky law.
Ok, fine. Bomb is bomb, I get that. But how is “Free Palestine, F Zionists” a reason to call the FBI?
Here is a hint: <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/30/us-congress-advances-american-israeli-military-integration-plan" rel="nofollow">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/30/us-congress-advance...</a><p>America is basically Israeli's puppet at this point, can't let bad words being said about their masters
How would turning bluetooth off convince anyone that there isn't a bomb on board? It seems like the bluetooth offering is the least of our worries in the insane case that this is how a threat was delivered.
Could've been me, but I'm glad it wasn't me. xD
> 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.<p>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:<p>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.<p>2. It was intentional; someone wanted to send a warning and chose this channel - they would leave the device on.
It wasn't a bomb threat: <a href="https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speaker-2bh15" rel="nofollow">https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speake...</a>
Was wondering the same thing. Maybe there's some regulation about this, but the flight crew wanted to bend the rule to keep the plane going, figuring it was just a poorly named device.
Apparently it wasn’t a threat - a kid had a commercial Bluetooth speaker that names itself as ‘bomb’. No one on the plane did anything intentionally.
[flagged]
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.
Here's one: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing</a><p>Two: <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nye/pr/2012/2012nov08.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nye/pr/2012/2012nov08.h...</a><p>Three (not sure if the caller was the one planting the bomb here): <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/01/bomb-aimed-at-police-patrol-found-in-north-belfast" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/01/bomb-aimed-a...</a><p>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 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.
The PIRA actually do seem to have intended to give accurate warnings when they planted bombs, in Belfast at least. There were inevitably cases when the information was garbled or misunderstood but the use of codewords & the practice of delivering the warnings to a known set of media outlets was at least an attempt to minimise these.<p>The downside was that the vast majority of warnings were hoaxes - bomb scares were dozens of times more common than actual bombs.<p>The other main groups - INLA, UVF, and UFF/UDA also got in on the hoax game, but didn't often do real bombs (and didn't always give proper warnings when they did - see the UVF's Dublin & Monaghan bombings for a particularly grim example).<p>But real bombs were <i>just</i> common enough that the hoaxes from whatever source had to be taken seriously and so they caused huge amounts of disruption, probably more than anything that actually exploded.
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.
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.
It was standard practice during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, for example.
No pilot will lose their job by taking action to potentially save passengers lives.<p>But the chances are high, they do lose their job if they don't (and/or potentially lose their life as well).<p>It's that simple.<p>(regardless of how dumb/overreaction some might view this as)
Flight policies have always been very weird.<p>I remember I was not allowed to use a laptop with a CD or DVD attached.<p>Now you have internet on board.
What is even better now phone calls are prohibited, but all these airlines had actual credit card phones installed in <i>every</i> seat just 20-15 years ago and really wanted you to do phone calls for $1 a minute. And some people did, and it was annoying, and it was “fine”. Now that they can’t charge extra suddenly it’s “against regulations”.
Don’t get me started on TSA policies.
Why would it land in New York instead of St John?
Why didn't they just ask the passengers to simply not try to connect to "BOMB"?<p>Would have been so much simpler.
Surely we could of just used some basic Bluetooth fingerprinting and reveal the MAC Address of the Bluetooth device, then realize its a speaker...
Andddd now everyone knows that an arbitrary text string in a device hostname is enough to ground a flight.
The other incident mentioned is worse I think. It wasn’t a potential threat, it was stating an opinion.<p>“a Wi-Fi hotspot named "Free Palestine, F Zionists" prompted the pilot to issue a warning to the cabin, telling the passenger responsible that they had "30 seconds" to remove the name or the FBI would meet the aircraft.”
Genuine question, what could the FBI actually do?<p>I understand that the United States is actually a puppet for Israel, although the name on a Bluetooth device isn't really breaking any laws? It's not calling harm to someone, its not a threat. I thought America was the place of free speech?
Given that the Palestinian Liberation Organization has an actual history of multiple hijackings, this makes a slight amount of sense.<p>Of course, someone planning to hijack a flight would probably never try to do so with WiFi ssid’s, not to mention that hardened cockpit doors and passenger attitudes mean that PLO style hijackings are now impossible.<p>Of course, telling people to turn off the network name (bomb, Palestine or otherwise) and everything will be fine, is a tacit admission that the whole thing is theater.
You can probably sharpie "I have a bomb" on your forehead and get the same result
To be honest calling the police and saying you have a bomb planted on flight XYZ and want 100000$ or you'll detonate it, is probably also enough.
I wonder if this is some heightened alert measures taken after recent events
And terrorists will:<p>- communicate in English (because apparently even ancient Romans speak perfect English)<p>- name the device “bomb”
> "Free Palestine, F Zionists"<p>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.<p>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.
> when someone says these words in public in the US?<p>Depending on where the plane was, it might not even have happened in the US.
Not sure why this is downvoted. This was an example from the same article.<p>And the answer is that the FBI wasn't involved. That was a threat the <i>pilot</i> 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.
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.<p>Granted though, the FBI didn’t actually get involved. But why let facts get in the way of rage?
The government of Israel has more freedom of speech and control over the US than voting citizens do.
In the UK you can get arrested for saying less.
The "Palestinian" movement _invented_ airplane hijacking.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings_and_attacks_on_aircraft_by_Palestinian_militant_groups" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings_an...</a><p>So yes, the FBI will get involved in this case. In this context it is something to worry about.
Biased much? You could have used:
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking</a><p>That says:<p>"Airplane hijackings have occurred since the early days of flight. ...Pre-1929, 1929–1957, 1958–1979, 1980–2000, and 2001–present."<p>"...Between 1958 and 1967, there were approximately 40 hijackings worldwide..According to the FAA, in the 1960s, there were 100 attempts of hijackings involving U.S. aircraft: 77 successful and 23 unsuccessful....<p>"..In a five-year period (1968–1972) the world experienced 326 hijack attempts, or one every 5.6 days.."<p>And your conclusion is "Palestinian" movement (that you wrote between quotes)...invented airplane hijacking?
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking</a><p>Looks like the first one was a Hungarian in 1919.
> In this context it is something to worry about.<p>Would you really be worried if someone said or wrote that near you in any context?<p>Short of them holding a weapon, this is baffling.<p>HN is generally absolutist when it comes to ‘freedom of speech’, and I don’t agree with having no limits, but in this instance it’s some overly sensitive overreaching BS.
Which is kind of ironic, considering modern terrorism was basically an invention of the Zionist movement in Palestine.
[flagged]
No. It’s not illegal to express that opinion (or any opinion) in public in the US in any normal scenario. I’m not sure to what extent the law is different on planes, but you can go outside on the street and yell “free Palestine, F Zionists” to your heart’s content and you will not have broken any laws.
Imagine getting your jimmies this rustled over expressing antipathy for a genocidal regime, and sympathy for an oppressed people.
I wouldn't want to see slogans like this on an airplane of all places. I agree with the slogan. There are plenty of other times/places to say it. Unfortunately freedom is already out the window the moment you go through TSA security, so if I'm getting my crotch patted down to fly, they can be quiet for a few hours too.
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.
It means this: <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/31/satellite-imagery-shows-erasure-of-southern-gaza-as-israel-expands-control" rel="nofollow">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/31/satellite-imagery-s...</a><p>Israelis, particularly Israeli jews for some reason, are very hateful. (half of them advocate killing every inhabitant of a conquered city <a href="https://archive.ph/nNzq4" rel="nofollow">https://archive.ph/nNzq4</a> - and they absolutely destroyed entire 100k+ strong cities in the last few years and killed everyone who refused to flee, so it's not an idle threat) They bombed many cafes and restaurants in the last few years, full of people.<p>On average they seem like complete violent nutjobs. Like every second Israeli you'll meet is likely to be one of those that if they decide they want your city, they'd just advocate killing you and your entire family if you resist. Yet they can still fly freely in the world?! People are too tolerant if anything. :)
Have you also looked at polls of how Muslims feel about killing Jews?<p>For example, 3/4 Gazans were in support of killing and raping Israeli Jews (and Arabs) on Oct 7:<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palestinians-back-oct-7-attack-israel-support-hamas-rises-2023-12-14/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palesti...</a>
It’s not just the beating and killing of people. That seems bad enough, but the recent episode of ‘settlers’ torturing a dog is horrific.<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/world/middleeast/settler-attack-dog-west-bank.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/world/middleeast/settler-...</a>
Yeah, I've seen way too much violence against animals from both Israeli state, and public. But that's to be expected I guess, from a state that does not even adequately punish their soldiers when they execute children or parents in front of children, and whose commanders think squid games is an inspiration, or whatever.
Discussion around it quickly turns into a ‘yes but look what they did’.<p>It baffles me. A rich, powerful democracy should be held to a higher standard. But… yes, both sides have been terrible.<p>Which side is going to work towards a peaceful coexistence?
> if they decide they want your city<p>To be clear, it was God that decided to give this land to Abraham in "everlasting possession," so this is pretty cut and dried. Why would Abraham lie about that?? /s
I hope somebody follows up to ensure that the kid isn't being punished for a completely unpredictable event involving a commercial device.
hellottec is down but a cdn mirror of the product: <a href="https://ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/tesancdn/hellottec/2_BH_15_S_Bomb_Kilavuz_210425_CNVRT_e4892c5701.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/tesancdn/hellottec/2_BH_...</a>
> A Wi-Fi hotspot named "Free Palestine, F Zionists" prompted the pilot to issue a warning to the cabin, telling the passenger responsible that they had "30 seconds" to remove the name or the FBI would meet the aircraft.<p>That is just nutty. Are we now actively participating in the genocide?
Looks like I picked a bad day to stop smoking crack.
Oh gosh, sure, terrorists always name their devices "bomb" in the open.
Great, so next time people will have an app to flood the Bluetooth with all sort of names if they ever decided to ruin the trip, and just delete the app later, undetected. Hell, you can even mod a small Bluetooth tracker and put it in someone’s bag while loading the stuff.. this opens so many attack vectors, ancient regulations don’t work with latest tech.
I think this part of the article actually explains what freaked out the crew lmaoo:
"During this incident, a Wi-Fi hotspot named "Free Palestine, F Zionists" prompted the pilot to issue a warning to the cabin, telling the passenger responsible that they had "30 seconds" to remove the name or the FBI would meet the aircraft."
This is like the Adam Sandler movie where he says bomb on an airplane.
It's an overreaction, is it not?
A terrorist is not going to call their bomb's bluetooth trigger bomb. Even if they are, are you telling me we have no idea whether there is a bomb in luggage or not?
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.<p>Don't these sites realize how many users they're losing?
That adblocker does not sound very effective<p>No popups when using uBlock Origin and/or uMatrix<p><pre><code> scheme=https://
host=simpleflying.com
ip=34.233.113.241
path=/united-airlines-767-returns-newark-bluetooth-name-alert/
{
echo url=$scheme$host$path
echo output=/dev/stdout
} \
|curl --resolve $host:443:$ip -K/dev/stdin \
|sed 's/<img src=[^>]*>//;/user-comment/,$d' \
|grep -o "<p>.*</p>" > 1.htm
firefox ./1.htm
#links -dump 1.htm
</code></pre>
The real "nightmare" is the browser that will automatically run all that garbage returned in the response body without any input from the user<p>It requires an "adblocker" to stop its default behaviour<p>Alternatively, one needs to disable Javascript, restrict the browser's access to DNS, etc.<p>When an advertising company releases a "browser" that intentionally allows website operators to cram pages fuil of advertising and tracking is that a coincidence<p>Is that the only way a browser can be designed<p>No<p>How many users realise this<p>A small number<p>For example, I'm using a browser that cannot automatically request resources, run Javascript, CSS, etc. where HTTP headers, including cookies, are trivial for the user to create, edit, save and delete. I do not need an "adblocker"<p>"Don't these sites realise how many users they're losing?"<p>The number is so small why would they care
In other news, Tom Jones got removed from a plane for singing the wrong lyrics.
IM THE BOMB AND ABOUT TO BLOW UPPPPPPPP
Does this story mean that anyone can disrupt flights by hiding on planes some minimal device with Bluetooth (say a pi zero), programmed to turn on only at random and after a few days?
Even if you discount the possibility of an intentional threat as silly, this could have been a warning from someone under duress. Turning around was the right move.
How does that scenario work? Someone's under duress because presumably there's a terrorist on board. He lets the crew know there's a bomb onboard. The plane turns around, and the terrorist... lets the plane land safely?<p>OK maybe the bomb blows up when it crosses some longitude, because this is like the movie Speed, and turning around means the plane never cross that longitude..<p>If you mean another type of duress, naming your device "plshelp-[seat number]" would be a hell lot more effective..
Honestly I didn't think about that. Maybe they didn't either. Good example of why seeing something vaguely threatening and out of the ordinary is a reason to turn around, even if you don't know why exactly they'd do it.
Earlier: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48342158">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48342158</a>
> During this incident, a Wi-Fi hotspot named "Free Palestine, F Zionists" prompted the pilot to issue a warning to the cabin, telling the passenger responsible that they had "30 seconds" to remove the name or the FBI would meet the aircraft.<p>Wtf?<p>I can understand a bomb, but this is just free speech.
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?<p>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.
There is nothing new in that. It's pretty common that people get drunk at the airport or on the plane and make jokes about bombs or something. Then the place is evacuated and flights are disrupted. The culprits get arrested and probably have to pay a fine and maybe some compensation to the affected airlines, but they usually don't get any prison time.
There are simpler ways to disrupt a flight.
Just wait until you hear what a bad joke while waiting in the TSA line can do to you day.
... I can't believe what I am reading...<p>"Bluetooth speaker name had been set to a "four-letter word, [...] BOMB".<p>Luckily, it wasn't named "Nuclear Bomb from Cuba" because US Authorities would not have other choice than to nuke Cuba.<p>Seriously? What those people are doing when they see a fence with "ASS" painted on it? Do they believe that too?
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GOATed plane, love the engine power.
This feels like one of those rare stories where everyone involved probably overreacted a little, but you can also understand why nobody wanted to be the person who ignored it.<p>These phones should have limits of how much you can use the tech...