> 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?
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]
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm sure Sean Duffy, of Real World and now Sec of Transportation, will fix this.
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.
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?
- Flight 767 returned to airport after seeing a bluetooth device named "BOMB"
- 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.
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.
This is a hilariously stupid reaction to a stupidly hilarious decision made by a speaker manufacturer.
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.
You forgot to add the cherry: they refuse to publish the "four-letter-word" as if we're stupider than they are and will never precisely figure out the puzzle. This story is equally as stupid as it is frustrating.
I'm confused why people keep calling it a speaker when the article states it was verified by multiple sources as a Fitbit that the kid gave the name bomb. Nowhere in the article was a speaker mentioned.
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.
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.
It made sense, once I thought of it.
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.
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.
I remember once a colleague receiving a call about a non-functional test environment during his commute, and he wanted to tell the ops person to restart all the processes. I think fellow passengers in his bus were not comforted to hear someone say over the phone "yeah, kill them all".
Here's the thing. If you're going to forbid a bunch of words and names for bullshit security 'reasons', you're going to have to be clear and up front about it.
Just like how we are clear and up front about water bottles, knitting needles, bottle openers, and nunchucks being forbidden in carry-on baggage. We clearly sign all that shit, we don't just keep that list secret.
Put up some wall-sized placards listing the words and device and product names (or the kinds of names, we don't need to be pedantic) that you are not supposed to use in airport, so that there is no confusion on the matter. Just because this is obvious and unwritten in your cultural context doesn't mean that international travelers who may not speak the language well are going to be aware of all the unwritten bullshit rules.
I was in New York for a conference 4 years ago, I was discussing with someone a previous project I had worked on in the UK that was a tool for companies to forecast certain risk scenarios "...you know like a building flooding or blowing up"
There were suddenly a lot of unhappy faces looking at me. I guess some folks are still a bit sensitive about that...
There's a story (apocryphal or not) that does the rounds among mathematicians: two young PhD students in differential geometry (or topology in some variations) on the way to their first conference. They're eagerly discussing as they board their flight: "… and then, you blow up the points on this plane …" :-)
I used to work with a small Aviation-related software company. There it was really not like this, the boss made jokes about it. On the other hand engineering-wise things were done really differently: no branches, fail fast, only e2e tests etc. Probably the rift between small companies and corporate culture also applies here.
Similarly, I worked on in-flight user-facing software, and we were allowed to use a “plane pointing downwards” icon to denote arrival time, because the connotations to crash were too strong.
No one believed that the icon would make the plane crash, but it’s about creating an environment that makes people feel as safe and comfortable as possible. You don’t want people freaking out when they’re locked in a small metal tube in the sky.
I've heard of stuff like this but I think it's fading. I remember tuning into in-flight radio a few years ago and hearing "love when you hit the ground, girl." If anything, I find the loosening strictures unimpressive, somehow - as though the collective brainpower to enforce them is dissipating.
Rock climbing involves a lot of building anchors and setting gear that you trust your life to. The shorthand my first partner and I started using to say an anchor was perfectly solid was a tongue in cheek "Eh, good enough". That worked fine for a couple irreverent youngsters who knew each other well.
Later on my friend got a professional rigging job. One of his first days out he was asked to check an anchor and said it was "Eh, good enough". It was a real record scratch moment where everyone froze and someone asked wtf he just said.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 80.2 ms ] threadDoes the FBI usually get involved when someone says these words in public in the US?
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?
[1] - https://observer.com/2014/03/park-slope-kiddie-shop-hunts-fo...
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jn_6EmYxE
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
"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?
Don't these sites realize how many users they're losing?
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.
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.
I'm sure Sean Duffy, of Real World and now Sec of Transportation, will fix this.
Reminds me of Professor Chaos trying to flood the world by leaving the garden hose on.
But hey, I don't make bombs. Maybe the bomb-making experts know something I don't.
- Flight 767 returned to airport after seeing a bluetooth device named "BOMB"
- 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.
- This was not intentional, but a product that calls it self "BOMB" https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speake...
- Passengers on the plane commented of the event as it was going on in this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/57lugEMhxl
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.
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.
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.
It made sense, once I thought of it.
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.
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.
Just like how we are clear and up front about water bottles, knitting needles, bottle openers, and nunchucks being forbidden in carry-on baggage. We clearly sign all that shit, we don't just keep that list secret.
Put up some wall-sized placards listing the words and device and product names (or the kinds of names, we don't need to be pedantic) that you are not supposed to use in airport, so that there is no confusion on the matter. Just because this is obvious and unwritten in your cultural context doesn't mean that international travelers who may not speak the language well are going to be aware of all the unwritten bullshit rules.
There were suddenly a lot of unhappy faces looking at me. I guess some folks are still a bit sensitive about that...
No one believed that the icon would make the plane crash, but it’s about creating an environment that makes people feel as safe and comfortable as possible. You don’t want people freaking out when they’re locked in a small metal tube in the sky.
Later on my friend got a professional rigging job. One of his first days out he was asked to check an anchor and said it was "Eh, good enough". It was a real record scratch moment where everyone froze and someone asked wtf he just said.