Does the FBI usually get involved when someone says these words in public in the US?
esseph•May 31, 2026
The government of Israel has more freedom of speech and control over the US than voting citizens do.
lostlogin•May 31, 2026
Give citizens time, one of them might persuade Trump to attack another country, levelling the score.
Greenland isn’t out the danger zone yet.
stego-tech•May 31, 2026
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.
alfiedotwtf•May 31, 2026
“Free Palestine” isn’t exactly fringe. In fact, outside America and Israel, I’d bet it’s the default stance
chimeracoder•May 31, 2026
> “Free Palestine” isn’t exactly fringe. In fact, outside America and Israel, I’d bet it’s the default stance
That's certainly not true in many European countries
lostlogin•May 31, 2026
> That's certainly not true in many European countries
This suprised me. I’ve hunted for polling and can find plenty showing a plummeting opinion on Israel, but little on internal polling about a Palestinian state.
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS•May 31, 2026
Polls are interesting. They depend exclusively on people willing to respond. Let me give you an example of how they don't tell the whole story:
In the USA, there are many, many firearms. And there's also a small but very vocal cadre of people who would like to disarm the people. In light of this, if a pollster calls and asks for your opinion on guns, and/or inquires if you have any, a common response is to hang up without answering the questions, due to the possibility that the information will be used against them.
The result? They call someone else, and don't count "declined to answer" in their results. So the poll simply is the prevailing opinion of those who wished to answer, and thus is skewed one direction. (BTW, this is why everyone says there are "at least XXX hundred million guns in America; the best they can get is a low estimate)
This happens quite a lot with controversial topics.
lostlogin•Jun 1, 2026
Is the person hanging up pro or anti gun rights?
I get that they aren’t counted but it’s hard to guess their stance.
Similarly, it’s always interesting to compare polls to electoral results. The correlation seems to be drifting.
ajross•May 31, 2026
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.
fortran77•May 31, 2026
The "Palestinian" movement _invented_ airplane hijacking.
Which is kind of ironic, considering modern terrorism was basically an invention of the Zionist movement in Palestine.
basilgohar•May 31, 2026
It's also completely false because they cited only Palestine-related hijackings, and not the parent article that goes back far further and proves they're lying.
"Airplane hijackings have occurred since the early days of flight. ...Pre-1929, 1929–1957, 1958–1979, 1980–2000, and 2001–present."
"...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....
"..In a five-year period (1968–1972) the world experienced 326 hijack attempts, or one every 5.6 days.."
And your conclusion is "Palestinian" movement (that you wrote between quotes)...invented airplane hijacking?
lostlogin•May 31, 2026
> In this context it is something to worry about.
Would you really be worried if someone said or wrote that near you in any context?
Short of them holding a weapon, this is baffling.
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.
isoprophlex•May 31, 2026
Imagine getting your jimmies this rustled over expressing antipathy for a genocidal regime, and sympathy for an oppressed people.
sbayg•May 31, 2026
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.
jim33442•May 31, 2026
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.
hluska•May 31, 2026
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?
alfiedotwtf•May 31, 2026
> A plane is not the place to make statements
Sounds like they should only be made in freedom designated zones a-la Bush-Cheney
tjpnz•May 31, 2026
In the UK you can get arrested for saying less.
lostlogin•May 31, 2026
Can you?
‘I support Palestinian Action’ is all I can think of and it’s the same length.
jim33442•May 31, 2026
Does that actually get you arrested, or do you have to go to a Palestinian Action protest? Not that there's that big of a difference.
lostlogin•May 31, 2026
> Does that actually get you arrested
I can’t see that it ever has. Making it fractionally less ridiculous.
"Those attending should be aware that showing support for a proscribed organisation is an offence under the Terrorism Act, and we will not hesitate to act where the law is broken," said commander Claire Smart, who is leading policing operations in London this weekend.”
Ah so the wording suggests that it's a thought/speech crime, not that the particular event is outlawed. Yeah that's still nuts.
tjpnz•Jun 1, 2026
A paddy wagon is now speeding towards your home.
lostlogin•May 31, 2026
> when someone says these words in public in the US?
Depending on where the plane was, it might not even have happened in the US.
umanwizard•May 31, 2026
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.
mikeocool•May 31, 2026
> 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?
thih9•May 31, 2026
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.
stefan_•May 31, 2026
3. The level of tech illiteracy combined with airplane security theater is an affront to all thinking people.
kube-system•May 31, 2026
4. A normal level of risk aversion in one of the most risk averse industries
If airlines ignored every threat that was “probably not” a real threat, they’d ignore all of them. It’s better to inconvenience a few thousand passengers than it is to kill a few hundred.
Haven880•May 31, 2026
How many threats did actually turn out to be real to date? I couldn't find this being published. But how many threats did happen without any indication (only after the perpetrators tell). I can easily recalled maybe 3-4 incidents. So the issue here is do knowing threats really help?
kube-system•Jun 1, 2026
You only hear the edge cases in the news. There are tens of thousands of incidents of unruly passengers some of which are just threats and some are actual violence.
But also, just because someone is making what could be perceived as a threat doesn’t mean it won’t escalate, which is why threats are taken seriously even if we don’t know whether something is guaranteed to go wrong. You don’t want a crazy person making bomb threats on a flight even if they don’t have a bomb, because they can inflict other issues while trapped in a metal tube at cruising altitude.
In the simplest possible terms: this is total bullshit security theatre. At no point has there ever been a bomb or even a bomb threat carried out via usb device names. There is absolutely no reason to even look at the names of Bluetooth devices on a flight.
basilikum•May 31, 2026
There was literally no threat.
victorbjorklund•May 31, 2026
They did not know if it was a threat or not. Hindsight is everything.
stefan_•May 31, 2026
You don't have your head quite on, they had already taken off!
kube-system•May 31, 2026
Yeah, that’s how diversions work?
f33d5173•May 31, 2026
No they wouldn't. A fundamental part of a threat is to make it very clear that there's a threat. The reason you threaten is to get some concession, otherwise you wouldn't bother threatening.
kube-system•May 31, 2026
This is at odds with basically every major security incident postmortem in recent history.
Most security failures happen when people wait to take something seriously until it is “very clear” that something is wrong.
We have the luxury of hindsight while reading this article but listen to the tapes of any security failures and you’ll find it painfully obvious that the most common issue is that people don’t do anything until it’s too late.
f33d5173•Jun 1, 2026
That has nothing to do with what we're talking about. We're discussing threats. Serious threats are made seriously.
kube-system•Jun 1, 2026
The definition of threat that the rest of us are using, and the one that is relevant to airline security is:
"An indication of impending danger or harm."
Not "An expression of an intention to inflict pain, harm, or punishment."
Using the second definition in this context is absolutely bonkers -- a threat actor doesn't have to make a first-person expression of threat to be a threat.
A "security threat" refers to the former -- the situation.
It's also important to note that the situation was not taken seriously just because of the bluetooth device name -- but because it was not turned off even after all of the passengers were instructed to turn off all of their bluetooth devices. They were well aware that people are just stupid sometimes, but didn't take it seriously until it was done in defiance of crew commands.
umanwizard•May 31, 2026
A normal level of risk aversion? Are you being serious? They inconvenienced a few thousand passengers to save zero.
kube-system•May 31, 2026
Without testing the null hypothesis that is not possible to determine. There doesn’t have to be an actual bomb for an unruly passenger to inflict injuries or death.
wat10000•May 31, 2026
The industry is usually smarter than this.
For example, there are many pieces of equipment that can be broken and they’ll still fly, because it’s not essential or there’s enough redundancy.
Child safety seats are not required even though they’d save lives, because the extra hassle and expense would cause some parents to drive instead, which is much more dangerous, leading to more overall deaths.
Normally the decisions are quite sensible. But the moment any “terrorism” enters the picture it all goes out the window.
kube-system•May 31, 2026
All of those have the luxury of risk evaluation in advance
Why are people not reading the article!!!! It was a Fitbit. Best not to get news based on Reddit conjecture. It's wild how many people are running with the speaker thing.
lazide•May 31, 2026
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.
jim33442•May 31, 2026
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.
Bender•May 31, 2026
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]
Pranks aside, this becomes remarkably scary when you think about all the ways that a malicious/compromised device could cause chaos.
dylan604•May 31, 2026
I really don't appreciate you posting my unhashed password to the public like that
Bender•May 31, 2026
Well next time pick one that browsers automatically filter out, example "hunter2" browsers automatically filter some passwords per W3C standards, notice you can't see my password. [1]
Calling their speaker Bomb was asking for trouble and I’m surprised this hasn’t occurred before now.
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.
basilikum•May 31, 2026
They did not calculate with the stupidity of some people. I don't blame them. There are just too many mind blowing ways of stupidity to be able to account for all of them. Also it's not their fault other people decide to ground a plane for no reason.
jeroenhd•May 31, 2026
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.
lazide•May 31, 2026
Even better. The news made it sound like it was an intentional act (at best a prank) by the kid.
If it’s a commercial product doing it, I can’t even quantify the levels of facepalm involved.
thrownthatway•May 31, 2026
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?
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.
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?
LoganDark•May 31, 2026
> 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.
> I assume other Bluetooth devices are the same, no?
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.
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.
thrownthatway•May 31, 2026
> Third-party peripherals usually do not have this functionality.
What do you mean by ”usually” here?
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.
jMyles•May 31, 2026
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.
As for other brands I own: Jlab, jawbone, pyle, and anker don't seem to have any such functionality that I can see.
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.
HDBaseT•May 31, 2026
Yeah, you can 100% rename select JBL Speakers.
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.
hunter2_•Jun 1, 2026
You would know which one is the desired one because only the desired one would be in pairing mode at that moment. Obviously a collision (if I can say that word) is possible, but unlikely enough for most purposes.
userbinator•Jun 1, 2026
Many of the cheap unbranded/OEM'd ones seem to just use their MAC address, which is (supposed to be) unique.
prmoustache•Jun 1, 2026
Almost nobody install apps of their bluetooth device.
People buy the speaker, charge it and turn it on, pair, play music, throw the packaging away, that's it. Usually the bluetooth name refer to the brand and model which is much more convenient to know which one you are connecting to than giving it a silly name.
I wouldn't expect most people to know they can do it in the first place and even those who do like me don't bother most of the time.
jim33442•May 31, 2026
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.
jeroenhd•Jun 1, 2026
Some devices come with apps that include proprietary renaming features. Those devices can be renamed.
Your iPhone's rename feature won't change anything for other devices. Maybe Apple is smart enough to sync the renamed device to other Apple devices as well, I don't know about that, but it certainly won't change what the other passengers on your phone see.
You can distinguish Bluetooth devices by their MAC address, that's usually how the rename mapping works.
userbinator•May 31, 2026
but Hama has a similarly named device
...I mentally appended an "s" to that, and was momentarily very confused.
jim33442•May 31, 2026
Rename is a fairly common feature on Bluetooth speakers and headphones, for example my Bose NC-700.
HaZeust•Jun 1, 2026
+1 on this for my Soundlink, but it's important to mention it has to be through the Bose app itself. I don't think you can rename devices from a pairing device's native bluetooth settings?
Otherwise, I trust many folks in an HN comment section would reminisce on stories from their earlier years, where they'd rename the Bluetooth devices around a densely-populated area to cause mischief.
whycome•Jun 1, 2026
Define Common
jeroenhd•Jun 1, 2026
I own zero Bluetooth audio devices with rename functionality. I don't think it's common at all. Especially in the "cheap, obnoxious Bluetooth speaker" category.
My phone will show me a different name for a "renamed on phone" Bluetooth device, but all other devices in the area won't.
thisislife2•May 31, 2026
When did Airlines start scanning Bluetooth devices?
aobdev•May 31, 2026
Airlines have kept tabs on Bluetooth and WiFi hotspots as early as the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 incidents (2016)
throwawaytea•May 31, 2026
You'd think they would do this before taking off..
js2•May 31, 2026
Perhaps it was turned on by being jostled during take off.
victorbjorklund•May 31, 2026
Also possible spotted by for example a passenger that notified the crew.
Stratoscope•May 31, 2026
> it was probably in checked luggage
Which would violate FAA regulations if it was powered on (as it obviously was):
"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."
How exactly do we know it was in checked luggage vs carry on luggage compartment.
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).
laweijfmvo•Jun 1, 2026
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
Cider9986•Jun 1, 2026
Excellent point.
CamelCaseName•May 31, 2026
The Reddit thread on this was equal parts amazing and hilarious.
Real time insights from not one, but 9, redditors on the flight.
Those new obfuscated links prevent old.reddit to work.
Is there a way for you to post proper direct links?
bushwart•May 31, 2026
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.
em-bee•May 31, 2026
to do that you have to open the link in new reddit first to expand it, then change it to old reddit. if you use a tool that automatically replaces www.reddit.com with old.reddit.com the shortened links break.
tehwebguy•May 31, 2026
For now!
ValentineC•May 31, 2026
> 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.
em-bee•May 31, 2026
only if you actually log in. not everyone does.
stackghost•May 31, 2026
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 :)
seattle_spring•May 31, 2026
I'm one ban away from a permaban thanks to the Navy Seal copypasta
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.
(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)
They work with old reddit redirect extension on firefox
koolba•May 31, 2026
Very interesting, but a hell of a way to dox yourself for being on the flight manifest.
Arainach•May 31, 2026
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.
lostlogin•May 31, 2026
Are flight manifests public?
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.
koolba•Jun 1, 2026
Not public but definitely written down and semi permanent. It’s like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that could eventually lead to you. In this case, it gives a determined actor a specific course of action to follow (find the manifest).
wartywhoa23•May 31, 2026
Oh gosh, sure, terrorists always name their devices "bomb" in the open.
sammy2255•May 31, 2026
IM THE BOMB AND ABOUT TO BLOW UPPPPPPPP
piokoch•May 31, 2026
... 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?
puttycat•May 31, 2026
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?
The real "nightmare" is the browser that will automatically run all that garbage returned in the response body without any input from the user
It requires an "adblocker" to stop its default behaviour
Alternatively, one needs to disable Javascript, restrict the browser's access to DNS, etc.
When an advertising company releases a "browser" that intentionally allows website operators to cram pages fuil of advertising and tracking is that a coincidence
Is that the only way a browser can be designed
No
How many users realise this
A small number
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"
"Don't these sites realise how many users they're losing?"
The number is so small why would they care
outside1234•May 31, 2026
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.
jltsiren•May 31, 2026
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.
NegativeK•May 31, 2026
There are simpler ways to disrupt a flight.
lostlogin•May 31, 2026
Are there? Setting a device name might be the lowest effort thing I can think of.
basilikum•May 31, 2026
Requires you to be on the plane.
Just call the police and say you have a bomb planted on flight XYZ and want 100000$ or you'll detonate it.
ElProlactin•Jun 1, 2026
Yeah. You should have seen the line to the bathroom when I named my WiFi hotspot "Free mile high club - meet me in the bathroom".
lazide•May 31, 2026
Just wait until you hear what a bad joke while waiting in the TSA line can do to you day.
dylan604•May 31, 2026
I brought some bathbombs on a trip as part of a thank you gift. My bag got pulled aside for additional screening, and I had to think for a second on what to call them when the TSA person asked me what they were.
eudamoniac•May 31, 2026
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.
netsharc•May 31, 2026
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?
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..
If you mean another type of duress, naming your device "plshelp-[seat number]" would be a hell lot more effective..
lostlogin•May 31, 2026
> How does that scenario work?
It’s funnier than that. If they had turned off the ‘bomb’ the plane would have just carried on.
The event is bizarre.
jim33442•May 31, 2026
Passenger trying to warn the crew would leave the device on
anon84873628•Jun 1, 2026
People have watched too many silly action movies.
eudamoniac•Jun 1, 2026
How does your scenario work? Someone anonymously shouts BOMB ONBOARD and the plane just continues to its destination? "I guess they can blow us up whenever, so might as well keep going..."
jim33442•May 31, 2026
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.
opengrass•May 31, 2026
Why would it land in New York instead of St John?
dboreham•May 31, 2026
Better food and theater.
anonymars•May 31, 2026
Presumably the logistics of being back at a major hub
umanwizard•May 31, 2026
If you genuinely fear for the lives of everyone on board, who gives a shit about logistics?
anonymars•May 31, 2026
I guess you can infer how they weighted the two concerns
vl•May 31, 2026
Because they knew it’s not a real threat and they wanted to land at United hub for cost saving reasons.
IamCompliant•May 31, 2026
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.
These phones should have limits of how much you can use the tech...
basilikum•May 31, 2026
> These phones should have limits of how much you can use the tech...
What do you mean?
kahrl•May 31, 2026
He's a moron.
xrd•May 31, 2026
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.
lazide•May 31, 2026
The same thing that is stopping them from suicide bombing the super crowded security checkpoint line before ID checks.
Nothing really.
bdcravens•May 31, 2026
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.
bruce511•May 31, 2026
As an aside, this is something I've only seen in the US. At least in my country the domestic baggage claim area is not accessible unless from an arriving aircraft.
I'm guessing that has more to do with theft though than security.
hvb2•May 31, 2026
No, that's because in the US they're handling the international flights separately. It's also the reason why even when you have a layover, you need to clear customs.
Domestic flights in the US are like busses/trains elsewhere. Most people fly without a checked bag
NamTaf•May 31, 2026
Most of the world handles international flights separately without needing to do that unless it is an international-domestic connection.
However I agree that in purely domestic airports I don't see how you'd prevent general public from accessing bags. Except India, wherein you need a booked flight to even enter the airport.
kgwgk•May 31, 2026
> I don't see how you'd prevent general public from accessing bags.
People are routinely prevented from being where they are not supposed to be. Whether you put the baggage pick-up point in a publicly accessible area or on a restricted area is a design choice.
daveoc64•May 31, 2026
> However I agree that in purely domestic airports I don't see how you'd prevent general public from accessing bags.
I don't understand this.
Why can't they have a door after the baggage claim that does not permit entry to the baggage claim area?
That's how things work in the UK.
In my local airport, the final part of leaving the arrivals area is the same for both international and domestic flights.
Passport control > Baggage claim (international) > Customs > One-way exit to landside
Baggage claim (domestic) > One-way exit to landside
thrownthatway•May 31, 2026
Do people collect their bags from the baggage claim area and then immediately reboard an aircraft to exit the terminal?
How do the arrivals exist the terminal
Are you not allowed to have a friend who is picking you up assist with baggage claim?
lazide•May 31, 2026
often baggage pickup is on the terminal side of the ‘one way exit’.
bruce511•Jun 1, 2026
yes. In the US. that's what I'm saying. This appears to be a very US design. (Although obviously my experience of domestic air travel is limited to a small number of countries.)
bruce511•Jun 1, 2026
>> Do people collect their bags from the baggage claim area and then immediately reboard an aircraft to exit the terminal?
>> How do the arrivals exist the terminal
You arrive, go to baggage reclaim, then into the "public area". You can then exit the terminal, or go check in for another flight or whatever you like. The point is that once you have left the baggage collection area you cannot re-enter it.
>> Are you not allowed to have a friend who is picking you up assist with baggage claim?
exactly. No-one from outside is allowed into the baggage collection hall.
But equally, we don't get charged for trolly use. So you don't need help. You stack everything onto a trolly (which are there waiting for you for free.)
mysterydip•May 31, 2026
We need to put a checkpoint before the checkpoint so that never happens!
datadrivenangel•May 31, 2026
In Uganda they make you get out of your car and go through a metal detector before getting to the pre-security security screening at the actual airport... 3-4 layers...
koolba•May 31, 2026
> 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.
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.
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!”
stouset•May 31, 2026
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.
The only 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.
This is not something to brag about. This is something to be ashamed of.
isatty•May 31, 2026
Some people deserve to be insulted. It’s fine.
koolba•May 31, 2026
By taking a stand and inconveniencing the world around me, I hope to induce change for everyone.
What’s the alternative? Lose track of my stuff or risk it being stolen?
stouset•May 31, 2026
No, you don’t.
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.
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.
Stop acting like an asshole.
koolba•May 31, 2026
> You are being an asshole to prove a point.
How is waiting for my turn to go through the metal detector or be patted down being an asshole? I arrived before the people behind me and I’m following the security procedures of the airport.
It explicitly says to keep your belongings in your position at all times. To keep your bags in view. In fact they ask you if you ever lost sight of your bags.
If people don’t want to wait in line for people following the rules then let them be inconvenienced to the point where they will get the rules changed to speed up the process.
But I’m not going to give in to the stupidity of the security rules and forsake my own belongings to accommodate someone who doesn’t care enough to either come early and deal with the potential ramifications of the rules their elected leaders have chosen for them.
stouset•May 31, 2026
> I make it a point to hold up the whole line
What you are doing is the equivalent of paying some poor cashier in pennies while everyone behind you is forced to wait in order to get revenge for some decision made by executives ten rungs up the food chain.
It is childish and immature. And worse, it biases people against whatever point you’re trying to make in the first place. Please make the conscious choice to be a better person.
> It explicitly says to keep your belongings in your position at all times.
Since you are hell-bent on following all rules to the letter, you could at least commit to the bit and follow your luggage through the X-ray machine.
If you concede that it’s not reasonable to do so, then I think you’re capable of being adult enough to concede that neither is purposefully obstructing a bunch of other travelers for the sake of a pointless exercise to obstruct everyone else so you can maintain eye contact with your luggage.
koolba•Jun 1, 2026
> What you are doing is the equivalent of paying some poor cashier in pennies while everyone behind you is forced to wait in order to get revenge for some decision made by executives ten rungs up the food chain.
These rules are not made by CEOs. They’re made by the people the populace has chosen to elect. Either directly or indirectly through inaction.
> It is childish and immature. And worse, it biases people against whatever point you’re trying to make in the first place. Please make the conscious choice to be a better person.
Again, what part of waiting for my turn is childish or immature? If the person in front of me is waiting for her turn I’m not going to complain. That’s the system we’ve arrived at.
> Since you are hell-bent on following all rules to the letter, you could at least commit to the bit and follow your luggage through the X-ray machine.
I think you’re misunderstanding my actions. I don’t hold up the line for no reason. I hold up the line until both me and my bags go through in tandem. Not a moment sooner nor a moment longer.
JumpCrisscross•May 31, 2026
> make it a point to hold up the whole line until it is my turn to go through the xray
How? I’ve seen idiots do this. I just go around and ahead of them.
umvi•May 31, 2026
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
ZeWaka•May 31, 2026
Doesn't even need to be a speaker. Just a battery and transmitter.
simulator5g•May 31, 2026
This would probably be a supply chain attack if it ever happens.
rayiner•May 31, 2026
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.
We’d be better off spending TSA’s $8 billion budget on paying people to dig holes and fill them back in.
jim33442•May 31, 2026
Every other country seems to do the same thing though
Loughla•May 31, 2026
It's not just security theater. It shifts the attack vector entirely. Instead of airplanes as weapons that could be used to kill thousands, terrorists can blow up a few hundred people.
Those checkpoints are only there to provide a soft target instead of letting it be a plane.
jim33442•May 31, 2026
I agree. Sure you can still get weapons through screening, in fact I've accidentally done it twice with like 4" pocket knives, but not sure what the odds are. A lot of the "security theater" argument seems to be annoyance at having to go through TSA, cause what's the alternative, just barely screen people like before?
“When ABC News asked the source if the failure rate was 80 percent, the response was, ‘You are in the ballpark.’”
simoncion•Jun 1, 2026
> Instead of airplanes as weapons that could be used to kill thousands...
As pilots had been screaming for for years prior to 2001, cockpit doors have been reinforced and locked, and cabin procedures have changed so that those doors are rarely unlocked. [0] This happened shortly after the WTC bombings that totally destroyed the buildings. This means that the only people who can get control of an aircraft are the crew of that aircraft.
The first of the two things that stops "another 9/11" had a one-time monetary cost and was done twenty five years ago. The second was the murder of everyone on board three airliners by hijackers. Prior hijackings were a diversion and an annoying delay. Now that "hijackers will kill you all" is on the table, hijackers will be outnumbered ten or thirty to one and will not succeed. Remember that the plane intended to crash into the Pentagon crashed in a field somewhere because its passengers heard about the ones that hit WTC and -correctly- determined that they had absolutely nothing to lose.
> ...terrorists can blow up a few hundred people [at a checkpoint].
The fact that this doesn't happen indicates that even a jetliner with a flimsy, unlocked cockpit door wouldn't be used as a weapon to kill thousands. Murder -let alone mass murder- is vanishingly rare. By and large, people simply don't want to kill or injure each other... they just want to go about their business.
To support this point, I'd like you to tell me when was the last time you heard about a cell-phone-battery-bomb? You may remember those from back when Israel's military booby trapped the batteries of phones that they believed were going to be delivered to many members of the opposing military... and then set off those bombs all at once. Shorty after the bombings, Bunnie Huang [1] did some thinking and came to the conclusion that not only is it pretty easy to fabricate such remotely-triggerable bombs with like five-figures [2] worth of perfectly ordinary equipment that is entirely legal for anyone to have, if one built such a bomb with the explosive force of a hand grenade it would be [3] undetectable to a TSA CT scanner operator, and -because batteries are sealed- entirely undetectable to explosives swabs.
If The Terrorists Are Constantly Out To Get Us, why haven't we seen these bombs? It has been what, three years or so since those very clever booby traps were distributed to and used against opposing forces? Where are the domestic bangs and booms?
[0] One expects that airlines did not wish to do this because its cost was greater than zero. I wonder how the cost compared to the destruction of three airliners, two skyscrapers, all the deaths and cleanup, and twenty five years (and counting) of security theater.
[1] Huang is a fellow with fairly substantial commercial electronics design and fabrication experience
[2] USD
[3] ...in part because of the variance in battery construction from manufacturer to manufacturer and even from model to model...
stephen_g•May 31, 2026
Not to the same extent though - for example I can't remember if I ever had to take my shoes off (maybe there was a couple of months where we had to do it back after the attempt happened in December 2021?), so I was pretty shocked to go to the US for a work trip in 2019 and have to do that. Here in Australia there's no liquid limit in carry on for domestic flights.
jim33442•May 31, 2026
Nowadays I don't need to remove shoes in the US. I vaguely remember times it was randomly required or not, not sure when, and back when it was always required. I'm not TSA precheck or anything. But yeah we have the liquid limit, which always seemed like the one dumbest thing to me, maybe even a way to sell drinks.
fluidcruft•Jun 1, 2026
Unless it has changed for a while the TSApre lines don't make you take off shoes and belts vs the regular lines. I also think they stopped making TSApre tahe laptops and iPads out of bags. But it may also have to do with equipment upgrade cycles and what was deployed to which lines.
ajmurmann•May 31, 2026
Isn't this because there otherwise wouldn't be allowed to fly into US airspace?
jim33442•May 31, 2026
I mean for a flight that doesn't go to/from the US.
thombat•Jun 1, 2026
The US requirement is that passengers on flights to the USA have been processed in conformance with US regulations _and_ since that processing have not had any contact with passengers processed otherwise. It's not in itself a stupid rule but does make the US rules contagious, since either other airports re-build to keep the US-bound and other passengers segregated or they have to apply US rules to all.
This hit Auckland International badly: it had a lovely open atrium with a garden but the rules forced a forest of partitioning walls since passengers were transferring from smaller airports that couldn't quickly adopt the US rules.
N19PEDL2•Jun 1, 2026
I often fly from Milan Malpensa airport, and I’ve noticed there are two separate security areas: one for people flying to the US or Israel, and one for everyone else. I’d always wondered why this was the case, and now I get it.
HDBaseT•May 31, 2026
In Australia, you place your carry on luggage onto a tray and it passes through an xray machine, at the same time, you walk through a metal detector. Takes about 30 seconds depending on the line.
It still feels incongruent with the reality of the situation in my opinion. I can hop on a bus with 200 other people, or on a train with literally 0 security carrying whatever I want in a bag with no staff nearby either.
jim33442•May 31, 2026
That's basically how it is in the US, except that sometimes there aren't enough machines so the lines are long, and it's the spinning scan thing rather than a metal detector. Usually no line in major California airports when I've gone. NYC is hit-or-miss. Just did a transfer through LHR and the security line was insanely long.
It used to be much worse though. I think the new machinery has made the difference.
The bus/train is different because they're harder to weaponize. Everything we got was a response to the 9/11 attacks.
somewhatgoated•Jun 1, 2026
I agree with you on train and somewhat bus but cars are extremely easy to weaponise and dirt cheap. Any terrorist trying to hijack a plane and not simply using a car (with or without extra explosives) is an idiot.
Essentially terrorism isn’t about spreading terror, because they are so laughably ineffective at it.
These kinds of measures are always reactionnary to prior events. For example in Spain you do get your bag scanned (but I doubt scan operators are sufficiently trained to spot anything of importance anyway) at train stations before embarkments and also any governmental/official/administrative office because Spain has a history of bombing (mostly by ETA).
linkregister•Jun 1, 2026
I don't see any evidence of TSA being a jobs program. Their mission and the agents executing it appear to be toward flight security. I'm certain there are many counterexamples of misguided policies and agents exhibiting incompetence. But the general direction of the agency is to screen passengers prior to entering secure airport areas and this is generally successful.
Over the years, their failure rate has consistently been 80-95%.
I don’t think you can reasonably call that „generally successful“.
consp•Jun 1, 2026
I failure is the goal: yes.
jacobrast•May 31, 2026
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??
Retric•May 31, 2026
Why stop at one bag for one flight?
> would result in a prison sentence
That doesn’t seem like a significant deterrent here.
stouset•May 31, 2026
This is the type of prank you’d see some idiot do to try and get followers on TikTok, not something a terrorist would bother with.
Kye•May 31, 2026
You sure about that?
>> "All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies."
They were bragging that they could provoke this type of response as a result of having flown two planes into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, killing thousands, and causing fear, panic, and self-sabotaging outsized reactions like pouring trillions into wars that accomplish nothing.
Getting a dozen of their operatives arrested for an idiotic prank that just resulted in a handful of planes being turned around would make them a laughingstock overnight.
I am baffled that we are even having this argument.
Retric•May 31, 2026
There’s evidence that not all people involved in 9/11 knew they were going to die. Yet, they were still used effectively.
Significantly less dedicated supporters are generally used as a funding source, but actual terrorist organizations have also used them for publicity events on the anniversary of attacks.
stouset•May 31, 2026
You are dodging the fact that getting a handful of planes to turn around is an act that induces frustration, annoyance, and insignificant costs at best. Not terror.
Retric•Jun 1, 2026
Terror is a tactic used by terrorist organizations, but it’s hardly the only thing they do.
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Isn’t quite true, but publicity is inherently valuable to organizations dependent on outside donors. The Provos/IRA did similar things (attention grabbing and annoying) not just setting off bombs during the time of troubles.
philistine•May 31, 2026
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.
You’d do something like that.
MaKey•May 31, 2026
After reviewing the video tapes the police concluded that the women knew that they were handling poison - they kept their hands away from their body and immediately washed them after the attack.
simulator5g•May 31, 2026
Someone could have told them it was anything else that you wouldn't want on your body. Like, fart spray or whatever. A prank. That behavior doesn't really tell you anything conclusive, but I guess they just let anyone be a cop these days.
it never made sense. i could bring two or more identical 4oz sunblocks, for example, but not a single 5oz toothpaste.
stouset•May 31, 2026
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.
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.
goda90•May 31, 2026
A saboteur might want to cause disruption without violence against people, and such cases would still likely be labeled terrorism.
stouset•May 31, 2026
Only because we have labeled anything and everything terrorism these days.
Even then this is an extremely lame and ineffective form of sabotage, compared to the kind of prison sentence you’d be risking.
LPisGood•May 31, 2026
People accidentally sneak weapons through TSA all the time.
There are many anecdotal examples out there. More scientifically, they had a horrific detection rate in some audits.
AndrewOMartin•May 31, 2026
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?
al_borland•May 31, 2026
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.
r3trohack3r•Jun 1, 2026
> What's to prevent terrorists … planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag
Reminds me of Professor Chaos trying to flood the world by leaving the garden hose on.
richstokes•May 31, 2026
Andddd now everyone knows that an arbitrary text string in a device hostname is enough to ground a flight.
basilikum•May 31, 2026
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.
bluescrn•May 31, 2026
But bombs apparently use bluetooth now, so he can't detonate it from more than a few metres away...
lostlogin•May 31, 2026
> he can't detonate it from more than a few metres away...
Reliably bomb detonation is on the roadmap for Bluetooth 8.
ssl-3•May 31, 2026
In the most simplistic terms, yeah. That's true. But the constraints aren't really shaped like that. For instance:
A completely-innocent Airtag speaks only bluetooth, and it can be activated from continents away -- as long as any Apple phone is nearby with a shred of Internet access.
My similarly-innocent Samsung phone is programmable (using its built-in Routines function) to perform actions in response to becoming disconnected from any given Bluetooth device.
lostlogin•May 31, 2026
The other incident mentioned is worse I think. It wasn’t a potential threat, it was stating an opinion.
“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.”
dghlsakjg•May 31, 2026
Given that the Palestinian Liberation Organization has an actual history of multiple hijackings, this makes a slight amount of sense.
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.
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.
HDBaseT•May 31, 2026
Genuine question, what could the FBI actually do?
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?
linkregister•Jun 1, 2026
Passengers are required to follow orders by flight crew regarding flight safety. If the passenger shut off the device, it does appear that 1st Amendment speech protections would apply (prior restraint is expressly forbidden). If the passenger failed to comply, then I suppose the FBI could detain them for failing to follow the lawful order.
asdff•May 31, 2026
You can probably sharpie "I have a bomb" on your forehead and get the same result
justinhj•May 31, 2026
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?
acwan93•May 31, 2026
Ben Stiller right? That’s Meet the Parents.
justinhj•Jun 1, 2026
Thanks, always get those two mixed up.
Insanity•May 31, 2026
Which bomb would advertise itself as such.. this is something I’d expect in the movie Airplane!, not something to happen in real life.
diab0lic•May 31, 2026
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.
JumpCrisscross•May 31, 2026
> 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
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.)
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.
Spoom•May 31, 2026
Isn't that what they did?
JumpCrisscross•May 31, 2026
Nope. Look at the flight track. They went all the way back.
Spoom•May 31, 2026
> Nope. Look at the flight track. They went all the way back.
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.
userbinator•May 31, 2026
And if you think you discovered a bomb accidentally left discoverable, you don’t ask for it to be please turned off
That was the most hilarious part for me.
overfeed•May 31, 2026
Turning it off would have solved the bureaucratic problem for flight crew. Sadly, the passengers (collectively) failed to accomplish this basic task.
userbinator•May 31, 2026
It could've been in checked luggage and turned itself on from the movement. No way for the passengers to get to it. Unfortunately it didn't turn itself off (although if it did, and then later turned on again, that would've been even worse.)
dpkirchner•May 31, 2026
The passenger may not have even known, I've certainly renamed friends' phones as a goof, although not to something that would get them in to trouble.
JumpCrisscross•May 31, 2026
> Turning it off would have solved the bureaucratic problem
The article says two Bluetooth radios weren’t turned off. Do we know if one of those was “the bomb?”
simulator5g•May 31, 2026
You can't really turn off most BLE devices with internal batteries, off means low power mode nowadays. Some of them are still discoverable on wireshark when they are 'off'.
zmmmmm•Jun 1, 2026
I don't think it's as silly as people are making out. It at least proves a passenger is in control of the device, rather than it being stashed / hidden in the cabin. A device in the cabin not owned by any passenger broadcasting a signal is definitively more suspicious than one with a passenger in control. We don't know what their next step would have been - they might have asked everyone from row X to Y to turn their bluetooth back on to narrow down the search etc. They probably didn't expect that anybody would fail to respond to the first instruction.
cmurf•May 31, 2026
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.
halapro•Jun 1, 2026
Doesn't make it any less moronic. Next they're gonna arrest you for boarding the plane with Da Bomb hot sauce.
sixothree•Jun 1, 2026
I presume a passenger reported it. And the pilot was not allowed to ignore it.
hunter2_•Jun 1, 2026
Not being able to ignore the speech/writing/transmission of a passenger is reasonable. Not being able to ignore the speech/writing/transmission of the manufacturer of a device on the plane is unreasonable.
Wifi SSID? Passenger speech, since those are typically changed by the user. Bluetooth GAP/GATT device name? Manufacturer speech, since those are often not changeable by the user.
IshKebab•May 31, 2026
Would it though? I'm unconvinced.
zamadatix•May 31, 2026
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.
jim33442•May 31, 2026
The article mentions that terrorists have used fake bomb threats to achieve some other goal, which makes sense
GJim•Jun 1, 2026
> terrorists have used fake bomb threats to achieve some other goal
That 'other goal' being to cause disruption. Which this did.
Now we all know how to disrupt a flight anonymously. Grudge against <airline>? Fill your boots!
jim33442•Jun 1, 2026
I mean something like taking control of the plane or else they blow it up
victorbjorklund•May 31, 2026
Bomb threats are a thing.
Etheryte•May 31, 2026
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].
That was an unrelated issue from an audit that had been done before the heist.
One of the theories right after the heist was that the thieves where former security guards. France had just laid of most of the museums security, the alarm triggered just fine, there just wasn't anyone left to respond.
y42•Jun 1, 2026
Security by Obviousness.
invalidusernam3•Jun 1, 2026
My girlfriend and I were staying at her sisters apartment one Christmas (while the sister and her partner were away). They made homemade kombucha which gave the apartment an overpowering smell. You couldn't escape it anywhere in the apartment, particularly the kitchen. On the first night of arriving while lying in bed my girlfriend wanted to connect to the wifi but we didn't know the password. I guessed it first attempt, and yes it was kombucha
mihaaly•May 31, 2026
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 ...
- 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.
monkeywork•May 31, 2026
I'd love that as well - can we not get LLMs to summerize and give us non-click bait versions of these events.
analogpixel•May 31, 2026
We can, we just have to pay the $0.05 per articles to do it, and some articles aren't even worth the $0.05.
rglullis•May 31, 2026
I wouldn't mind paying $20/month to https://wikinews.org to help them build a system that indexed news from different sources, threw the links at an LLM summarizer and used as a draft submission to wikinews.
analogpixel•May 31, 2026
It would be interesting to see some kind of future where reporters get paid per fact they feed into the system, and then the system just outputs a coherent list of what happened without any fluff, or opinion.
The hard part would be figuring out the worth of each submission. LLMs might be able to assign a price based on the importance of the fact submitted? and then subscription fee people pay is paid to the contributors. I guess you could also have people rate the inputs and base it on that. (what the readers found important.)
rglullis•May 31, 2026
A "system where people can feed facts" already exists. It's WikiData. Why involve money and credentialism into this?
ssl-3•May 31, 2026
I think it's going to take more than $20 per month to get enough suction to make any difference, at this point.
Wikinews closed up and went read-only on May 4, 2026:
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?
throwaway27727•May 31, 2026
The product website has been hugged to death.
eh_why_not•May 31, 2026
FYI Reddit "s" links require login, an unnecessary burden. For your purpose here a direct link would have sufficed:
I don't have a reddit login and was able to view the link just fine.
eh_why_not•May 31, 2026
Hmm I see. I only use "old" reddit and it does require login there to resolve to a real address. In any case, it is a special link that enables tracking (unnecessary, to say the least).
asdff•May 31, 2026
With the old reddit redirect extension it goes right to old reddit without the login window.
RagnarD•May 31, 2026
I hope somebody follows up to ensure that the kid isn't being punished for a completely unpredictable event involving a commercial device.
K0balt•May 31, 2026
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.
chatmasta•May 31, 2026
I’ve seen multiple comments referencing this was the default device name… did I miss something in the article or is that sourced from elsewhere?
> A redditor who's wife and her friend were on the flight said that the 16yo boy next to wife's friend admitted to naming his speaker "Bomb" long enough ago that he had forgotten he'd named it that. Wife's friend got to hear the questioning
That is also stated clearly in the comments.
Reddit really wants to run with the default speaker name theory, though.
f_allwein•May 31, 2026
Also, who carries a Bluetooth speaker on a plane? And for what purpose?
Geof25•May 31, 2026
Speaker in carry on luggage to be used in vacation. They were flying to Malaga
grodriguez100•Jun 1, 2026
Not Malaga according to the article — destination was Palma de Mallorca.
al_borland•May 31, 2026
Most BT speakers have a battery, which means it has to be in carry-on luggage. Why it would be powered on is the question, but this could have happened inadvertently by getting knocked around in a bag.
simulator5g•May 31, 2026
Sometimes I see my BT speaker broadcasting BLE info when it is turned off. Most things do not really 'turn off' these days.
andix•Jun 1, 2026
I do, because I want to listen to music when I travel. Not in the plane, but at my destination.
prmoustache•Jun 1, 2026
If you want it at your destination you are kind of forced to as you can't transport batteries in your checked luggage.
blitzar•Jun 1, 2026
"bare beating"
gpm•May 31, 2026
> long enough ago that he had forgotten he'd named it that
Actually sounds a lot like "that was the default name but now that everyone's making a big deal about it I'm assuming I must have named it that". I wouldn't assume that this "confession" means that reddit's theory is at all incorrect.
Witnesses are terribly inaccurate sources of information, unfortunately.
(Not to say the alternative also couldn't be the case)
elliotec•Jun 1, 2026
Renaming a Bluetooth device like a speaker permanently for everyone (as opposed to a nickname you give it in your phone or whatever) is difficult if possible at all and usually requires firmware or hardware changes, unless the option is given by the device or its companion app (which is very rare).
So your assumption seems the most likely. I highly doubt a 16 year old kid is firmware hacking a cheap speaker just to rename it for a "joke"
whycome•Jun 1, 2026
It seems like some newer speakers allow it. I really wanna know what speaker he actually had.
layer8•Jun 1, 2026
It’s commonplace for Bluetooth speakers to allow changing their Wi-Fi name (SSID) using the related app. Everyone being able to identify each other’s Bluetooth speakers is exactly one purpose of that.
K0balt•Jun 1, 2026
Bluetooth speakers don’t typically have WiFi or SSIDs. The Bluetooth advertising name is changeable on some newer higher end devices, but the vast majority of cheap speakers do not implement this from a practical standpoint. Changing the name on your device only changes the alias that you see, at least on most devices, but it might be possible to hook that on some OSs ?
layer8•Jun 1, 2026
An, sorry, yes, I confused with Wi-Fi for some reason. Nevertheless, they allow changing the name they broadcast, in the sense that other devices that see it for the first time see the changed name.
andix•Jun 1, 2026
It's not extremely far fetched that someone would call a speaker "bomb". Especially if it's loud and has a lot of bass.
We used to call such devices "boomboxes". And a bomb makes "boom".
Wiktionary also has this meaning listed for bomb: "9. Something highly effective or attractive."
mvdtnz•Jun 1, 2026
Don't believe anything on Reddit, ever.
schmookeeg•Jun 1, 2026
I can't explain why, but the top comment is the funniest thing in this whole episode to me:
Removed for violating Rule #6: Must be a kid and must be stupid.
Common reasons for this remove include but not limited to:
Teens are not considered kids as its a different kind of stupid.
prmoustache•Jun 1, 2026
I own a bluetooth speaker from the Boom brand and it has obviously the model name as bluetooth ID.
Changing it would require installing an app that I don't really want to for obvious reasons. Additionally some bluetooth device never really turn down completely and still advertize their bluetooth ID via BLE so the teenager in question may not even have realized he could change anything and the commands given (turn off bluetooth) were completely stupid as it wouldn't change anything if people turned down their smartphone bluetooth.
K0balt•Jun 1, 2026
For the vast majority of “dumb” devices, it is not possible to rename the Bluetooth advertising name. You can assign a local alias to the MAC of the device so that it shows up to -you- as a custom name, but with the exception of host devices like phones or laptops, it is unusual to be able to change the advertising name.
tuumi•Jun 1, 2026
I'm so confused. We're all commenting on an article that explicitly says it was verified by multiple sources to be a Fitbit. The kid named his Fitbit Bomb. Why are so many people saying it was a speaker? Did they change the article?
1970-01-01•Jun 1, 2026
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.
tuumi•Jun 1, 2026
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.
semiquaver•Jun 1, 2026
People are wont to stick to their pet theories even after they’ve been contradicted by facts. The idea of a Bluetooth speaker named “boom” filled the initial vacuum and became a meme that won’t die.
neilv•May 31, 2026
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.
Eridrus•May 31, 2026
This is trying to sanewash totally insane levels of risk aversion.
Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"? Do you think this behaviour has any meaningful true positives?
This is the kind of brainworms thinking that has people throwing our their 150ml liquids out at TSA and taking their shoes off.
luxuryballs•May 31, 2026
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
Eridrus•May 31, 2026
The approach to flight security is a great example of why regularly erring on the side of caution is a terrible approach.
claw-el•May 31, 2026
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?
JumpCrisscross•May 31, 2026
> What if it is a good samaritan trying to warn the pilot but this is the only way they can get a message out?
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.
amelius•May 31, 2026
You watched too many movies.
neilv•May 31, 2026
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?
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.
Zak•May 31, 2026
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.
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.
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".
dualvariable•May 31, 2026
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.
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.
mlyle•May 31, 2026
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.
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.
nephihaha•May 31, 2026
Terrorists also work on creating alarm not just hiding their operations.
godelski•May 31, 2026
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%.
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.
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.
ElProlactin•Jun 1, 2026
And how would these stupid terrorists actually get a bomb on a plane?
mlyle•May 31, 2026
Here's the options:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
godelski•May 31, 2026
Now take your scenarios and weight them by their probabilities
- 0.001%
- 99.998%
- 0.001%
If you think I'm exaggerating here, you're right, but in the conservative direction. There are 44k flights in the US PER DAY. There have been 8 bombings, *since 9/11*[0]. 4 of those involved US craft (not all passenger craft either), and *0* 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.
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).
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.
Sure, which is why you tell people to turn the device off and only when that completely fails do you take greater corrective action.
I do think we overreact on security matters, but I do think it's reasonable to not head over the Atlantic with something labelled "BOMB" if you can't figure it out.
I think if you set the amount of security to zero you'd get more bombings. Before 1990 we had a 2-3 per decade. This may not sound like much, but given that we have about 0-0.5 airliner crashes with fatality per year, it would be a significant contribution.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
We're not just talking things labeled "bomb" here. TFA has a very different example that's not so easily arguable as that.
srean•Jun 1, 2026
What would have been your estimated odds, of a plane hitting twin towers out of malice, a day before 9/11 happened.
I agree with your comments more often than not, I empathize with your annoyance, but if you play out the game theoretic consequences there are no non-annoying outcomes. I don't like it but that's how it is.
Low probability events with outsized consequences are very difficult to reason through. One potentially chipped thermal insulation ceramic tile, should we engage reentry or not. What are the odds that the tile did get chipped, what are the consequences if it did.
The only good way to play this is for a country to not act in ways that motivates potential acts of organized terrorism. That would leave only the positively deranged solitary cuckoo brains to deal with.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> What would have been your estimated odds, of a plane hitting twin towers out of malice, a day before 9/11 happened.
Lower than walking outside and finding the winning powerball ticket and getting struck by lightning. It's not an impossible thing to happen but it is so unlikely that I don't go around letting the idea dictate anything about my life. It doesn't matter that I know this has happened to somebody, that's just statistics.
> Low probability events with outsized consequences are very difficult to reason through.
Are you afraid that a country is going to randomly drop a nuke on you? I bet you aren't. Same with a building bombing. Or a dirty bomb. Or any number of things.
Remember, I didn't say the odds are 0, I said these are extremely black swan events. In fact, there's a lot of more likely ways to die on a plane that are far more likely. If you aren't afraid of those, then your fear is fear, not reality.
srean•Jun 1, 2026
I agree with you. Acts of terrorism are black swan events. Question is do we as humanity have the stomach to not act on low probability cues and eat the one off consequences. I don't think we do.
I think the only way to play this is to ensure that terrorism against us continues to be only rare, unorganised black swans and not an act of any organized and motivated entity.
Coming back to this case. Say this was an operational error by incompetent terrorists. The pilot reports the observation but does nothing. The bomb goes off. Now the pilot and the airlines are made a bunch of scapegoats. They are declared professionally incompetent and insurance cover is denied to their family.
I can well imagine current administration doing exactly that, throwing the pilot and the crew under the bus. The 911 first responders were and they weren't even in a position to prevent it. Maybe the pilot and crew can imagine that too and in that case they took a rational decision.
> Now the pilot and the airlines are made a bunch of scapegoats.
Crazy that we let this happen.
> is the society we live in.
The society we live in is one we make. If we let crazy things happen, crazy things happen.
There's so many real and big problems in the world. We don't seem to care about those things and we end up fighting about the name of a device? Something that is trivial to go about your day ignoring?
srean•Jun 1, 2026
Individual choices is what I try to make but that's not enough.
anang•Jun 1, 2026
> It's not an impossible thing to happen but it is so unlikely that I don't go around letting the idea dictate anything about my life.
Another take: the likelihood of getting struck by lightening surely dictates what you do during a thunderstorm? In the same way that the likelihood (or lack there of) dictates how often you buy lottery tickets.
If we didn’t attempt to mitigate terrorist attacks at all, would they be as infrequent as they are now? I know that’s not really what you’re saying, but surely likelihood is extremely dependent on circumstances.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> what you do during a thunderstorm?
And now the odds have changed! But that doesn't change the terrorism odds. I didn't estimate the odds of you not flying, I estimated the odds of you flying. We are already talking about being in the middle of a thunderstorm!
anang•Jun 1, 2026
Seen as a whole, you are very unlikely to get struck by lightening in your lifetime.
If you make a habit of running around in thunderstorms in an open field holding a metal rod in the air, then the likelihood suddenly increases A LOT.
What I mean is, the odds are only low that you get struck by lightening because precautions are taken place during lightening storms. In the same way, we only know the statistical likelihood of a terrorist attack involving an airplane in the current, overly cautious, context.
Sure, a lot of it is probably security theater, but I think the whole "don't talk about bombs on an airplane" is probably a pretty solid blanket rule.
If we stopped teaching kids what to do during a lightning storm, and if we stopped being overly cautious about airplane security, surely we would see both of those statistic move in the opposite direction.
CWuestefeld•Jun 1, 2026
I think godelski is being far too permissive in his odds. As he says, we need to examine how (un)likely is it that somebody is trying to execute this terrorist action, including being competent enough to create a workable bomb, to sneak it through security, and so forth. That's all his numbers show.
But we've also got to factor in
A) How likely is it that this bomb is going to have some bluetooth component? It seems like needless complexity, so we should weigh strongly against this. Further, it's less likely that our hypothetical terrorist needs to have expertise in this domain as well.
B) How likely is it that he would clearly paint the word "BOMB" on the side of his device (figuratively, of course, since this is digital)? That's amazing levels of stupidity. And then intersect that with the claim that he's competent in all the other things (bomb making, sneaking through security, making a bluetooth trigger for his bomb) but is so incredibly stupid that he'd label it a bomb.
Factoring all of this in, godelski is being far too generous in assessing this with odds similar to finding the winning Powerball ticket outside the front door while simultaneously being hit by lightning.
I acknowledge that the airline captain has some responsibility for our security. But part of this responsibility is being a steward for our overall well-being. And in this case, the "security" aspect is so vastly overwhelmed by the damage it did to passengers in other ways, that it was obviously a bad call on the captain's part.
brigandish•Jun 1, 2026
Risk is not a synonym for the likelihood of something happening, but the likelihood and its possible effect.
For example, the risk of not wearing your seatbelt on the motorway is high because, even though most journeys will not require a seatbelt to stop any negative effects, if something bad happens it will become very high risk without the seatbelt.
Without the negative effect there is no risk, so it's not just probability.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
What are the risks? That people die. Do you know how many people died of preventable things just today?
Or it's scary because it means we're going to go to war? Then why aren't we scared sooner? Be scared of the thing that causes people to want to blow up planes. It's not like they just wake up one day and a country decides it's going to blow up a plane. Our government spies off so many people and the result is we're still scared to get on planes? What a waste of money
danaris•Jun 1, 2026
As soon as you declare the possible effect to be effectively infinite in magnitude, you can justify any level of response to any level of risk.
That's not a sane way to do risk management. You have to be able to use common-sense human judgement as well as situational training.
And common-sense human judgement would tell you that, even if the possible effect is a plane full of people blowing up and that starting a war, the likelihood of that occurring because you didn't yell at a teenager to turn off a Bluetooth device is so infinitesimally small that it's not worth considering.
lallysingh•Jun 1, 2026
This was a teenager. Then again, there's a whole line of bluetooth speakers called "SoundBomb." And lots and lots more products named "Boom" (still, yes) in some way. There isn't any need for this to be anything more than a reasonable name for a speaker.
roysting•Jun 1, 2026
Should we call the FBI because you have also written the forbidden character set; since you said doing so is probably cause to call the FBI?
jMyles•Jun 1, 2026
> 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.
To qualify even for the 'far end of reasonable', you'd have to divert the plane. Returning to origin, especially when the origin is not one of the 10 closest airports and is in a much more densely packed urban area (with a much more harrowing approach) than any of those 10 renders this entire incident totally unserious.
There are real actual safety concerns to address in aviation. This doesn't make the top 1,000 list. It's wasted effort in a world where economy of opportunity is significant.
navigate8310•Jun 1, 2026
> Passengers on the flight arrived back in Newark just before 9:00 PM on Saturday evening, and were met by a significant contingent of local and federal law enforcement.
If you'll actually read the article, federal law enforcement was being called in this situation as well.
adgjlsfhk1•Jun 1, 2026
does landing a plane early due to a bomb threat seem reasonable? either there is a bomb, in which case landing early won't help, or there isn't, in which case landing early won't help
switchbak•Jun 1, 2026
Certainly telling them to turn off bluetooth will not have any positive effect, if there was a bomb I presume it would only have a negative effect.
But some people are really dumb when it comes to having common sense with respect to tech (or non-tech too, hehe).
hectormalot•May 31, 2026
The thing that surprises me is they flew back to Newark for almost 90 minutes. It doesn't make sense to me.
(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).
(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.
blks•May 31, 2026
It’s possible conditions weren’t good enough at potential alternatives.
fooqux•May 31, 2026
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.
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.
I can't blame them too much.
addandsubtract•May 31, 2026
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.
rbanffy•May 31, 2026
The only thing it protects is the target. If there is a terrorist on board and they expose the fact they are aware of the bomb, or the bomb is minimally capable, the plane is doomed whatever they do.
rincebrain•Jun 1, 2026
In this particular case, I think the point is less 1 or 2 but more point 3
(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'"
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.
jtbayly•Jun 1, 2026
That makes absolutely no sense. As the previous comment pointed out, turning around is not treating it seriously. If you are trying to save face in the extremely unlikely event that it is real, then the only thing you can do is head to the nearest airport.
CrendKing•Jun 1, 2026
1) If it really was a bomb and went off, the pilot wouldn't be there to explain to the press anyway.
2) How likely would a bomb's name really be "BOMB" vs anything else? If the latter is any higher, wouldn't it be reasonable to always turn around whenever the any other name shows up? In that case, all Bluetooth devices should be strictly banned in the cabin. But TSA is not doing that (not yet).
hammock•May 31, 2026
> 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?
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.
rbanffy•May 31, 2026
There was a guy who hid explosives in a shoe and we had to take off our shoes for many years because of him.
echoangle•May 31, 2026
I don’t know how that contradicts the original comment since that plot didn’t work and didn’t result in deaths or (significant) injuries.
15155•Jun 1, 2026
The plot worked, the device didn't (nor did it need to.)
JumpCrisscross•May 31, 2026
> I'd commend whomever decided to follow protocol
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.
dhosek•Jun 1, 2026
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.
PaulStatezny•Jun 1, 2026
A minor spelling nit. It's "it's", not "its", when used as a contraction for "it is". ;)
Sorry, you teed it up too well. I had to!
dhosek•Jun 1, 2026
Arg, that’s what I get for typing on my phone
jtbayly•Jun 1, 2026
Literally no pilot ever has been able to know that no other threat was going on.
legitster•May 31, 2026
If the terrorists goal is to create maximum fear and confusion, why not?
The staff's primary concern probably was not an actual bomb, but a prankster intentionally trying to create panic with elderly and technically illiterate.
input_sh•May 31, 2026
I'm sure whichever fictional panic you've imagined would've been far more serious than the one caused by this absolute overreaction.
zamadatix•May 31, 2026
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.
ryandrake•May 31, 2026
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?
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..."
Instead, everyone applied the same rudimentary "IF [bomb mentioned in any context] THEN [take the most extreme actions written in the playbook]."
throw310822•May 31, 2026
But it seems that those actions were in fact not 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.
st_goliath•May 31, 2026
> Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"?
The bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103 (the Lockerbie bombing) was hidden inside a Toshiba 'BomBeat' RT-SF16 radio.
lotu•May 31, 2026
It treating every BomBeat RT-SF16 radio as if it contained a bomb would be a moronic reaction to that
blks•May 31, 2026
No sane terrorist will also call about a bomb on board, but those are taken seriously, too.
And as correctly mentioned by others, we shouldn’t be concentrating on an ideal game theory spherical terrorist in a vacuum.
skeeter2020•May 31, 2026
maybe not, but a terrorist would call in a fake bomb threat to inflect terror; that's kind of the point.
drew870mitchell•May 31, 2026
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.
thomastjeffery•May 31, 2026
The problem is that there isn't a simple canonical way to disambiguate, despite that being the obvious and superior solution.
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.
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.
simulator5g•Jun 1, 2026
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.
dap•Jun 1, 2026
Is it a taboo, or is it just reserving specific words to mean specific things and insist everybody be precise about it?
karlgkk•May 31, 2026
> Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"? Do you think this behaviour has any meaningful true positives?
You know how they ask you if you have any contraband or if you’re a terrorist or whatever?
You’d be surprised at how many people get busted because they answer truthfully
echoangle•May 31, 2026
> You’d be surprised at how many people get busted because they answer truthfully
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.
cybrexalpha•May 31, 2026
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.
lwansbrough•May 31, 2026
“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.”
jancsika•May 31, 2026
You word "kind" unzips to three distinct categories:
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 no matter the context. And that is very expensive for the attacker.
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.
3. don't touch the spaghetti makefile: add a specific rule about removing shoes after 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.
Conflating these all under a single "brainworm" category tells me you are exactly the kind of person who shouldn't be in charge of designing a secure system!
linkregister•Jun 1, 2026
You're responding to a comment in a neighboring, but close reality. In this reality, it wasn't a dropped application request or even an account signup failure. Instead, it was a highly legible, public decision. This was an expensive choice.
There's no mystery to an attacker. Now it is known to all that trigger words are part of airline security SOP. Attacker tradecraft will be refined.
im3w1l•May 31, 2026
> Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"?
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.
rbanffy•May 31, 2026
> Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"?
If they knew it was a BT speaker, they wouldn’t have returned.
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.
nephihaha•May 31, 2026
Genuine terrorism relies on the creation of fear and alarm in their target group... not just concealment.
godelski•May 31, 2026
> This is trying to sanewash totally insane levels of risk aversion.
To add more credence to your point, let's not forget this beautiful line in TFA
| 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 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.
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]
[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 your 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 you are, it is a function of how good of a driver they are. So you really do want more people flying
Just greping for 'Israel' or 'Palestine' gives 13 incidents, the latest occurring in 2000.
It's a quite large share of the hijackings on the list, much more so that I'd have imagined de novo.
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.
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.
punkyblewster•Jun 1, 2026
Let's get real. This was a pilot using authority granted to them for security purposes to punish somebody whose politics they disliked.
The pilot should be fired effective immediately.
slater•Jun 1, 2026
How would the pilot know the perp's political leanings...?
edit: oh you mean the "f z" guy
soderfoo•Jun 1, 2026
I would be a bit more charitable in assigning motive for the pilot's actions.
Airline pilots are morally and physically responsibile for the lives on their aircraft. This necessitates respect for their authority.
Like other professionals, they must compartmentalize personal beliefs and professionalism.
Playful antics and silly BS, whether it be for the lulz, politics, or anything else, is a disrespectful act of defiance to the individuals you entrust to deliver you safely to your destination.
They are the final authority in flight, and have broad discretion they must exercise prudently with a bias for risk aversion.
I've known 2 airline pilots. They are the most even keeled people I've ever come across. Literally, the coolest and calmest people.
The system (should) weed out anyone who would act unprofessional, like letting their political beliefs cloud their judgment.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> Oh believe me, I would if I could...
Over a tacky free Palestine protest?
> The system (should) weed out anyone who would act unprofessional, like letting their political beliefs cloud their judgment.
The system should weed out anyone allowing themselves to become upset at a tacky device name. I mean talk about crazy
strictnein•Jun 1, 2026
It's interesting that you know what the pilot was doing and why they were doing it. Anyways, there's zero chance the pilot will be fired. Pilot unions are incredibly powerful and go to bat to protect their members.
driverdan•Jun 1, 2026
> the latest occurring in 2000
26 years ago. That is not a current thing and isn't relevant.
steele•Jun 1, 2026
Hey look, that person may have discovered that the introduction of Bluetooth on mobile phones somehow prevented future hijackings from being listed on Wikipedia with those keywords they grepped for. Let's not count out this water-tight approximation of commercial piloting procedure. Just think of how many incidents have been similarly prevented around that specific regional conflict by reducing legroom, shrinking overhead storage, and innumerable TSA back-of-the-hand bad touches.
serialNumber•Jun 1, 2026
The latest was 9/11 and that is still quite relevant to us today.
contubernio•Jun 1, 2026
It's as recent as WWII was when Nixon got elected.
bonesss•Jun 1, 2026
And Nixon followed through with countless post-WW2 policies, practices, and acted on concerns that stemmed specifically from that conflict. The Cold War and all related funding being an easy example.
I’d also be very wary of recency bias when looking at the extremist fringes of religious and political situations that have been ongoing for centuries. We might feel a couple decades is a long time, but in conflicts all parties can veto the other parties subjective interpretations.
no-name-here•Jun 1, 2026
> quite relevant
Quite relevant in terms of? Security (theater?) measures that have been allowed to continue?
anigbrowl•Jun 1, 2026
Actually, I don't think it's a good idea to bring your politics into a an enclosed pace like this where people are forced to be a captive audience, notwithstanding that I agree with theparticular sentiment expressed.
> you have the right to express it
Out in public sure. In an airplane you're in someone else's private space (ie the airline's) and everyone is not only confined with you in minimal comfort, they have no way to leave. Trying to 'own' the space in this context is a dick move. If I'm a traveling passenger I don't want to be subject to your political ideas/religious sentiments/music preferences/sporting affiliation or whatever else. Besides the irritation it may or may not inflict on other passengers, it's an unnecessary burden for the flight crew, who are going to have to field any complaints about it.
In short, please stow your rights in the overhead container or in your checked baggage and respect other peoples' right to be left alone.
virgil_disgr4ce•Jun 1, 2026
> Actually, I don't think it's a good idea to bring your politics into a an enclosed pace like this
Ah yes, the classic "your politics," but of course the person having this opinion's politics are perfectly fine, because they're the "normal" person with the "normal" politics, not like that crazy person who thinks some randos shouldn't be the subject of genocide. How dare they!
MobiusHorizons•Jun 1, 2026
I believe the idea is that no one should be declaring their political beliefs loudly in such an environment regardless of how “normal” they are. I’m not sure broadcasting a WiFi endpoint meets my threshold for “loudly”, but otherwise I tend to agree.
moi2388•Jun 1, 2026
Believing you do not have the right to name your Bluetooth what you want is also a political belief.
idle_zealot•Jun 1, 2026
Maybe, but you know as well as I do that if the SSID were "God Bless America," "Support our Troops," "Fuck George Bush," "I'm glad Hitler is dead," "The South will rise again," or any number of things that there would be no incident.
pesus•Jun 1, 2026
> In short, please stow your rights in the overhead container or in your checked baggage and respect other peoples' right to be left alone.
What does a Bluetooth device's nickname have to do with leaving people alone?
hunter2_•Jun 1, 2026
Right, those other people (well, their devices) are asking you (well, your device) what your (device's) name is. You're not telling them until they ask. They need to leave you alone!
fsckboy•Jun 1, 2026
>I don't think it's a good idea to bring your politics into a an enclosed [s]pace like this
I agree! I'm getting so sick of politics on HN
bschwindHN•Jun 1, 2026
I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not, but what exactly is your vision of HN "without politics"? It's very hard to avoid because so many technical things have overlap with politics, and lots of technical decisions have political implications. HN currently loves talking about all things AI, and that's probably one of the biggest political topics out there.
pepperoni_pizza•Jun 1, 2026
Oh it's easy! There's just two genders - male and political. Just two races - white and political. Just two beliefs - conservative and political.
_moof•Jun 1, 2026
> Actually, I don't think it's a good idea to bring your politics into a an enclosed pace like this where people are forced to be a captive audience, notwithstanding that I agree with theparticular sentiment expressed.
That is a very, very, very different statement than "I'm calling the FBI."
You're talking about should or shouldn't. The issue here is past that point: whether it's then right to involve people who are empowered to take away your physical liberty, and worse.
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
You are actually giving away liberties when boarding a plane and I'm pretty sure this is even written somewhere in the contract between you and the airline that you agreed on.
close04•Jun 1, 2026
No contract is allowed to take away what the law gives you. Either the law says "except on a plane/ship/etc." (which is plausible) or the contract is invalid.
Can you imagine how it would be if every contract you sign had a "I own you now, no backsies"?
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
That's not what I said though. I just said you're giving away liberties.
For example, at home, I'm free to walk around nude and scream.
On a plane, I'm not.
defrost•Jun 1, 2026
On a commercial passenger plane it's frowned upon.
On planes in general, many people jump nude for their 100th skydive - the original and best video of this has been scrubbed from youtube, but a quick search shows others.
Often screaming is included.
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
On most commercial flights, it's not only frowned upon.
But if you want to f$ck around and find out, I'm sure it will make for a fun "How I Ended Up On the No Fly List" story.
defrost•Jun 1, 2026
Been there, done that, still allowed to fly.
Go figure.
Usually the mile high club doesn't involve walking around in the nude though?
iso1631•Jun 1, 2026
> the original and best video of this has been scrubbed from youtube
More US censorship. Nude skydiving, terrible. Indepth reviews of how to kill things with insane levels of weaponry? Featured video time.
lazide•Jun 1, 2026
To be fair, the weaponry is far less floppy.
close04•Jun 1, 2026
> I just said you're giving away liberties.
>>this is even written somewhere in the contract between you and the airline that you agreed on
What I wanted to say is that you'll never give up any civil liberties because of a contract alone. If the contract can take those away it's because a law never gave them to you in those circumstances in the first place, so you never had them to begin with.
I just wanted to make it clear that you cannot agree to give up something that the law gives you. If the law doesn't give you something, you have nothing to give up.
cogman10•Jun 1, 2026
The law gives very few liberties. And the places where people think it give liberties, it is actually just banning laws from being made around liberties.
Freedom of speech is the peak of this. People think it means "I can say whatever I like wherever I like". But that's not what it is. The government cannot make laws curtailing speech (though, it does... enforcement and interpretation don't line up with the original intent). You can, however, sign an NDA which curtails your speech. A business can kick you out for saying something they don't like. An employer can fire you for saying "poodle" one too many times.
And that's what we are dealing with around airlines. They absolutely can kick you off the plane and ban you for almost any reason. For what you say, wear, or because they don't like how tall or short you are.
The law really only protects a few things. Your race, your gender, your religion. Everything else is fair game for a private institution to discriminate against. They can kick you off a plane because you are a journalist. They can kick you off because you won't quarter soldiers. They can kick you off because you don't submit to a search of all your property.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> The law gives very few liberties.
> Freedom of speech is the peak of this.
Freedom of speech isn't something the law gives you. It is something you innately have.
Don't confuse positive and negative rights[0]. Freedom of speech is something that can only be taken away. It is never something that can be given to you.
That sounds like a technicality. You can absolute agree to not do something that would otherwise be lawful. You still have the same rights, but you have other restrictions on you. The two can exist concurrently.
umanwizard•Jun 1, 2026
> No contract is allowed to take away what the law gives you.
That's incorrect. In fact this is exactly what all contracts do.
Barbing•Jun 1, 2026
I think if the captain doesn’t like you, what they say goes & it’s a federal matter.
I think the reason for the captain not liking you is secondary and could get him fired but it’s still: mess around in federal airspace, deal with the feds. Follow all instructions of all flight crew or you’re a criminal, regardless (I think).
Not actually the FBI though is it? Captain probably wanted to sound serious (mission accomplished).
atoav•Jun 1, 2026
So what you're saying is if the captain doesn't like you because you're Zionist they can remove you?
goodcanadian•Jun 1, 2026
That is exactly correct; it's his plane.
I think he would face discipline from his airline after the fact, but in the moment, he is in charge.
ap99•Jun 1, 2026
Have zionists hijacked many planes lately?
MSFT_Edging•Jun 1, 2026
A few thousand pagers went off, quite a few in the hands of kids.
Terrorism by definition.
tardedmeme•Jun 1, 2026
They weren't on a plane, and that was self-defence, not terrorism, by the state of Israel, not "Zionists", against senior Hamas operatives, not "kids".
Andrex•Jun 1, 2026
There was a whole episode of Seinfeld about a pilot forcing Jerry off because he just didn't like him. Seems legit.
pc86•Jun 1, 2026
Yes. The captain has the authority, by law, to remove anyone (or everyone) for any reason. There is basically nothing the captain is legally barred from doing while the plane is en route.
lazide•Jun 1, 2026
Doesn’t even necessarily have to be the captain - refusing to follow instructions/direction of any member of the flight crew is a serious problem.
And yeah, if it was ridiculous or violated some other law or something they’d eventually have to deal with the consequences of that, but while in the air, what they say goes.
mlyle•Jun 1, 2026
I don't know what the right answer is to people doing weird stuff in enclosed places with a captive audience is.
The wifi name probably should have been ignored. But the incidents of people airdropping profane pictures to randos on planes...
mx7zysuj4xew•Jun 1, 2026
That's a design flaw in AirDrop, not an "incident"
47282847•Jun 1, 2026
A design flaw it only becomes due to people’s violent acts. If the goal is safety, we should spend more time helping people process their shit and less on raising shields. They only make people more angry. Everybody draws the line differently, but pushing your data on somebody else’s device without their consent is an intrusion, and as such I consider it to be an act of violence. We need to grow up and understand how to break cycles of violence, not push it further towards mutual destruction.
lazide•Jun 1, 2026
Unsolicited Dirty pictures via a protocol which is easy to disable (and rarely used anyway) vs getting punched in the face or shanked?
Really?
limagnolia•Jun 1, 2026
I don't think it was presented as an "vs". Both can be a form of violence, even if one is much worse than the other.
lazide•Jun 1, 2026
Grouping them together is the absurd part.
The unsolicited dick pic is gross, but not even in the same category as the other stuff.
47282847•Jun 1, 2026
Why the “vs”?! All three acts are acts of violence. We can order them by our own judgment of intensity, but they’re still all violent. And as such also expressions of pain/hurt, which will lead to further expressions until it is finally seen and addressed. We all know this, but still act like we don’t.
pc86•Jun 1, 2026
No - someone dropping a picture to your phone when you have the ability enabled is not violence by any definition used by people with functioning frontal cortexes. Maybe it's good to remove the "Everybody" option, maybe it's not. Maybe it's good to make it auto-disable after 10 minutes, maybe it's not. Irrelevant.
But absolutely nothing will make a photo popping onto your phone a violent act.
Shank•Jun 1, 2026
When China mentioned this to Apple, Apple agreed, and “Everyone” is not the default and also not available for more than 10 minutes now.
tardedmeme•Jun 1, 2026
To be fair, everyone in China agrees with the government about everything. It's not really optional.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> I don't know what the right answer is to people doing weird stuff in enclosed places with a captive audience is.
Punish the people who act.
Seriously, think about the fear here. That someone's trivial to ignore tacky political statement causes what problem? That it causes a fight to erupt? Arrest the person who actually starts the fight.
Do not police the actions of reasonable people just because they might upset unreasonable people. This is absolutely insane! You are just creating a world of Karens and crazy people by enabling them. The people that should get in trouble are the ones who start a fight.
FFS we're talking about a device's name. How often do you even see other device's names? Are you just staring at the WiFi and Bluetooth broadcasts all day? That's mental! You only see it when you switch to the plane's WiFi and then it is done. Over. You don't have to see it again. Anyone that is upset enough to start a fight over such a little thing should absolutely be arrested because they are clearly going to start a fight over some other absolutely bullshit and arbitrary thing. That's a person that is looking for a reason to be upset. That is a person looking for a reason to be angry. That is a person looking for a reason to start a fight. That is a person who is mentally insane.
mlyle•Jun 1, 2026
Big reaction that misses the nuance in what I said. Can you read the sentence after the one you quoted?
pc86•Jun 1, 2026
> That is a very, very, very different statement than "I'm calling the FBI."
Yes, but on an aircraft the captain is the dictator. They can do basically whatever they want within the confines of law and company policy - and honestly with enough seniority, which the captain on a transatlantic flight has a lot of - they can probably ignore company policy once or twice and get away with it and keep their job.
As far as I'm aware there is no law preventing the captain from deciding to go back because they don't like one of the passengers blasting their opinions to the entire aircraft. What the opinion is, its levels of subjectivity or objectivity, and whether or not it's popular is completely irrelevant.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> blasting their opinions
It is a fucking device name. That is so easy to ignore and not be affected by.
Anyone being pissed off and willing to start a fight over a device name should be committed. Put that person in jail, not the person with the tacky device name. Otherwise you are just creating a world where you police the behavior of reasonable people because they might upset unreasonable people. Police the behavior of the unreasonable people.
steele•Jun 1, 2026
Your passport is inherently political. Uniformed service members boarding first is inherently political. The choice of language the crew is able to communicate to passengers in is inherently political.
If I can ignore seeing your neglected toenails tangled haphazardly around the sandiest pair of adidas flip-flops you possess, you can kindly ignore the SSID "Electronic Frontier Foundation", Karen.
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
> they have no way to leave
Not only do the people have no way to leave, the owner of the place also has no practical way to make people leave, like they would for example in a restaurant. At least once the plane is in the air.
And the captain has to ensure the safety not only of the flying machine but also of the cabin. So I can absolutely understand the move here and the need to forbid everything that could incite violence in the cabin.
vkou•Jun 1, 2026
Will the captain likewise call the FBI if some knuckledragging mouth breather with three ex-wives and a flag tattoo on his groin has an access point called 'Make Murucuh Great Again'?
That would make me uncomfortable on the flight, and it's also one-hundred percent a political statement. One that is actively hostile to millions of Americans, and many more people outside of it.
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
If the captain thinks it poses a risk to his plane, why not?
no-name-here•Jun 1, 2026
I think GP's point is that it's not a risk to the plane? Or in what way is it a risk to the plane? If passenger(s) are wearing a super pro or anti Biden or Trump shirt or Bluetooth/SSID name, is that a risk to the plane, as what if there are other people on the plane who feel strongly in the other direction? But if someone really is OK with pilots turning around flights because of such shirts, etc., then wouldn't the better solution for airlines be to ban clothing, stickers, military uniforms, etc., that have countries' flags, candidate names, political slogans, etc. on them? As if someone believes that turning around planes over it is reasonable, better to address that 'problem' even before taking off and costing large amounts of money and time for hundreds of others, instead of based on the whim(?) of a pilot hours into a flight.
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
> I think GP's point is that it's not a risk to the plane?
That is up to the captain to decide.
no-name-here•Jun 1, 2026
But as the GP comment asked:
1. In what way is it a risk to the plane? Or is the idea that we should not attempt to evaluate whether pilot's decisions are objective and reasonable? Is there some objective rule being used? (Or if an objective rule can't be stated, is it more like the pilot's feelings or mood about the passenger(s) at any particular moment?)
2. But if someone believes it's reasonable for pilots to turn planes around based on whether someone is wearing a pro or anti Biden/Trump shirt, etc. wouldn't the better solution for airlines to just proactively ban clothing, stickers, etc. with countries' flags, candidate names, political slogans, etc. rather than having pilots turn around planes midflight based on a whim(?), costing hundreds of people large amounts of time and money?
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
> wouldn't the better solution for airlines to just proactively ban clothing, stickers, etc. with countries' flags, candidate names, political slogans
Part H:
Safety – Whenever refusal or removal of a Passenger may be necessary for the safety of such Passenger or other Passengers or members of the crew including, but not limited to:
5. Passengers who are barefoot, not properly clothed, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene or offensive;
no-name-here•Jun 1, 2026
Is the point here that clothing containing a pro or anti Biden or Trump, or have a countries' flag, or be a US military uniform, should "pose a risk to his plane", and so airlines should be proactively banning such things from being allowed onboard? Or how does it answer the grandparent and great-grandparent's comments questions about why such thing should "pose a risk to his plane"?
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> If passenger(s) are wearing a super pro or anti Biden or Trump shirt or Bluetooth/SSID name, is that a risk to the plane
Exactly
> as what if there are other people on the plane who feel strongly in the other direction?
But it is absolutely batshit insane that we would punish the person with a tacky device name. You are punishing the wrong people. Punish the people who think it is okay to start a fight over something that is so easy to ignore.
This is such an insane thing we're doing. We're policing the behavior of functioning adults because it might upset dysfunctional adults? Why the hell are we creating a society that protects crazy people? It's absolutely insane
realo•Jun 1, 2026
Ban clothing altogether.
Nudist flights for the easily terrorized.
vkou•Jun 1, 2026
1. Does the pilot need anything but his personal biases to claim that poses a risk to the plane?
2. Because any rational person understands that we need to coexist in a society with a spectrum of political opinion, and that a fucking access point name doesn't cross the boundary between safe and dangerous to society.
3. Because doing it for one and not the other is obviously biased and arbitrary and demonstrates that it's not an actual danger to the plane, it's just some asshole with a bad day choosing to exercise his authority over someone whose politics he dislikes. To severe consequences to both that person and everyone else on board the plane. That's not a society you want to strive for.
lmm•Jun 1, 2026
> One that is actively hostile to millions of Americans
No it isn't. You can read that implication into it, but it's not "actively hostile" in the way that an "F... X" statement is, for any X, and it's a sign of how slanted the discourse is that you would consider them equivalent.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
Anyone willing to start a fight over a tacky WiFi name should be committed. Seriously, what an insane thing to do. It's such an easy thing to not be bothered by. It sits in the background, invisible, and you're... just letting it live rent free in your head? There's so many more annoying things to flying than someone's dumb personal hotspot name.
Can we just recognize how crazy of a scenario this is?
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
People are not rational. Or at least one cannot assume they are when it comes to safety.
People start actual fights over small groups of other people, that neither of them know personally, who are chasing after a ball on a pitch.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
So what's your argument? We all act crazy because crazy people might exist? That's just as crazy as being afraid of terrorists.
Why would you let the crazy people run the world. If they're that crazy you put them in a hospital because clearly they need help
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
The argument is that if I'm responsible for the safety of a very heterogenous group of people in the cabin of my airplane, I will assume that those people are already stressed and will probably act even less rational than they normally would. And that's all that matters in that moment.
> If they're that crazy you put them in a hospital because clearly they need help
Oh believe me, I would if I could...
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> Oh believe me, I would if I could...
Then let's stop letting this be acceptable behavior? I mean aren't you just enabling crazy people by defending them?
_carbyau_•Jun 1, 2026
I think the point here is the captain is responsible for an isolated pocket of humanity in a cabin. That captain is to take that cabin way up in the air, move it a lot, and get it back down safely.
And not all of the risks are about moving the cabin. Many of the risks are within the cabin and while some dickhead getting uppity at the pub will get collared by the police, it is a totally different problem while in the air.
So, while in the cabin, don't try to fuck around and find out. No one wants to find out anything. They just want to get to the other end of the trip.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> I think the point here is
I think the point is you're punishing the wrong person.
Punish the dickhead getting upset over the easy to ignore and not that provocative of a thing.
Don't police functioning adults, police dysfunctional adults. Why is this even a contentious statement?
throw1234567891•Jun 1, 2026
Define crazy. Because you sound crazy to me. The point of view depends on where you sit. Some other people maybe want to put you in prison, for your „craziness“. Care for what you wish.
close04•Jun 1, 2026
> I will assume that those people are already stressed and will probably act even less rational than they normally would
They turned what most passengers considered at most tasteless into a real threat worthy of returning to base. How can this possibly help with the stress? If this was to reduce stress, it was disproportionate and backfired in a major way.
Why are airlines adding to every part of that stress but drawing the line at a device's BT name?
Everything about flying is getting worse. The process of buying the tickets full of shady practices and dark patters, the check-in, the boarding process, the cabin luggage getting smaller for the same type of ticket, the ever more cramped seats, the removal of the old amenities like free food or snacks. They are all getting more terrible and adding stress. From what I can tell from my own ticket purchases with the same airlines in the past, the prices kept up with inflation over the past decades but the services have fallen far behind.
barbazoo•Jun 1, 2026
Even more you have to actively seek it out to even see it. These people are looking for ways to get triggered.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
It really seems like people in the threads are doing the exact same thing.
The only argument they are making is that you shouldn't be allowed to make you're device's name <Something Politically Tacky> because... it might make unstable and irrational people upset.
Why the fuck are we protecting unstable and irrational people? Punish them? What is so difficult about this? Seriously
dzhiurgis•Jun 1, 2026
Do people get kicked out for offensive t-shirts and tattoos? How about bad cologne, good cologne, bad BO, or just for being so ugly that it's offensive?
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> Do people get kicked out for offensive t-shirts
Actually this did happen recently. And it didn't go over so well either... for the airlines.
It's something that never should have happened in the first place. (I'm agreeing with you, but stupid shit does happen and we should stop enabling people to act so dumb)
> In an airplane you're in someone else's private space (ie the airline's) and everyone is not only confined with you in minimal comfort, they have no way to leave.
Its not private space. Its public because they sell tickets. Its like going to any other event, and I don’t think there’s a constitutional exception to free speech on airplanes where you can’t express your opinions.
refurb•Jun 1, 2026
Flying on a plane is in no way similar to a public ticketed event. It takes about 30 second of logical thinking to realize that's not true.
stateofinquiry•Jun 1, 2026
I'm not sure if you are saying one can or can't express opinions on airliners.. but I do want to point out that the "contract of carriage" of most airlines is more restrictive than you might find for a ticketed event like a concert. You might want to read the one for United, just for fun (especially if you fly). https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html Rule 21, item H 16 even indicates that you can't smell bad. YMMV, but it is pretty far from a "public" space as I define one.
umanwizard•Jun 1, 2026
It is perfectly legal to sell tickets to an event and require people going there not to express political opinions.
koiueo•Jun 1, 2026
> Actually, I don't think it's a good idea to bring your politics into a an enclosed pace like this where people are forced to be a captive audience
"not trying to make a political statement", but... Can we say, that Palestine is an enclosed space, considering its total land and sea blockade?
Oh, the irony
refactor_master•Jun 1, 2026
It's actually even simpler than that. The airplane isn't just a "private business, and you shouldn't mess with their space". They're protected and empowered by broadly ratified conventions (which includes virtually every country in the word), starting with the Tokyo Convention:
> The convention [...] recognises certain powers and immunities of the aircraft commander who on international flights may restrain any person(s) he has reasonable cause to believe is committing or is about to commit an offence liable to interfere with the safety of persons or property on board or who is jeopardising good order and discipline.
And this is an offence? Or does he actually believe they're about to commmit a crime?
Is there some reasonable test? Could he do this for a band t shirt
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> he has reasonable cause to believe is committing or is about to commit an offence
Punish the person who starts a fight over some tacky device name that is trivial to ignore. That is the person that is committing (or about to commit) an offense.
You're being unreasonable. Think about what you're saying. It's the equivalent of "You can't wear that shirt, someone might get offended and punch you in the face." We don't act like this in society. You arrest the person who throws the punch, not the person wearing the shirt. Just the same way you don't arrest a woman for wearing something slutty, you arrest the person who sexually assaulted them. This is the definition of victim blaming. It doesn't matter if the victim is increasing their odds of being victim (unless they are actively seeking out and attempting to become a victim).
Be reasonable. Punish the person who is actually committing the offense. Don't punish someone because of some imaginary offense.
basilikum•Jun 1, 2026
> Actually, I don't think it's a good idea to bring your politics into a an enclosed pace like this where people are forced to be a captive audience, notwithstanding that I agree with theparticular sentiment expressed.
If you are in any way harassing people by shouting through the plane for example, I agree. But the SSID of a WiFi network isn't that. No one is forced to continually read the list of available hotspots over and over again. There is nothing special about the fact that it's on a plane here.
thrownthatway•Jun 1, 2026
You are the airline guest until they decide you are not.
At which point you are at least trespassing, and probably worse because it’s commercial aviation.
You agree to their terms when you purchase a ticket.
Indicating that you sympathise with terrorist while on an aircraft should 100% result in law enforcement getting involved.
gpvos•Jun 1, 2026
> Indicating that you sympathise with terrorist
But that isn't what they did. And even if they did, sympathizing isn't being a terrorist yourself. Law enforcement has nothing to do there, unless you're in a totalitarian state.
knollimar•Jun 1, 2026
Which causes that have extremists are okay? Or you're saying all of them?
barbazoo•Jun 1, 2026
Considering the passengers of an airplane a captive audience of a wifi hotspot name is wild. Have these people no ability to not be triggered?
mancerayder•Jun 1, 2026
You definitely don't have the (implied) constitutional right to much on an airplane. Why not wear no shirt, a balaclava and hold up a flag above your head - go ahead and try it. As soon as the plans lands, something terrible will happen to you. In some destinations, even worse things.
da_chicken•Jun 1, 2026
The right of free speech is not wholly encompassed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
In fact, it's the other way around, it's because the right of free speech is recognized as a universal, natural right then the US Federal Government is not permitted to make a law suppressing speech. The First Amendment does not create the right. The right is there, naturally, whether or not the United States or its constitution or government exists. The First Amendment merely explicitly states that the government isn't permitted to impede that right.
Using the existence of the First Amendment to narrow free speech as a right to what the government is permitted to do and nothing else is a severe perversion of both the document and the beliefs of the framers.
In short, "it's a private entity doing it" is an incredibly poor defense of behavior that suppresses speech. It's like how young children will defend their rude or offensive behavior with "it's not illegal." The reason that's an unconvincing argument is that it's an incredibly low bar. The world is full of behaviors that may not be so universally offensive or outrageous that people have explicitly written down that nobody is every allowed to do that thing. It's actually a very small range of possible behaviors that that covers.
The only reason that there isn't a general law barring private parties from restricting the speech of others is (a) one's right to free speech does not necessarily negate another's rights in the same or a different area, (b) one's rights do not entitle one to the use of things owned by others against their desires, and (c) any such law could be used by the government to indirectly suppress other rights.
The narrow nature of the First Amendment is not to be taken as an implication that the right is narrow. It's an admission that the law cannot perfectly protect human rights.
pdonis•Jun 1, 2026
> The right of free speech is not wholly encompassed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
And there are other human rights besides the right to free speech, which have to be balanced. One of them is the right to safe travel. That means people who are responsible for the safety of a planeload of people have to err very strongly on the side of being safe rather than sorry. And mature adults are suppposed to recognize that fact and not insist on exercising their free speech right everywhere they go, to the detriment of other rights.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> One of them is the right to safe travel.
I'm sorry, but you're acting crazy if you think someone naming their device "free Palestine" is a credible threat. That's absolutely bonkers
bonesss•Jun 1, 2026
How about taking the full quote, and defining the terms in that full quote? Otherwise you’re just straw-manning based on cherry picking.
Threats in airplanes, post 9/11, land different. “Free D.C., Fuck Americans” says something different to fellow passengers than “Free D.C.”.
Not crazy, not bonkers. Yes, a threat. And in an airline context: they are all treated as credible… that’s why your shoes get checked, and water gets stopped, and babies banana smoothies get confiscated because of potassium content.
Plus, there’s a red line from the PLO and hijackings through 9/11 to the current state of airline security. That’s not neutral, and not incidental, for an airline that knows recent history.
fny•Jun 1, 2026
I'm pretty sure Madison would have jailed you if you showed up on his lawn with an "ARSON" sign.
The founders believed in private property rights as much as free speech. Property was even a requirement for voting in most states.
Y-bar•Jun 1, 2026
> The founders believed in private property rights as much as free speech
This explains why Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty happily destroyed private property in the Boston Tea Party.
kqp•Jun 1, 2026
The first amendment is indeed concerned only with the US government’s interaction with the matter, as is appropriate, but that does not imply it’s without other limitation. Your list is very broad and covers a wide range of common sense limitations—like, say, that you don’t want somebody in your vehicle harassing you.
Anyway, airlines are hard because the basic problem is they’re public necessity still halfway regarded as private business. It’s also an unnatural situation that many people be forced to share such little space in “public”, and we’d likely have a different constitution were it always the case.
I don’t think this one will be addressed by principle from on high.
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
That's nice and all, but you're not in the United States when you're on a plane in the air over the ocean. In this particular case, because United Airlines is a US airline, US law will mostly apply, but I'm sure you get the point.
TheOtherHobbes•Jun 1, 2026
The First Amendment is academic in a country where foreign visitors are expected to hand over their social media history just in case there's criticism of Glorious Leader and the Great Country He Leads.
And Great Leader recently asked social media sites to provide details of critics.
The ship has sailed. The plane has crashed. The party is over.
There may be survivors, but right now it's too early to tell.
umpalumpaaa•Jun 1, 2026
I see what you are saying but then where do you draw the line? What if the wifi name is “fuck all pilots” - “united is doomed” or “we will all die”?
kingofmen•Jun 1, 2026
Not OP, but why draw a line for WiFi names at all? Do you think an actual terrorist goes around drawing attention like that?
srean•Jun 1, 2026
Propaganda is a very important part of terrorism so I would not put that past them. Imagine the headlines if something like that does happen in the future.
In short, a Pascal's wager and a demonstration that it is not easy to have good things.
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
That's not even necessary. The fact that it could create panic is enough.
And by the way, a terrorist is (by definition) someone who wants to incite terror in others. So any person knowingly broadcasting "we will all die” is a terrorist already.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
You think... a device named "Free Palestine, F Israel" could... create panic? I'm sorry, that is crazy. Only a crazy person would panic over that
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
I don't fly very often, but every time there's at least one person I would consider crazy enough for that.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
Then at put that person in jail, not the person with the tacky device name.
Do you hear yourself? You're saying we should be irrational because there's irrational people. That we should send people to jail because they might upset an irrational person? You're sending the wrong person to jail. Are you crazy?
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
You're interpreting a lot, as I didn't say any of that.
What I'm saying is that the decision whether or not something is considered a risk is completely at the discretion of the captain. And by accepting the terms of the airline when boarding the plane, you agree to follow the orders of the captain.
So if that captain says "turn it off", you turn it off. It's very simple.
But I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't want to understand for the sake of confrontation, so I'll leave it at that.
orbisvicis•Jun 1, 2026
Or a nihilist, or a fatalist, or a pessimist, or an antinatalist, or a realist.
Don't go putting people into boxes. That's the path of persecution.
You have the inalienable right to say what you want on a plane, limited by what the government is allowed to prosecute. In a confined space, that is a bit riskier. That's a solely personal choice - no laws are being broken. The Captain has the right to ask you to conform or leave, but that's a separate issue.
People are being overly sensitive. A wifi name is not a protest. It does not disturb personal privacy and tranquility. It's about as offensive as an article titled "We’re All Gonna Die!" from your favorite news outlet - which by the way, is not an uncommon headline.
What if my wifi name was "peanut butter for all!" but unbeknownst to me and by some rare cosmic coincidence everyone on the plane was deathly allergic to peanut butter. Does that make me a terrorist? No! But I swear someone would try to drag me through decades of litigation regardless. These people seem to have divorced words and meanings from the mechanics of how the world works. Like, "this piece of paper says you shouldn't say this, so off with your head".
steve1977•Jun 1, 2026
> The Captain has the right to ask you to conform or leave, but that's a separate issue.
It's not a separate issue, because the captain very likely will err on the side of caution if he has to decide whether you are a terrorist or a nihilist.
prmoustache•Jun 1, 2026
terrorist/terrorism are words that should be removed from anyone's vocabulary as they have lost their meaning.
Similar to woke/wokism, these have become words used by far right extremists and politicians around the world to name anything that is against their hatred and opinions.
orbisvicis•Jun 1, 2026
I think advertisements are socially acceptable and actually expected to be as blatantly offensive as possible. How would people react if it were "Boeing go boom. Fly Airbus now! Text 777 NOW for Airbus discounts."
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
I already drew the line. Credible threat. Of your three, the last one and I'm not even sure that.
pdonis•Jun 1, 2026
> This is clearly not a threat.
To you, who made up the scenario and specified that it's not a threat, sure, it seems that way.
To the pilot of an airplane full of people whose safety he is responsible for, even a tiny probability that it might be a threat has to be paid attention to. In real life you don't get to specify what "clearly" is or is not the case. People have to make judgment calls, and in certain contexts they are going to err very strongly on the side of being safe rather than sorry.
> Being on the plane doesn't remove your right to free speech
This is not a free speech issue. This is a safety and consideration for others issue. The right to free speech does not mean the right to ignore the predictable effects that saying certain things is going to have in certain contexts. We're all supposed to be responsible adults who understand that we can't push our pet issues everywhere we go.
> We've just grown accustomed to security theater.
Easy for you to say since you're not the one responsible for the safety of a planeload of people. This is not a "security theater" issue either. You don't have the right to trumpet your pet issue everywhere you go.
NoMoreNicksLeft•Jun 1, 2026
>even a tiny probability that it might be a threat has to be paid attention
What if it had been named "Teddy Ruxpin is my friend", but the pilot doesn't know whether that's a secret code for "I'm going to release aerosol sarin nerve gas on the plane"?
Should he react to all messages as if they are threats, because no matter how small the risk is, more than zero is too much?
If you can't know whether something is a threat or not, the only reasonable response is to treat it as a non-threat. Anything else leads to absurd outcomes that make it harder to protect from real threats.
>The right to free speech does not mean the right to ignore the predictable effects
What are the predictable effects for the scenario in question? Please enlighten us, because most of us are apparently unable to predict those ourselves.
pdonis•Jun 1, 2026
> What if it had been named "Teddy Ruxpin is my friend", but the pilot doesn't know whether that's a secret code for "I'm going to release aerosol sarin nerve gas on the plane"?
I'm unable to find any connection between Teddy Ruxpin and sarin gas online, so I don't see why a pilot would make such a connection. Am I missing something?
> If you can't know whether something is a threat or not, the only reasonable response is to treat it as a non-threat.
Have you ever been in a position where you were responsible for the safety of several hundred people?
> What are the predictable effects for the scenario in question?
That not turning that Bluetooth device off when told to was going to end up delaying the flight.
willy_k•Jun 1, 2026
> That not turning that Bluetooth device off when told to was going to end up delaying the flight.
This thread is discussing the “Free Palestine, F Zionists” WiFi hotspot and the threat to turn it off within 30 seconds or face the FBI. Which is explicitly not a threat, whereas “BOMB” in the context of a plane is more obviously a potential threat.
brigandish•Jun 1, 2026
> explicitly not a threat
I don't see that as necessarily true. I can imagine many situations where F INSERT NAME OF ENTITY would be considered threatening. If they had F the captain of this plane, would the captain be wrong to feel threatened at all?
willy_k•Jun 1, 2026
Threatening is not the same as an actual threat. If someone stood up on a plane and yelled “bomb”, the default implication is that there is a bomb present.
If someone gets up and yells “F the captain”, it is reasonable to be fearful that they might act on that sentiment, but the statement itself is not a threat; not an expression of intention (or in the former case, presence of an object that is intended) to inflict evil, injury, or damage.
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
Name a single one of those situations, I can’t imagine any.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> Am I missing something?
Yes
NoMoreNicksLeft•Jun 1, 2026
>I'm unable to find any connection between Teddy Ruxpin and sarin gas online, so I don't see why a pilot would make such a connection.
And I'm unable to see the connection that you're imagining in the original post. What is it? Can you explain it to me? Is the threat here in the room with us now?
pdonis•Jun 1, 2026
> I'm unable to see the connection that you're imagining in the original post.
The word "bomb" has a particular significance in the context of an airplane full of people who can't escape.
If you don't think it should, start your own airline and advertise that you have no problem at all with people using the word "bomb" freely aboard your planes, and see how many customers you get.
brigandish•Jun 1, 2026
> If you can't know whether something is a threat or not, the only reasonable response is to treat it as a non-threat.
To someone whose primary consideration is safety, like the captain of an aeroplane, your logic is entirely nonsensical.
lmm•Jun 1, 2026
> Should he react to all messages as if they are threats, because no matter how small the risk is, more than zero is too much?
No. But he should treat messages that are blatantly intended to provoke others as such. If someone on the flight is going out of their way to cause trouble, kicking them off is the smart move.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> This is not a free speech issue. This is a safety and consideration for others issue.
Do you think we're talking about a device named "bomb"? We're talking about a device named "Free Palestine, F Israel". Those are two different situations. How can you even claim the latter is a physical threat? I also don't care if it said "F Palestine". Neither is a credible threat on the plane or the passengers.
The only issue I can see that causing is a fight. And anyone that is willing to start a fight because someone has s stupid device name should be committed because they're insane. That's crazy amounts of petty.
hdgvhicv•Jun 1, 2026
People like the “wash it’s not free speech” are the ones championing fcc blocking licenses and arresting g people for quoting Trump
Freedom of speech for me not thee.
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
There’s no way a reasonable person would interpret that as a threat, it feels like you’re playing silly games trying to widen the Overton window by sanewashing an obviously unreasonable reaction.
ChocolateGod•Jun 1, 2026
A lot of people swap jew for zionist or israel to cover up their antisemitism, so yes "fuck jews" could be interpreted as a threat.
idle_zealot•Jun 1, 2026
Eh, most Nazis that use the words interchangeably really do use them interchangeably. Like, they'll talk about the Jews controlling everything in one sentence and say it's Zionists pushing cultural Marxism or whatever the next.
You realize that calling everyone who criticizes an ongoing genocide an antisemite isn't workable, right?
ChocolateGod•Jun 1, 2026
> You realize that calling everyone who criticizes an ongoing genocide an antisemite isn't workable, right?
At what point did I ever mention that?
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
“Fuck Jews” cannot reasonably be interpreted as a threat.
It’s a nasty antisemitic thing to say, but that’s all it is.
raddichio•Jun 1, 2026
A lot of people shout 'Free Palestine' before doing some vigilante violence (shooting in DC, firebombing I'm Boulder), so wouldn't that make security officials jumpy?
The whataboutism of Israel being more 'evil' doesn't mitigate the security threat.
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
I hear “free Palestine” shouted tens, or hundreds of times every day while walking outside on the street.
Only time violence is involved is when drunk American or Israeli tourists get uppity, otherwise the protestors just stand there and make noise.
throw4788547•Jun 1, 2026
How would you, or the protesters you hang out with daily, feel if someone shouted “Fuck Gaza”?
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
I wouldn’t care. I certainly wouldn’t feel threatened.
Not sure about the protesters, I usually try to keep my distance to avoid hearing damage.
plorg•Jun 1, 2026
There is no more succinct way to describe a Zionist than by using the word Zionist. To assume anyone who says "Zionist" means "Jew" is to make an unnecessary leap in bad faith.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
Racist? Yes.
A threat? No.
_3u10•Jun 1, 2026
It doesn’t.
I get my lighter through in Brazil all the time and a friend of mine got giant scissors through in Buenos Aires. It’s entirely a choice to freak out over nothing.
In most of the world you’re allowed to do outlandish things like have a beer at the mall. Or walk outside with one.
account42•Jun 1, 2026
So if the pilot is informed that there is a bearded guy on the plane should he turn around as well? What if its an evil looking moustache?
akudha•Jun 1, 2026
Does naming WiFi hotspot to reflect one’s political views achieve anything? I am not against free speech or expression of freedom, just wondering if such “protests” (assuming that is what this is) have any affect at all?
Flying is already a stressful experience - between security checks, waiting for flights, unruly passengers, super cramped seats etc. Why add more stress? Either protest seriously at an appropriate time/place or just use the airport for what it is, to go to your destination. Why get cute with ineffective methods of protest like changing WiFi name? In the end, all it achieved was hours of delay and even more stress to passengers, right?
ffaccount2•Jun 1, 2026
Well we're talking about this now, so this was actually effective. The point of talking about something is to make people aware of the issue.
For example I don't leave my house often, so a walking protest in the middle of a city has zero chance to reach me. HN post does.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
If they aren't actively harming people nor threatening to do so with their words then that's their right. Can by tacky or in bad taste, why's that matter? It's not harming anyone and is a bad WiFi name even meaningfully annoying?
Scroll_Swe•Jun 1, 2026
It's the woke shit behind it that is annoying.
Would you say the same if it praised Israels bravery? Honoured Charlie Kirk? Said anything you don't agree with?
somehnguy•Jun 1, 2026
Yes, I would. Because it’s just words. Beyond that, it’s words you don’t even have to look at. You would be choosing to repeatedly read the list of WiFi networks.
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
I’d certainly want everyone who’d feel uncomfortable because of a “Free Palestine” WiFi access point to feel maximally uncomfortable.
I really don’t think this is an uncommon opinion.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
It's a device name. Why is anyone feeling uncomfortable? It's crazy to be upset by such an easy to ignore thing
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
Exactly, I’d imagine anyone genuinely bothered by such a network name must be a particularly unpleasant person anyway.
Paracompact•Jun 1, 2026
Not very likely, imo, that they did it specifically for the flight. More likely they named it weeks or months ago and just now boarded an airplane.
> Does naming WiFi hotspot to reflect one’s political views achieve anything?
Does action-less speech achieve anything? Advertising, PSAs, political campaigning, etc. all indicate its value in attaining mindshare. Moreover, freedom of expression is liberating for people.
contubernio•Jun 1, 2026
Irrelevant objection.
Currently signalling support for Palestine is common online. In videogames in my country (Spain) every third player has some such signal (flag or phrase). It's not a serious protest, it's a sign of belonging to group x (whatever group x is), something teens in particular are big in signalling. It's not a big deal and reacting operationally as if it were is a huge security error.
Scroll_Swe•Jun 1, 2026
> I am not against free speech or expression of freedom, just wondering if such “protests” (assuming that is what this is) have any affect at all?
They do not, it is all woke signaling to others.
They can put a pic up on Reddit, Insta and get updoots for it from all the genz maniacs.
If you wear a PLO shal you are basically a terrorist in my eyes.
Andrex•Jun 1, 2026
It seems to be just bored, edgy teenagers. Probably "acting out" in one of the few ways they can. (They can't vote but they already have solved every political problem in their head. Ahh youth.)
Still doesn't make it OK, though.
teiferer•Jun 1, 2026
> Being on the plane doesn't remove your right to free speech
While I agree with you that this was obviously a ridiculous overreaction, an air plane is not a public space. It's more akin to being in someones living room in that the pilot has absolute authority over whom to kick out for whatever reason. If they don't like your hair, they can have you escorted out by police if you don't comply. They won't do it normally because it's bad PR and their employer wouldn't like it, but they could. Not free speech amendment violated.
imoverclocked•Jun 1, 2026
This. Many people are unaware of just how much authority a captain has; Failing to follow their instructions is (basically) a felony. It's best to just not mess around on an aircraft.
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
Am a pilot, this is totally wrong.
PIC authority is strictly limited to in-scope items, this very obviously wasn’t in scope unless it was e.g. causing other passengers to behave in an unruly manner.
tefkah•Jun 1, 2026
thanks for clarifying, this whole thread was sounding a bit ridiculous
imoverclocked•Jun 1, 2026
The Pilot in Command (PIC) holds absolute, ultimate responsibility and final authority for the operation and safety of the aircraft.
Also, in another reply you state, "aircrew has actual legal authority which stems from the fact that they’re aircrew."
Do your pilot credentials include an ATP cert?
jolmg•Jun 1, 2026
It's not about a special status of flight captains. Same can be said of e.g. a store manager acting in-place of the owner. It's a matter of one being on someone's private property, instead of on public property.
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
Hi, when I was in flight school it wasn’t explicitly stated but certainly heavily implied that as pilots were not allowed to trespass passengers and kick them off the plane mid-flight.
If you have information to the contrary, I would like to be made aware because occasionally I have ended up stuck for hours in the air with unpleasant passengers.
jolmg•Jun 1, 2026
Was just clarifying GP's general point and not stating anything specific to pilots.
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
You’re badly wrong, aircrew has actual legal authority which stems from the fact that they’re aircrew.
Absolutely nothing to do with private property, especially considering that you can’t trespass people on a plane.
latexr•Jun 1, 2026
> 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.
Maybe, maybe not. The Supreme Court of the USA has ruled that speech is not protected at all times and in all places. There are “time, place, and manner restrictions”.
I have a hard time believing courts wouldn’t side with the captain here. All they have to say is they are in charge, perceived a threat to their crew, provided a chance for resolution, and ultimately played it safe. All of which are true.
stef25•Jun 1, 2026
> 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
Fully agree, however consider the hotspot being called "fuck israel" on a plane half full of Hasidic Jews (the ones refusing to board because they're still praying and knocking their head against the wall, and refuse to sit next to women).
Or the hotspot's called something about Allah and porkchops on a flight to S-Arabia.
Or something about "fuck PSG" when there's 20 hooligans on board (these guys destroy their own city even when things go right for them)
Freedom of expression yes but these things are completely misplaced in that context. It's unnecessarily provocative in a tight confined space. It's a recipe for unrest during the flight, something nobody wants and the captain is right to call out.
gpt5•Jun 1, 2026
> a plane half full of Hasidic Jews (the ones refusing to board because they're still praying and knocking their head against the wall, and refuse to sit next to women).
I don't know why you've decided to explain what is a Hasidic jew in that way (or at all). However I hope you can at least understand in retrospect why describing a religious group as people who all follow some negative behavior is promoting hate towards all members of that group, regardless of their actions.
stef25•Jun 1, 2026
I have no hate against any kind of jew, muslim or soccer team.
gpt5•Jun 1, 2026
Looks like I was wrong in my last statement above. unfortunately you didn’t understand (or chose to ignore) why your comment is promoting hate.
Neil44•Jun 1, 2026
It's not a direct threat but it is a passive one, it's also swearing and a contentious statement in a confined space where everyone needs to get along for the next N hours. They know damn well what the issue is but they're going to put their hands up and claim they're just expressing an opinion and they're not hurting anyone. It's childish behavior imo.
watwut•Jun 1, 2026
The issue is censorship of opposition to genocide. True unambigous political censorship
Neil44•Jun 1, 2026
There are numerous spaces and opportunities for you to express your opinions. In fact almost anywhere else (in the US anyway)
watwut•Jun 1, 2026
Except that this exact thing is the exact thing being censored everywhere around US.
Second, you know full well such name is not a threat, neither passive no active. The reason for that being not allowed is not a threat or abundance of other options. It has nothing to do with any of that. It is just a continuation of the above strategy.
alterom•Jun 1, 2026
>During this incident
In case you missed it, it was a different incident than the one we're discussing.
>You can, and should be able to, name your WiFi hotspot anything. Even any "Free <X>, Fuck <Y>" forall X,Y
Edgy idea, bro.
Not like a certain terrorist organization[1] with Palestine Liberation in its name[1] literally pioneered armed airplane hijackings for its cause, successfully[2] performing[3] quite[4] a few[5] of[6] them[7] back in the day.
> whatever your side is you have the right to express it.
You seem to have confused an airplane for a public square.
The captain of the plane determines the extent of your rights in-flight, taking many factors into account. Including the comfort of passengers.
You ain't got no "free speech" right to blast music on your Bluetooth speaker, and the same applies to edgy Bluetooth device names which everyone on board can see.
The person you are replying to is all over this thread to such an extent that I think they should take their abundance of energy and apply it to becoming a commercial pilot so that they can ignore anything that aligns with their personal preferences.
sdthjbvuiiijbb•Jun 1, 2026
>Not like a certain terrorist organization[1] with Palestine Liberation in its name[1] literally pioneered armed airplane hijackings for its cause, successfully[2] performing[3] quite[4] a few[5] of[6] them[7] back in the day.
And? What's your point? You're implying that a pro-Palestine WiFi network name could even slightly plausibly be interpreted as a threat to hijack an airplane? You can't be serious.
Also, the whole idea of being over backwards trying to stretch things into being interpreted as threats is absurd on its face. A threat is pretty much definitionally intended to be understood as a threat.
As a side note, why is it that in these discussions some people are so quick to equate anything critical of Israel with antisemitism, but we never see much push back in the other direction? I find your insinuation that expressing support for Palestine means you want to hijack an airplane to be wildly racist.
Scroll_Swe•Jun 1, 2026
You do know that "zionists" is a code work for jews in general right?
A zionist is someone who thinks Israel has a right to exist.
Then I am a zionist and I am white as snow.
defrost•Jun 1, 2026
Not all Jews are Zionists .. so they are not equivalent words.
I can point you to threads here on HN where negative things are said about Jews and the term “Zionists” is used interchangeably with “Jews”.
defrost•Jun 1, 2026
Misuse by idiots doesn't make them equivalent terms.
throw368498•Jun 1, 2026
Depends on who’s saying it. Often times it’s obvious from the context that “Zionist” is just being used as a loophole, and pretending that the difference is then still important is disingenuous.
defrost•Jun 1, 2026
What's your position here?
Are Jew and Zionist equivalent words in your opinion?
throw368498•Jun 1, 2026
Someone writing “F Zionists” very likely does not make a distinction between Zionists and Jews.
The Jewish Council of Australia is not going to name their hotspot “F Zionists”. Ultra Orthodox Jews are not going to use swear words to express their view.
I’ll go as far as say that anyone who genuinely wants Jews and Arabs to live in peace side by side is not going to go about it with antagonistic one-sided rhetoric.
sdthjbvuiiijbb•Jun 1, 2026
>Someone writing “F Zionists” very likely does not make a distinction between Zionists and Jews.
That's completely untrue and this is either bad faith or you need to go outside more.
Here, I'll say it myself: Fuck Zionism.
I have no issue with Jews. I just don't like settler colonialism.
throw368498•Jun 1, 2026
Your response is doing nothing to disprove my point. If anything it’s just another data point in support of it.
noworriesnate•Jun 1, 2026
Nobody conflates Zionism with Jewry more than Israel does. Do you have a problem with them doing it?
FunnyUsername•Jun 1, 2026
> I have no issue with Jews.
You do with at least the 95%+ of Jews who support Jewish self-determination in the Jewish homeland. That's all Zionism is.
amanaplanacanal•Jun 1, 2026
It's always one sided though. Israel has a right to exist, Palestine doesn't have a right to exist.
thrownthatway•Jun 1, 2026
Does, or should, free speech apply when you’re literally in someone else’s vehicle?
If you want to spew hateful dumb shit, go do it in the town square or on public property.
Airlines reserve the right to refuse serve to anyone at anytime for any reason and they’re not required to even give you a reason.
You’re literally their guest.
gorgoiler•Jun 1, 2026
I don’t disagree with you but it’s worth remembering your rights are very different onboard a crewed commercial vessel. As I understand it if a member of crew tells you to do something and you don’t do it, you’re in trouble.
inoffensivename•Jun 1, 2026
> Being on the plane doesn't remove your right to free speech
The First Amendment only prevents the government from penalizing your speech. It doesn't stop a private company (airline) kicking you off an airplane for something you said or did.
The PIC (Pilot In Command, aka Captain) is the final authority for the safe operation of the flight (14 CFR Part 91.3). If the Captain determines that a threat exists, they are empowered to do pretty much anything reasonable to deal with the threat. Turning the plane around and landing is certainly in the realm of "reasonable".
Whether you or somebody else who is clearly not an airline captain feel the original actions constituted a threat is pretty much irrelevant.
Signed, airline captain.
incognos•Jun 1, 2026
It is also their right to sue you for abuse of authority if it is proven that said captain abused their authority. Say if said captain was a zionist and decided to take it out on that person by abusing their authority. Having authority does notmake you blameless, there is still a responsibility attached to that authority.
godelski•Jun 1, 2026
> It doesn't stop a private company
Read the story a bit more. There's the FBI and TSA being involved *which are government agencies*. There is a big difference between "getting kicked off the plane" and "getting kicked off the plane and getting arrested".
> they are empowered to do pretty much anything reasonable to deal with the threat
Someone naming their phone "Free Palestine, F Israel" is not a threat. Full stop.
I don't care what your politics are, that is not a reasonable nor credible threat. If there was a credible threat the conversation would be different, but it is a tacky political statement.
inoffensivename•Jun 1, 2026
> Someone naming their phone "Free Palestine, F Israel" is not a threat. Full stop.
The bluetooth device's name was BOMB. We're trained to treat even vague threats seriously.
The captain in this case is in a terrible situation. Do nothing, get pilloried for not taking action. Turn around, get pilloried for that.
I hope I'm never in this position because there are really no good options. All of you making comments have not been in this position, and were not there at the time with the information the captain had access to, and so are not in a position to judge the decision.
tga_d•Jun 1, 2026
These are two separate incidents, please read the article. While the latest one is certainly arguable and I suspect most people would understand why someone would want to take it seriously (even if they themself would not), the earlier "Free Palestine" one seems absurd to label a threat, and I would be very curious how someone would justify it as such.
tardedmeme•Jun 1, 2026
"Free Palestine, F Israel" being treated as a threat is consistent with how all other Palestine/Israel speech is treated. E.g. in the UK if you said that in public you'd be considered a terrorist sympathiser (which is criminal). If you said it in Germany you'd be considered a Nazi (which is criminal). If you said it in the USA, they couldn't directly criminalise you based on speech but they'd find something else, like public nuisance or being a terrorist. So I'm not really surprised by this at all.
sowbug•Jun 1, 2026
Doesn't 91.3(a) already give the PIC absolute authority to act regardless of whether there's a threat? Why invoke the FBI?
> Turning the plane around and landing is certainly in the realm of "reasonable".
Agreed. But doing it without the FBI threat would also be in the realm of reasonable. Which, it could be argued, means that making the FBI threat was unreasonable, or at least very close to it.
Beyond a certain point, even a PIC can cry wolf.
emidln•Jun 1, 2026
If an airline pilot is so bereft of fortitude that they perceive a political wifi network name as a threat, they should be disallowed command of the aircraft. They need therapy. Mental weakness like this should not be tolerated in those responsible for the safe operation of human lives.
inoffensivename•Jun 1, 2026
I dunno which article you were reading, but the linked article says it was a bluetooth device named BOMB.
Our training is to treat even vague threats seriously.
CWuestefeld•Jun 1, 2026
I acknowledge that the airline captain has some responsibility for our security. But part of this responsibility is being a steward for our overall well-being. And in this case, the "security" aspect is so vastly overwhelmed by the damage it did to passengers in other ways, that it was obviously a bad call on the captain's part.
It really does break both ways. Over-reacting to perceived threats has a cost too.
Warning - semi-political (but hopefully non-partisan) political content ahead: This is the same thing the FDA does with drug approvals. They are overwhelmingly biased toward preventing bad drugs that they prevent access to a lot of things that could help. Studies show that the FDA's difference between up-side and down-side risk costs a lot of lives on net. For example, the FDA delayed the approval of beta-blockers (used to prevent second heart attacks) for several years after they were widely available and saving lives in Europe. Analysts estimate that this delay alone cost tens of thousands of American lives.
Sometimes, accepting a risk provides the greatest net benefit.
kmeisthax•Jun 1, 2026
> The friction in air travel leads to more people driving
Y'know, if America didn't treat intercity passenger rail like garbage, we wouldn't be having this problem...
rconti•Jun 1, 2026
this is one of those "if you see something, no you didn't" times. It seems to me like the fault lies more with the reporter.
dataflow•Jun 1, 2026
> Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"? Do you think this behaviour has any meaningful true positives?
You seem overconfident. For one thing, someone getting a Bluetooth signal has absolutely no confidence the device is genuinely only a speaker. For another, it is entirely possible that a nefarious actor could screw up and forget to turn off a wireless transmitter.
Can you imagine if the threat was real and news came out that the Bluetooth device name literally said what it was? People right here would be mocking the personnel for being so stupid that they ignored literally what was written in front of them.
dfedbeef•Jun 1, 2026
I don't think people would be mocking bombing victims
dataflow•Jun 1, 2026
The individual victims were not the point of my comment. You see how the HN crowd calls it all security theater and mocks the TSA/airlines/etc. right now? Same idea, except regarding how stupid they are to miss what's literally in front of them, rather than how stupid they are to act on what's in front of them.
dap•Jun 1, 2026
This is explicitly mentioned in the article:
> Though some have questioned why anyone intending to blow up a plane would broadcast the word bomb, many terrorist acts have relied on the threat of a bomb as leverage during attempted hijackings or hostage situations.
bugufu8f83•Jun 1, 2026
It still makes absolutely no sense. First of all, this is not currently a bomb threat up until someone actually makes a threat. Second of all, in the event that somebody does make a threat, the existence of a Bluetooth device named "Bomb" doesn't make the threat any more credible or serious.
dap•Jun 1, 2026
It doesn’t have to be an intentional threat to be worth responding to. One might reasonably think they’d stumbled on an (admittedly poorly executed) attack.
frankacter•Jun 1, 2026
>First of all, this is not currently a bomb threat up until someone actually makes a threat.
It makes sense from the perspective of zero tolerance. Any mention or reference is perceived as a threat regardless of additional actions taken.
clnhlzmn•Jun 1, 2026
The really crazy thing is they returned to the origin instead of the nearest airport. If it was really an emergency they would have got out of the air at the nearest runway of suitable length instead of flying all the way back. Just theater.
furyofantares•Jun 1, 2026
> Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"?
Of course not!
That's what they'd name their bluetooth bomb.
srean•Jun 1, 2026
> Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"?
Two comments.
If they did and no one took any action people would be asking for their (authority's) blood because they would look really stupid.
If terrorist are intelligent wouldn't they be doing exactly what is not expected of them.
This is modern version of Pascal's wager, a bad game theoretic outcome.
neya•Jun 1, 2026
That's such a poor argument. What is the alternative here? Just let anyone fly with a dozen devices with the names BOMB and CRASH hoping that an actual bomb doesn't go off? Systems and processes exist for a reason.
Your example of 150ml liquids has no connection to this security measure nor incident either. That's just a straw man.
stephbook•Jun 1, 2026
> Just let anyone fly with a dozen devices with the names BOMB and CRASH?
That sounds terrible. Please get me the manager.
bonesss•Jun 1, 2026
I think there’s a safety issue that isn’t necessarily reliant on ‘bomb’ being an explosive device: it’s the impact on other passengers.
Planes traditionally have avoided certain kinds of movies and such to avoid creating panic in the cabin. Here every passenger is looking at their phone, and if one guy makes the obvious “there’s a bomb on the plane” joke, the captain/crew could be in a situation.
Crowd management is essential to crew safety and crowd safety.
incompatible•Jun 1, 2026
I wouldn't have thought so, but until now I didn't even realise that there were Bluetooth devices with configurable names.
thomascountz•Jun 1, 2026
You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater…
_3u10•Jun 1, 2026
Agreed. I’m glad I live in a normal country, last time I was in the US and Canada it struck me how truly insane it is.
dguest•Jun 1, 2026
Imagine the headlines though! (says your will boss, or bosses boss)
It's still stupid, but they are imagining the news:
> This guy said "it's probably fine" right before Flight 1337 explodes over the Atlantic.
Now personally I'd actually be willing to take that risk: the odds are so overwhelmingly in favor of it being a dumb prank; you might as well refuse to take a shower for fear of slipping on the soap.
But all it takes is one person up the chain of command to say "this would be bad PR" and you've lost your job.
beng-nl•Jun 1, 2026
I get your point, but I think that such high risk situations simply are not compatible with common sense, case by case decision making. As a consequence we need some extremely risk averse rules that everyone always follows, no matter how insanely risk averse they sometimes are and everyone in the situation probably knows it and agrees it’s insane.
Because the alternative is a nebulous fog of war where safety decisions are mood, situation, experience, and personality influenced when they shouldn’t be. And when accidents happen we only have difficult to interpret decisions to trace back to. The decisions have to be brainless and black and white.
Could the black and white rules be better? Maybe yes. Then let’s change them carefully.
But I do believe the rules should be black and white, and I personally in this light truly don’t mind I can’t name my Bluetooth device bomb, and I can’t say bomb or joke about having a bomb, no matter how obvious it is that I don’t have one, if that’s the current black and white rules.
tuumi•Jun 1, 2026
Pilots are explicitly trained to deal with high risk situations and to think rationally. They have a Threat and Error Management(TEM)system. Additionally, the training includes unruly passengers and bomb on board response. Once a threat is determined they squeak 7700. Inform ATC using the words "bomb on board", begin immediate descent and divert to the nearest suitable airport.
hinata08•Jun 1, 2026
>Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"?
Yes
They're threatening to blow up an airliner or actually doing so to hit the news.
911 terrorists had blades, bomb jackets (whether these things are actual doesn't matter, saying you have them is enough), and eventually destroyed the tallest towers in NY and part of Pentagon and erased themselves while committing the crime
The point of terrorism is to be visible, dramatic and cause teror.
It's not to get a stealth award for hacking the coupon system at the shop and get away with it
A bomb (real or not) planted by terrorists or hijackers is meant to be eventually known one way or another. It's the point
sdthjbvuiiijbb•Jun 1, 2026
>The point of terrorism is to be visible, dramatic and cause teror. It's not to get a stealth award for hacking the coupon system at the shop and get away with it
I agree with you... that's exactly what makes this situation so ludicrous. I'm not sure that an ambiguous, vaguely menacing Bluetooth device name is really going to do the trick.
Indeed it's so dumb that even in the extraordinarily unlikely event that it really was intended as a threat, you can still quite safely ignore it. I rather suspect that if someone wants to make a threat they won't just throw up their hands in despair because nobody bothered checking their Bluetooth pairing settings page. They'll actually communicate their threat to someone in a less ambiguous way.
hinata08•Jun 1, 2026
They didn't know how the situation would develop
No one sane would also name a Bluetooth device like that
But yeah, they didn't go for the closest airport either
crjohns648•Jun 1, 2026
I don't think a threatening name would be unheard of in a hijacking scenario. Someone calls saying they have a bomb on board, and as evidence there is a Bluetooth device called "bomb," showing they have an accomplice on board. They then make demands. This scenario doesn't seem unreasonable in light of pre-9/11 hijacking attempts.
Yes, this was a huge reaction to something that was almost certainly benign, but "almost certainly" isn't an acceptable risk for 100s of people in an explosive flying cylinder. It truly sucks, there maybe can be better procedures, but "100s of people majorly inconvenienced" is better than "100s of people dead in fireball."
vidarh•Jun 1, 2026
If anything, this aversion has now made it clear that sneaking a device that can be made coin-sized into a bunch of passengers luggage would be sufficient to throw air travel into total chaos...
That doesn't seem like a smart precedent to set.
HeyLaughingBoy•Jun 1, 2026
The comment reminded me of the time that we (developers) were told to avoid the use of the word "abort" in any text displayed to the user in a medical device. e.g., an error message that may have included the words "Operation aborted" would now be "Operation terminated."
Some industries just have trigger words to avoid.
To your point about a terrorist not naming the phone "bomb," I can foresee exactly that happening. Someone building a remotely triggered explosive device has a considerable incentive to not blow themselves up. Part of the safety behavior in that scenario could indeed include clearly naming the device "BOMB" or similar and then forgetting to rename it before sending it out the door.
squarefoot•May 31, 2026
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.
fwipsy•May 31, 2026
If the "terrorists" had changed the name of their bluetooth speaker, as asked, would they have been correct to proceed?
madeofpalk•Jun 1, 2026
If it helps to prevent “terror” on a flight, then yes.
markdown•May 31, 2026
> In this particular case, it sounds like it wasn't the teen's fault, nor even a teen being slightly edgy.
Told to turn it off and refused to do so. Why are you defending the selfish little prick?
wat10000•May 31, 2026
Refused, or unable? It might have been in the luggage compartment, or they just might not have known how.
jmkni•May 31, 2026
Could also have been a prank played on somebody who wasn't even aware
formerly_proven•Jun 1, 2026
This presupposes knowing that a fitbit uses bluetooth. As I understand it, there are also models (e.g. Fitbit Charge) which cannot be turned off anyway.
Plus there is an overall assumption here that the owner of a Fitbit knows that the device nickname is visible to anyone, and not just themselves.
These things are certainly not at all obvious in an app-centric bluetooth device context.
wat10000•May 31, 2026
I don’t buy it.
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.
But to turn an entire flight around because of a Bluetooth device name? How does that make any rational sense?
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?
I argue that P is unchanged. I’d be interested if anyone disagrees with this assessment.
Given the probability is unchanged, why do anything?
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.
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.
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.”
umpalumpaaa•Jun 1, 2026
It was not only because of the name. I think a big part of the turn around was the non compliance by the passengers. They were asked to turn off all Bluetooth devices but did not.
mvdtnz•Jun 1, 2026
The device was probably in checked baggage. Or in an overhead compartment where the owner would have been seen and socially ostracized for removing it.
Zambyte•Jun 1, 2026
It was a fitness wristband. The kid probably didn't even know it used Bluetooth.
HPsquared•May 31, 2026
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.
starky•Jun 1, 2026
I've definitely made the effort when traveling for work to always say "Bill of Materials" if I'm doing any work in an airport.
userbinator•May 31, 2026
This reminds me of the story I read of someone trying to take a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorimeter#Bomb_calorimeters 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.
DanielHB•May 31, 2026
Anecdote: I worked with software for battery EV power-train diagnostics, one of our devs decided to add emojis to success and error messages.
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.
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.
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.
MBCook•May 31, 2026
Whether you think emojis are ok or not, there are times and places.
That’s not a time and place.
DanielHB•Jun 1, 2026
I know, I was against it when he added it, triggered a 5min discussion and I was "whatever, sure"...
something765478•Jun 1, 2026
Yeah. If I'm trying to debug a problem and keep running into error messages, the emojis would drive me up the wall.
peddling-brink•May 31, 2026
> one of our devs decided to add emojis to success and error messages.
Was this LLM-driven development? I'm so glad that phase is over.
xboxnolifes•May 31, 2026
Over? Hello person from the future, may I ask when this phase ends?
DanielHB•Jun 1, 2026
No this was before chatgpt launched
mncharity•Jun 1, 2026
> To be clear no one actually thought it was a problem
"I designed this image [unhappy Macintosh] and this bomb because I was told they would never be seen by anyone! So I thought I could be a little irreverent. But unfortunately, that was not the case."
"The programmers truly thought at the time that they would be deeply hidden. I know that right after the Mac shipped we were in our software area and a call came in fielded through Apple and it was a woman who was using MacWrite, and it had crashed, and she was afraid her computer was going to blow up! So, I felt kinda bad!"
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.
Similarly there are various things like Aviation English for actual live comms, though they have less specifity, not to that level.
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
Feeling very proud. That compsci degree finally paid off
vl•May 31, 2026
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.
georgemcbay•May 31, 2026
I can appreciate the concern over these words among the flight staff.
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.
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.
PunchyHamster•May 31, 2026
Sorry but this just sounds like complete lunacy
hliyan•Jun 1, 2026
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".
vkou•Jun 1, 2026
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.
tanepiper•Jun 1, 2026
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...
CodesInChaos•Jun 1, 2026
What do they call a software crash? Rapid unscheduled termination?
boisterousness•Jun 1, 2026
They call it a FLOP (Functional Loss Of Performance, or something like that), I was told on a tour of an FAA ATC computer facility.
JdeBP•Jun 1, 2026
Aviation aside, it is worthwhile remembering that IBM traditionally had a whole other jargon vocabulary for computing. A 'crash' was an ABEND, an abnormal end.
gspr•Jun 1, 2026
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 …" :-)
blablabla123•Jun 1, 2026
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.
hinata08•Jun 1, 2026
The French ministry of foreign affairs (state department) have been giving advice to traveller for decades
There was a time when their advice for travels to the US of A was to not tell TSA or law enforcement that you had a bomb in your bag, as it wasn't funny anymore and they would not take it as a joke
blablabla123•Jun 1, 2026
Being from Europe as well I've also been hearing similar advice plenty of times. With time I heard stories about people from all walks of lives having been help up by TSA, from people on business travel to kids of US senators...
madeofpalk•Jun 1, 2026
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.
solenoid0937•Jun 1, 2026
JFC, we have coddled people way too much. People have cordoned themselves off into perfectly manicured little boxes so they lose the fucking plot as soon as they see something unexpected.
gosub100•Jun 1, 2026
So if your name is Gunnar, no chance in breaking into the industry?
jollyllama•Jun 1, 2026
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.
> 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.
Wtf?
I can understand a bomb, but this is just free speech.
anon84873628•Jun 1, 2026
I am curious about the laws governing something like that. Does it matter whether it's a domestic or international flight? Are pilots king of the vessel?
epolanski•Jun 1, 2026
> Are pilots king of the vessel?
They have the last words on these events.
BlueBerry2001•May 31, 2026
GOATed plane, love the engine power.
blitzar•May 31, 2026
Looks like I picked a bad day to stop smoking crack.
firefax•May 31, 2026
One thing I learned as a globe trotting cypherpunk: always respect sky law.
Cider9986•Jun 1, 2026
Can you share any examples?
firefax•Jun 1, 2026
no
edit: you never go full jim bell
throw310822•May 31, 2026
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?
tlogan•May 31, 2026
And terrorists will:
- communicate in English (because apparently even ancient Romans speak perfect English)
- name the device “bomb”
jim33442•May 31, 2026
Honestly they would probably know decent English
notorandit•May 31, 2026
Flight policies have always been very weird.
I remember I was not allowed to use a laptop with a CD or DVD attached.
Now you have internet on board.
hammock•May 31, 2026
Don’t get me started on TSA policies.
vl•May 31, 2026
What is even better now phone calls are prohibited, but all these airlines had actual credit card phones installed in every 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”.
notorandit•May 31, 2026
And, of course, terrorist manual states that any weapon needs to be labelled as such.
15155•Jun 1, 2026
Can you potentially see the difference (red-tape-wise) between a centralized/trunking FAA-certified radio on one highly-specific frequency vs. random, uncertified rogue transmitters all over the spectrum? This wasn't a carrier regulation.
vl•Jun 1, 2026
What transmitters? Now calls happen over WiFi which companies sell.
linkregister•Jun 1, 2026
Does your phone's cellular radio work at 30000 feet? Calls occur over flight wifi. Streaming video and audio are not permitted on most flights for bandwidth purposes, so it follows that calls are prohibited for the same reason.
javawizard•Jun 1, 2026
That's not what the parent comment is talking about.
Calling over the cellular network has been prohibited since time immemorial. What the parent comment is talking about is carriers also prohibiting making calls over airplane-supplied WiFi.
You can't, for example, join a Zoom meeting, or use your phone's built-in WiFi calling ability, on a typical flight nowadays, for better or for worse.
tiffanyh•May 31, 2026
No pilot will lose their job by taking action to potentially save passengers lives.
But the chances are high, they do lose their job if they don't (and/or potentially lose their life as well).
It's that simple.
(regardless of how dumb/overreaction some might view this as)
charcircuit•May 31, 2026
The chances of potentially losing lives were not high in this case of an unusual Bluetooth device name.
seydor•May 31, 2026
I wonder if this is some heightened alert measures taken after recent events
openbin_kng•May 31, 2026
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."
amelius•May 31, 2026
Why didn't they just ask the passengers to simply not try to connect to "BOMB"?
Would have been so much simpler.
0xbadcafebee•May 31, 2026
> 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.
That is just nutty. Are we now actively participating in the genocide?
I consider posts like this larp/ragebait by default unless there's any actual evidence of that happening (like the flight being aborted in this case).
henry2023•Jun 1, 2026
> Are we now actively participating in the genocide?
The US has provided over 310 billion (not inflation adjusted) in military funding to Israel since the Nakba. So I’d consider “participating” a strong understatement.
tamimio•May 31, 2026
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.
Aeolun•May 31, 2026
Ok, fine. Bomb is bomb, I get that. But how is “Free Palestine, F Zionists” a reason to call the FBI?
America is basically Israeli's puppet at this point, can't let bad words being said about their masters
amelius•May 31, 2026
In other news, Tom Jones got removed from a plane for singing the wrong lyrics.
carlostkd•May 31, 2026
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?
HDBaseT•May 31, 2026
Surely we could of just used some basic Bluetooth fingerprinting and reveal the MAC Address of the Bluetooth device, then realize its a speaker...
alex_young•May 31, 2026
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.
simulator5g•May 31, 2026
The idea wasn't to convince anyone of anything, it was to reduce RF noise so the cops could find the offending device more quickly. Also if it were a real threat you would probably quickly identify someone who is unwilling to turn off their Bluetooth.
alex_young•Jun 1, 2026
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.
simulator5g•Jun 1, 2026
if it were a real threat you would probably quickly identify someone who is unwilling to turn off their Bluetooth.
andix•Jun 1, 2026
Could've been me, but I'm glad it wasn't me. xD
zx8080•Jun 1, 2026
Why would a bluetooth speaker be needed during a flight? It feels a bit antisocial to turn some loud music in a cabin.
seany•Jun 1, 2026
Well. I just changed my bl labels on 3 phones and wifi ap settings to variations of this. Done a million miles on aa in 1.5 years before.
That should be a perma ban. I get jokes, but there should be boundries.
dnnddidiej•Jun 1, 2026
If they even controlled the name the "joke" could have been done months earlier and meant bomb as in excellent.
Better to scan baggage for the actual, ya know, bombs. Fine people joking about bombs verbally or written sure.
lotu•Jun 1, 2026
This decision almost certainly came about because of people thinking what action was least likely to get them fired. Any rational person would realize the odds of an actual bomb are so close to zero you would need to start worrying about the sun spontaneously exploding if you were worried there was a bomb. The problem is that if you ignored it your boss could say you ignored a bomb threat and fire you.
Also if they really thought there the plan was going to explode any moment they would have ditched in the ocean or at least diverted to the nearest airport. They didn’t because there was no danger except to their jobs.
brigandish•Jun 1, 2026
That is covered in the article:
> Though some have questioned why anyone intending to blow up a plane would broadcast the word bomb, many terrorist acts have relied on the threat of a bomb as leverage during attempted hijackings or hostage situations.
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
That does not actually address the parents point in any way.
NoPicklez•Jun 1, 2026
It kind of does, that an attacker can rely on something a small as a Bluetooth name to cause disruption based on employees following policy out of fear of being fired.
caconym_•Jun 1, 2026
If they were really worried, they probably would have diverted, yes. But ditching in the north Atlantic is something no pilot is going to do unless they are 100% sure there is a bomb that's going to go off, because people are probably going to die either way.
goodcanadian•Jun 1, 2026
They are still never going to ditch as long as the plane can fly
> This decision almost certainly came about because of people thinking what action was least likely to get them fired.
For aircrew, not following company SOPs is the express route to getting fired.
imwillofficial•Jun 1, 2026
Security theater at its finest
joxdosba•Jun 1, 2026
AI slop article with 300+ upvotes, nice going guys.
plastic041•Jun 1, 2026
I kind of get that a device named BOMB made the plane turn back.
However, I don't understand this part:
> flight attendant told passengers over the PA system that they "must turn off Bluetooth immediately," or else the aircraft would have to turn around.
If there's a BOMB, turning off Bluetooth won't make it much safer. I mean, a turned-off bomb is probably safer than a turned-on bomb, but it's still a bomb.
Pilots: "Phew, BOMB is now turned off. It's absolutely safe to continue flying. Thank you for your cooperation, passengers and terrorist(s)."
protocolture•Jun 1, 2026
"Please stop scaring the flight crew with the bad word or we will turn this plane right around"
fsckboy•Jun 1, 2026
it's not the case that the pilot has to think like you, it's that every passenger on the plane would need to. The pilot has unlimited discretion and every interest to keep the passengers on the plane calm, or act preemptively and land as soon as possible.
duckduckman•Jun 1, 2026
It was not about whether to turn back or not but rather to identify whether the device is in cabin or not. If it disappears after being asked, they do not need to empty the cargo hold when searching for the device after landing. They were going to turn around regardless.
tuumi•Jun 1, 2026
Every commercial cabin has a designated Least Risk Bomb Location (LRBL) Once a bomb is determined to be in the cabin they can move it to that location. Funny to think of them actually finding a Fitbit with that name and then moving it there. Then procedure would be to stack up luggage to absorb blast energy.
dredmorbius•Jun 1, 2026
For those questioning this claim ... here's the 2008 FAA circular detailing LRBL, which itself is spelled out in Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), part 25, § 25.795(c):
It's only an objectionable device name once you know it's safe. When you're on a plane, you have to err on the side of caution
If the story had been "Bomb detonated on plane after bluetooth name sparks alert" then it would've been more than just objectionable
mFixman•Jun 1, 2026
Nobody in the chain of command thought this was a real emergency situation.
The point of turning Bluetooth off or having to turn around the aircraft was to follow the airline's rules on terrorism, which likely tell them to abort a flight route if there's any symbol that could be interpreted as a bomb.
The captains were risking their jobs if they didn't follow this stupid request. This is a good case for getting common-sense exceptions to checklist-style rules.
whycome•Jun 1, 2026
Blewtooth
Can you name your phone “not a bomb”?
tdhz77•Jun 1, 2026
I don’t know if we should laugh or cry
sschueller•Jun 1, 2026
I would be worried about a device called "AR-924 Pager" but no one thinks that is an issue.
shrubby•Jun 1, 2026
JTFC the comments on this one.
And the "Free Palestine, F zionists" that made a return to ramp.
I shouldn't be surprised of the security by obscurity of the aviation industry after seeing it for 10+ years, but still am.
Remember the 737 Max guy. And the likes.
Of FFS.
klustregrif•Jun 1, 2026
It’s seems like they just reported this initially as “four letter word” and then a media outlet later assumed it was bomb. It seems more likely it was a UE Boom, which has boom in its default Bluetooth name.
If that’s the case the teen likely just owned the device and didn’t knot it was turned on. It’s rather long battery and it’s not obvious if it’s on or not.
prmoustache•Jun 1, 2026
Yes I have a speaker of the same brand, bluetooth ID is Boom4 as it is the model name. I have no idea if it can be changed, if it can, probably only through an app only a minority of users would have had installed anyway (I don't).
Aditionally the order given by the crew (turning off bluetooth) would have done no results as most people would simply assume turning off bluetooth on their smartphone/videogame console/laptop and wouldn't know how to do that on anything else.
The comments ont that link are completely crazy, I read about jail time or even death penalty.
mrheosuper•Jun 1, 2026
Also people could assume airplane mode turning off all wireless connection. It does not turn off bluetooth(at least on my phone)
doginasuit•Jun 1, 2026
I thought it was strange the airline didn't disclose the actual word, how could that be sensitive? Covering up what was a clear overreaction in hindsight seems to fit. Best to let people blame the teenager.
tuumi•Jun 1, 2026
It was in the article. The kid renamed his Fitbit "Bomb".
hypfer•Jun 1, 2026
The meta narrative here is a shift towards more authoritarian ideas gaining further foothold/dominance.
As can be seen in the naming treatment + the comments on that article + comments here. But also can be seen in various other places.
In fact, it has already happened to a degree where we see these lagging(!) indicators pop up. So wherever we currently stand is further than those. To which degree though I couldn't say.
Plan/act accordingly.
jMyles•Jun 1, 2026
It's beyond obvious at this point that we exist alongside a massive bot brigade (or many midsize bot farms) ready to chime in with senseless, cookie-cooker support for short-shrift authoritarian ideology.
It's palpable in the comment sections of many corporate news outlets, as well as on reddit.
Unless there's evidence that this pattern of comments is from real biological humans, I see no reason to presume that it is.
ExoticPearTree•Jun 1, 2026
I think its a move by United to set precedent so they can do whatever they want on subsequent flights. And because of that, to also help law enforcement say they can take away some of your rights when flying.
Tinfoil hat on.
In the past few years, whenever I hear United on the news its not because they did something “good”.
oddmade•Jun 1, 2026
Awhile ago I named my phone "you-have-been-hacked" and to my joy it made me look twice at my router a few months later haha
Perhaps the joke is irresponsible on my behalf potentially causing unnecessary stress for whomever is directly or indirectly scanning my device...
..but on the other hand, if this person can't see the joke, perhaps they shouldn't have access to scanning devices.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts?
Cheers
cs02rm0•Jun 1, 2026
Isn't this terror-ists winning? When people give in to terror?
When we had the IRA active in the UK everyone would be proud to carry on as normal after any incident, to show that life would go on as normal despite their efforts. This doesn't seem normal.
speedgoose•Jun 1, 2026
I find interesting that no one thought about localising the device based on the Bluetooth signal strength.
hypfer•Jun 1, 2026
That needs a skillset that is not on board of that plane.
However, that is also not the actual goal. There is no true threat. No one actually believes that it would be a bomb.
The goal is compliance and to train people to self-police each other.
___
Good new torment nexus idea though. Just litter the plane with BLE antennas and triangulate exactly who it is that is having wrong thoughts.
We'll be seeing it 1-5y from now
RankingMember•Jun 1, 2026
I was just thinking "watch someone now invent a single-purpose easy-to-use Bluetooth hone-in device and sell it to the airlines for exactly this situation".
voidpointer•Jun 1, 2026
According to the article, it was a Fitbit device belonging to a teenager...
Chances are, the kid selected that nickname for the device a long while ago and forgot about it, and was probably unaware that the device was using Bluetooth at all, and that they should turn off their fitness tracker when the announcement came through...
At the same time, some people in the comments under the article are more or less calling for the death penalty for the kid...
yulfvanschmidt•Jun 1, 2026
Pretty absurd stuff. Obviously if FAA safety first is going to apply not to aviation employees but to something that is easy to DOS attack as the consumer this doesn't work.. They could at least implement a policy of scanning Bluetooth and similar beacons at security gates though. More theatre, more fun at least doesn't mean more turning around.
Andrex•Jun 1, 2026
> At the same time, some people in the comments under the article are more or less calling for the death penalty for the kid...
Equivocating and straw-manning only weaken your argument.
Do we want this kind of thing to happen again? The kid was 16, ok. The columbine shooters were 17.
Throw the book at him, he should have known better.
Forgeties79•Jun 1, 2026
I’ve never understood this logic. If we want to treat people who are under 18 as adults in certain legal circumstances, then we should just establish a new age or set a concrete exception based on the law violated. Making special exceptions on a case by case basis where people have to argue about it, especially when it demonstrably affects certain demographics more than others, is a terrible way to operate.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say you probably don’t have kids. If your teenager got in trouble for a messed up “joke” like this and the result was a criminal proceeding where they’re tried as an adult you’d be (rightfully) crying that it’s too much.
Also what does columbine have to do with this? Unless your implication is that any kid around the age of 17 should be treated as a potential school shooter.
gspr•Jun 1, 2026
> Throw the book at him, he should have known better.
What book!? The book of laws that outlaw jokes in bad taste potentially made years ago, outside the context of air travel altogether, only to be forgotten about and accidentally brought into the context of air travel where one can conceivably think of laws that make those jokes problematic?
Come on!
therealpygon•Jun 1, 2026
Are you really trying to equate murder with naming a Bluetooth device and that a child should have their life ruined on the same scale as if they were equivalent in impact or intent, with little knowledge of the actual situation or intent?
Weird how you want kids to be punished for stupid mistakes. If you drive, you probably put more people lives in danger last week than that kids fitness tracker. When you speed, you put lives in danger (statistical fact, none of that “but I am good driver crap”) — will you ask for the death penalty if a cop sees you going 1mph over?
Or do you only want strong punishment for others as is usually the case with such opinions?
pjc50•Jun 1, 2026
There is something deeply stupid about assuming that naming your bluetooth device "bomb" is a real threat, let alone that it's going to be a real bomb. Reminds me of all those post Columbine "zero tolerance" policies where kids were punished for marginal doodles of guns. Or the "twitter joke trial". It's as is people are string matching for threat shaped words, not the semantics of a threat.
Mind you, this gets harder when powerful people have got in the habit of making mostly-joking threats on social media themselves.
jMyles•Jun 1, 2026
> some people in the comments
The commenters' status as people (I presume here you mean biological humans) seems unlikely to me.
quietbritishjim•Jun 1, 2026
I wouldn't like to guess either way about this particular article, but it's possible many really are people. Certainly there were plenty of online commenters for news articles reacting in exactly this sort of way long before there were LLMs.
jMyles•Jun 1, 2026
It seems very obvious to me that certain constituencies in online commenting are at all-time highs for loudness:
* police/prison/statist notions of justice
* auto industry / auto-first infra
* both pro- and anti-israel
* pro-IP / copyright industrial complex
There are a bunch more. Maybe it's a shift in actual human sentiment, but without evidence, I don't think it makes sense for that to be the first presumption.
Fortunately, we're gonna get this here web-o-trust thing going in the next 10 years or so and not have to doubt who the humans are anymore. Riiight?
petre•Jun 1, 2026
Awful joke. There have to be at least some consequences for the kid, like getting banned for flying United for 10 years.
gspr•Jun 1, 2026
> Awful joke. There have to be at least some consequences for the kid, like getting banned for flying United for 10 years.
Take a step back. You yourself describe it as a joke. Are you really saying that the quality of the joke ("awful") should result in the origin of the joke (a kid, even!) should be banned from a major air carrier for 10 years? Does this really seem like a proportional response?
And this doesn't even begin to consider another possibility: the device was named what it was named in a completely different setting, and the owner just forgot about it. That makes it not even a joke, just forgetfulness.
Was any of this a good idea? No, probably not, but people need to calm down.
voidpointer•Jun 1, 2026
> Was any of this a good idea? No, probably not, but people need to calm down.
I can understand the safety concern - and I think the decision to turn around was ultimately the right call. Especially given that they had called for people turning off BT for some time.
The fact that the device was not turned off suggests to me that the owner did not know they were the cause of this.
If they had done this by intent and were set on going through with it even after the turnaround was initiated, they would have also had the sense to drop the device into some other seat or leave it in the lavatory...
If it turns out they did this with full intent, there should be some _appropriate_ consequence
gspr•Jun 1, 2026
> If it turns out they did this with full intent, there should be some _appropriate_ consequence
Sure, if evidence is uncovered of the guy say telling his friends "haha, I'm gonna make them turn the plane around", I can get behind the baying for consequences.
We're nowhere near that. There's plenty of non-nefarious ways this could all have come about, and people need to put down their pitchforks.
amiga386•Jun 1, 2026
> I can understand the safety concern - and I think the decision to turn around was ultimately the right call.
It sounds like a fantastic DDoS opportunity, you could shut down an entire nation's aviation just by putting a few tiny bluetooth transmitters in places that air passengers might accidentally pick them up. The attack relies entirely on the overreaction to non-threats by ignorant buffoons in positions of authority.
Personally, I think the airline and its policies should be publicly ridiculed. If we don't punish the airline for doing this, and make unequivocably clear that it did the wrong thing, that its "what ifs" are meaningless and bluetooth/wifi channel names are not a security threat, then this nonsense will just continue.
voidpointer•Jun 1, 2026
In general and long-term I agree with what you are saying.
I assume this was a new/unknown situation. (On the other hand, the article links to other similar stories, so maybe I am cutting them too much slack).
If "electronic device names" are of concern, there should be an established protocol to deal with them. Especially if this keeps happening.
solenoid0937•Jun 1, 2026
IDK, this was pure technical incompetence by rubes that can barely operate a smartphone. The delay relies entirely on these supposed "adults in the room" overreacting.
voidpointer•Jun 1, 2026
I think this is just the way the decision tree works in safety-sensitive areas where many human lives are at stake. The catch-all in the decision tree, if there is no exact solution, is always the "get to safety at all costs" option.
There will be some window of trying to resolve an issue (here: telling everyone to shut down devices) and when that does not resolve the issue, the catch-all kicks in. That's just the pattern and in an environment like an airplane, where margin for error is slim to non-existant, there is no deviation from that pattern.
petre•Jun 1, 2026
Yes, I guess he could havr tuned off his BT when asked repeatedly to do so, instead of wasting oassenger time and airline fuel.
onemoresoop•Jun 1, 2026
Let’s say it wasn’t a joke, who would name their explosive device bomb?
criddell•Jun 1, 2026
Clearly not a HNer. The name goes against RFC1178 in a couple of different ways.
anujdeshpande•Jun 1, 2026
In the hardware world, we use the abbrevation BOM (bill of materials) frequently.
Needless to say, we use the full "Bill of materials" phrase when anyone on the call is at the airport or travelling in general.
stavros•Jun 1, 2026
One of my coworkers once told me that, unless I changed our hardware design, he'd be forced to add a buggy part to our bill of materials to handle the use case.
I had to call in a BOM threat.
UqWBcuFx6NV4r•Jun 1, 2026
Always easy to guess which country has this reaction. The terrorists well and truly won.
gaiagraphia•Jun 1, 2026
Provides many opportunities for cheaper and more scalable methods of terrorism.
Don't need to actually get explosives on board, just a bluetooth device. Manage to get 10 planes at once, and you've got a nice bit of chaos on your hands.
Wonder how easy it'd be to reverse pickpocket some fitbits into jackets left laying around before you catch your flight to a 'non-aligned country'.
Could cause lots of havoc with pre-planted speakers, too. Setting off random sirens at maximum volume, telling people to evacuate, etc. I wonder what the security solution would be if people started causing terror via text and sound.
giantg2•Jun 1, 2026
The most important question is not answered by the article - was it done intentionally or accidentally. That makes all the difference.
barbazoo•Jun 1, 2026
> Those onboard were also instructed to leave all their belongings on the aircraft before deplaning.
gpvos•Jun 1, 2026
I thought Bluetooth devices only announce their name when specifically asked to do so, and usually switch out of that mode after a minute or so.
Or can the name be retrieved even when they're not broadcasting it?
Markoff•Jun 1, 2026
I wonder what would they do to Malaysian firemen travelling with work devices. :-)
The level of idiocy... like what was the alert for? "A bomb was registered through bluetooth?" They really thought that a legitimate bomb, calling itself a bomb and registering on a device bluetooth spectrum was a threat? And these people are allowed to fly planes? What if my laptop's name is dabomb and I register on the plane's wifi node, will that trigger a call to a SWAT team?
NordStreamYacht•Jun 1, 2026
Great.
Now troublemakers have new way to make travelling even more stressful.
timnetworks•Jun 1, 2026
If my radio got FCC stamps on it, I'm sure the airplane has this figured out but in the opposite direction.
Did someone update fly by wire to run on 2.4Ghz BLE or something? What is even the deal with airplane mode?
whh•Jun 1, 2026
You’re not going to name your bomb “bomb”.
Needless drama.
chrisss395•Jun 1, 2026
Here is the reddit thread where passengers were live replying. I don't seem confirmation of what the Bluetooth device name was. There is one comment in there claiming the following:
"Wife is on the plane. Guy had a speaker named bomb. He just confessed to it. He said he named it forever ago and forgot about it. He’s 16 years old. Wife’s friend is sitting next to him as they are questioning him."
We need to start asking questions about when it's appropriate to charge staff for falsely escalating a nonsense concern. A teen with a bluetooth network named bomb is not a threat, and turning around a plane for it is creating false alarm. This happens a lot, frequently in schools, where someone will make a joke (like asking Benjamin Netanyahu to drop bombs on a school building in a clear joking manor) and officials shut down the building and have the FBI arrest the child under false pretense of a threat.
At some point we need to start asking hard questions about when to charge administrators and staff for creating false alarms.
rimworld•Jun 1, 2026
These stories are getting more absurd by the day
NoSalt•Jun 1, 2026
I was following this "live" on Reddit, where, supposedly, nine Redditors were posting all the events. It was a wild ride. I'm glad it was a non-event, and everybody is safe.
76 Comments
Does the FBI usually get involved when someone says these words in public in the US?
Greenland isn’t out the danger zone yet.
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.
That's certainly not true in many European countries
This suprised me. I’ve hunted for polling and can find plenty showing a plummeting opinion on Israel, but little on internal polling about a Palestinian state.
In the USA, there are many, many firearms. And there's also a small but very vocal cadre of people who would like to disarm the people. In light of this, if a pollster calls and asks for your opinion on guns, and/or inquires if you have any, a common response is to hang up without answering the questions, due to the possibility that the information will be used against them.
The result? They call someone else, and don't count "declined to answer" in their results. So the poll simply is the prevailing opinion of those who wished to answer, and thus is skewed one direction. (BTW, this is why everyone says there are "at least XXX hundred million guns in America; the best they can get is a low estimate)
This happens quite a lot with controversial topics.
I get that they aren’t counted but it’s hard to guess their stance.
Similarly, it’s always interesting to compare polls to electoral results. The correlation seems to be drifting.
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.
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.
Looks like the first one was a Hungarian in 1919.
That says:
"Airplane hijackings have occurred since the early days of flight. ...Pre-1929, 1929–1957, 1958–1979, 1980–2000, and 2001–present."
"...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....
"..In a five-year period (1968–1972) the world experienced 326 hijack attempts, or one every 5.6 days.."
And your conclusion is "Palestinian" movement (that you wrote between quotes)...invented airplane hijacking?
Would you really be worried if someone said or wrote that near you in any context?
Short of them holding a weapon, this is baffling.
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.
Granted though, the FBI didn’t actually get involved. But why let facts get in the way of rage?
Sounds like they should only be made in freedom designated zones a-la Bush-Cheney
I can’t see that it ever has. Making it fractionally less ridiculous.
"Those attending should be aware that showing support for a proscribed organisation is an offence under the Terrorism Act, and we will not hesitate to act where the law is broken," said commander Claire Smart, who is leading policing operations in London this weekend.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp38z9lylddo
Depending on where the plane was, it might not even have happened 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. 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.
If airlines ignored every threat that was “probably not” a real threat, they’d ignore all of them. It’s better to inconvenience a few thousand passengers than it is to kill a few hundred.
But also, just because someone is making what could be perceived as a threat doesn’t mean it won’t escalate, which is why threats are taken seriously even if we don’t know whether something is guaranteed to go wrong. You don’t want a crazy person making bomb threats on a flight even if they don’t have a bomb, because they can inflict other issues while trapped in a metal tube at cruising altitude.
https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/pressroom/fact-sheet...
Most security failures happen when people wait to take something seriously until it is “very clear” that something is wrong.
We have the luxury of hindsight while reading this article but listen to the tapes of any security failures and you’ll find it painfully obvious that the most common issue is that people don’t do anything until it’s too late.
"An indication of impending danger or harm."
Not "An expression of an intention to inflict pain, harm, or punishment."
Using the second definition in this context is absolutely bonkers -- a threat actor doesn't have to make a first-person expression of threat to be a threat.
A "security threat" refers to the former -- the situation.
It's also important to note that the situation was not taken seriously just because of the bluetooth device name -- but because it was not turned off even after all of the passengers were instructed to turn off all of their bluetooth devices. They were well aware that people are just stupid sometimes, but didn't take it seriously until it was done in defiance of crew commands.
For example, there are many pieces of equipment that can be broken and they’ll still fly, because it’s not essential or there’s enough redundancy.
Child safety seats are not required even though they’d save lives, because the extra hassle and expense would cause some parents to drive instead, which is much more dangerous, leading to more overall deaths.
Normally the decisions are quite sensible. But the moment any “terrorism” enters the picture it all goes out the window.
[1] - https://observer.com/2014/03/park-slope-kiddie-shop-hunts-fo...
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jn_6EmYxE
[1] - https://bash-org-archive.com/?244321
That, or they're such a small business that they never expected one of their random products to be HN hugged to death.
In all likelihood the site being down right now is actually a PR win.
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.
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.
If it’s a commercial product doing it, I can’t even quantify the levels of facepalm involved.
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.
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?
> I assume other Bluetooth devices are the same, no?
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.
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.
What do you mean by ”usually” here?
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.
As for other brands I own: Jlab, jawbone, pyle, and anker don't seem to have any such functionality that I can see.
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.
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.
People buy the speaker, charge it and turn it on, pair, play music, throw the packaging away, that's it. Usually the bluetooth name refer to the brand and model which is much more convenient to know which one you are connecting to than giving it a silly name.
I wouldn't expect most people to know they can do it in the first place and even those who do like me don't bother most of the time.
Your iPhone's rename feature won't change anything for other devices. Maybe Apple is smart enough to sync the renamed device to other Apple devices as well, I don't know about that, but it certainly won't change what the other passengers on your phone see.
You can distinguish Bluetooth devices by their MAC address, that's usually how the rename mapping works.
...I mentally appended an "s" to that, and was momentarily very confused.
Otherwise, I trust many folks in an HN comment section would reminisce on stories from their earlier years, where they'd rename the Bluetooth devices around a densely-populated area to cause mischief.
My phone will show me a different name for a "renamed on phone" Bluetooth device, but all other devices in the area won't.
Which would violate FAA regulations if it was powered on (as it obviously was):
"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."
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/portable-electronic-devi...
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).
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
Is there a way for you to post proper direct links?
Can't you just set the old theme in your profile? That's what I do.
> 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_...
(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)
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.
"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?
No popups when using uBlock Origin and/or uMatrix
The real "nightmare" is the browser that will automatically run all that garbage returned in the response body without any input from the userIt requires an "adblocker" to stop its default behaviour
Alternatively, one needs to disable Javascript, restrict the browser's access to DNS, etc.
When an advertising company releases a "browser" that intentionally allows website operators to cram pages fuil of advertising and tracking is that a coincidence
Is that the only way a browser can be designed
No
How many users realise this
A small number
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"
"Don't these sites realise how many users they're losing?"
The number is so small why would they care
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.
Just call the police and say you have a bomb planted on flight XYZ and want 100000$ or you'll detonate it.
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..
If you mean another type of duress, naming your device "plshelp-[seat number]" would be a hell lot more effective..
It’s funnier than that. If they had turned off the ‘bomb’ the plane would have just carried on.
The event is bizarre.
These phones should have limits of how much you can use the tech...
What do you mean?
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.
Nothing really.
I'm guessing that has more to do with theft though than security.
Domestic flights in the US are like busses/trains elsewhere. Most people fly without a checked bag
However I agree that in purely domestic airports I don't see how you'd prevent general public from accessing bags. Except India, wherein you need a booked flight to even enter the airport.
People are routinely prevented from being where they are not supposed to be. Whether you put the baggage pick-up point in a publicly accessible area or on a restricted area is a design choice.
I don't understand this.
Why can't they have a door after the baggage claim that does not permit entry to the baggage claim area?
That's how things work in the UK.
In my local airport, the final part of leaving the arrivals area is the same for both international and domestic flights.
Passport control > Baggage claim (international) > Customs > One-way exit to landside
Baggage claim (domestic) > One-way exit to landside
How do the arrivals exist the terminal
Are you not allowed to have a friend who is picking you up assist with baggage claim?
You arrive, go to baggage reclaim, then into the "public area". You can then exit the terminal, or go check in for another flight or whatever you like. The point is that once you have left the baggage collection area you cannot re-enter it.
>> Are you not allowed to have a friend who is picking you up assist with baggage claim?
exactly. No-one from outside is allowed into the baggage collection hall. But equally, we don't get charged for trolly use. So you don't need help. You stack everything onto a trolly (which are there waiting for you for free.)
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.
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!”
The only 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.
This is not something to brag about. This is something to be ashamed of.
What’s the alternative? Lose track of my stuff or risk it being stolen?
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.
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.
Stop acting like an asshole.
How is waiting for my turn to go through the metal detector or be patted down being an asshole? I arrived before the people behind me and I’m following the security procedures of the airport.
It explicitly says to keep your belongings in your position at all times. To keep your bags in view. In fact they ask you if you ever lost sight of your bags.
If people don’t want to wait in line for people following the rules then let them be inconvenienced to the point where they will get the rules changed to speed up the process.
But I’m not going to give in to the stupidity of the security rules and forsake my own belongings to accommodate someone who doesn’t care enough to either come early and deal with the potential ramifications of the rules their elected leaders have chosen for them.
What you are doing is the equivalent of paying some poor cashier in pennies while everyone behind you is forced to wait in order to get revenge for some decision made by executives ten rungs up the food chain.
It is childish and immature. And worse, it biases people against whatever point you’re trying to make in the first place. Please make the conscious choice to be a better person.
> It explicitly says to keep your belongings in your position at all times.
Since you are hell-bent on following all rules to the letter, you could at least commit to the bit and follow your luggage through the X-ray machine.
If you concede that it’s not reasonable to do so, then I think you’re capable of being adult enough to concede that neither is purposefully obstructing a bunch of other travelers for the sake of a pointless exercise to obstruct everyone else so you can maintain eye contact with your luggage.
These rules are not made by CEOs. They’re made by the people the populace has chosen to elect. Either directly or indirectly through inaction.
> It is childish and immature. And worse, it biases people against whatever point you’re trying to make in the first place. Please make the conscious choice to be a better person.
Again, what part of waiting for my turn is childish or immature? If the person in front of me is waiting for her turn I’m not going to complain. That’s the system we’ve arrived at.
> Since you are hell-bent on following all rules to the letter, you could at least commit to the bit and follow your luggage through the X-ray machine.
I think you’re misunderstanding my actions. I don’t hold up the line for no reason. I hold up the line until both me and my bags go through in tandem. Not a moment sooner nor a moment longer.
How? I’ve seen idiots do this. I just go around and ahead of them.
We’d be better off spending TSA’s $8 billion budget on paying people to dig holes and fill them back in.
Those checkpoints are only there to provide a soft target instead of letting it be a plane.
“When ABC News asked the source if the failure rate was 80 percent, the response was, ‘You are in the ballpark.’”
As pilots had been screaming for for years prior to 2001, cockpit doors have been reinforced and locked, and cabin procedures have changed so that those doors are rarely unlocked. [0] This happened shortly after the WTC bombings that totally destroyed the buildings. This means that the only people who can get control of an aircraft are the crew of that aircraft.
The first of the two things that stops "another 9/11" had a one-time monetary cost and was done twenty five years ago. The second was the murder of everyone on board three airliners by hijackers. Prior hijackings were a diversion and an annoying delay. Now that "hijackers will kill you all" is on the table, hijackers will be outnumbered ten or thirty to one and will not succeed. Remember that the plane intended to crash into the Pentagon crashed in a field somewhere because its passengers heard about the ones that hit WTC and -correctly- determined that they had absolutely nothing to lose.
> ...terrorists can blow up a few hundred people [at a checkpoint].
The fact that this doesn't happen indicates that even a jetliner with a flimsy, unlocked cockpit door wouldn't be used as a weapon to kill thousands. Murder -let alone mass murder- is vanishingly rare. By and large, people simply don't want to kill or injure each other... they just want to go about their business.
To support this point, I'd like you to tell me when was the last time you heard about a cell-phone-battery-bomb? You may remember those from back when Israel's military booby trapped the batteries of phones that they believed were going to be delivered to many members of the opposing military... and then set off those bombs all at once. Shorty after the bombings, Bunnie Huang [1] did some thinking and came to the conclusion that not only is it pretty easy to fabricate such remotely-triggerable bombs with like five-figures [2] worth of perfectly ordinary equipment that is entirely legal for anyone to have, if one built such a bomb with the explosive force of a hand grenade it would be [3] undetectable to a TSA CT scanner operator, and -because batteries are sealed- entirely undetectable to explosives swabs.
If The Terrorists Are Constantly Out To Get Us, why haven't we seen these bombs? It has been what, three years or so since those very clever booby traps were distributed to and used against opposing forces? Where are the domestic bangs and booms?
[0] One expects that airlines did not wish to do this because its cost was greater than zero. I wonder how the cost compared to the destruction of three airliners, two skyscrapers, all the deaths and cleanup, and twenty five years (and counting) of security theater.
[1] Huang is a fellow with fairly substantial commercial electronics design and fabrication experience
[2] USD
[3] ...in part because of the variance in battery construction from manufacturer to manufacturer and even from model to model...
This hit Auckland International badly: it had a lovely open atrium with a garden but the rules forced a forest of partitioning walls since passengers were transferring from smaller airports that couldn't quickly adopt the US rules.
It still feels incongruent with the reality of the situation in my opinion. I can hop on a bus with 200 other people, or on a train with literally 0 security carrying whatever I want in a bag with no staff nearby either.
It used to be much worse though. I think the new machinery has made the difference.
The bus/train is different because they're harder to weaponize. Everything we got was a response to the 9/11 attacks.
Essentially terrorism isn’t about spreading terror, because they are so laughably ineffective at it.
See this excellent gwern article: https://gwern.net/terrorism-is-not-about-terror
Over the years, their failure rate has consistently been 80-95%.
I don’t think you can reasonably call that „generally successful“.
> would result in a prison sentence
That doesn’t seem like a significant deterrent here.
>> "All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies."
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/continuing-anxi...
Getting a dozen of their operatives arrested for an idiotic prank that just resulted in a handful of planes being turned around would make them a laughingstock overnight.
I am baffled that we are even having this argument.
Significantly less dedicated supporters are generally used as a funding source, but actual terrorist organizations have also used them for publicity events on the anniversary of attacks.
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Isn’t quite true, but publicity is inherently valuable to organizations dependent on outside donors. The Provos/IRA did similar things (attention grabbing and annoying) not just setting off bombs during the time of troubles.
You’d do something like that.
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 then this is an extremely lame and ineffective form of sabotage, compared to the kind of prison sentence you’d be risking.
There are many anecdotal examples out there. More scientifically, they had a horrific detection rate in some audits.
Reminds me of Professor Chaos trying to flood the world by leaving the garden hose on.
Reliably bomb detonation is on the roadmap for Bluetooth 8.
A completely-innocent Airtag speaks only bluetooth, and it can be activated from continents away -- as long as any Apple phone is nearby with a shred of Internet access.
My similarly-innocent Samsung phone is programmable (using its built-in Routines function) to perform actions in response to becoming disconnected from any given Bluetooth device.
“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.”
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.
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.
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?
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.)
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.
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.
That was the most hilarious part for me.
The article says two Bluetooth radios weren’t turned off. Do we know if one of those was “the bomb?”
Wifi SSID? Passenger speech, since those are typically changed by the user. Bluetooth GAP/GATT device name? Manufacturer speech, since those are often not changeable by the user.
That 'other goal' being to cause disruption. Which this did.
Now we all know how to disrupt a flight anonymously. Grudge against <airline>? Fill your boots!
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/louvre-secur...
One of the theories right after the heist was that the thieves where former security guards. France had just laid of most of the museums security, the alarm triggered just fine, there just wasn't anyone left to respond.
- 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.
The hard part would be figuring out the worth of each submission. LLMs might be able to assign a price based on the importance of the fact submitted? and then subscription fee people pay is paid to the contributors. I guess you could also have people rate the inputs and base it on that. (what the readers found important.)
Wikinews closed up and went read-only on May 4, 2026:
https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_closes_Wik...
https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...
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.
That is also stated clearly in the comments.
Reddit really wants to run with the default speaker name theory, though.
Actually sounds a lot like "that was the default name but now that everyone's making a big deal about it I'm assuming I must have named it that". I wouldn't assume that this "confession" means that reddit's theory is at all incorrect.
Witnesses are terribly inaccurate sources of information, unfortunately.
(Not to say the alternative also couldn't be the case)
So your assumption seems the most likely. I highly doubt a 16 year old kid is firmware hacking a cheap speaker just to rename it for a "joke"
We used to call such devices "boomboxes". And a bomb makes "boom".
Wiktionary also has this meaning listed for bomb: "9. Something highly effective or attractive."
Removed for violating Rule #6: Must be a kid and must be stupid.
Common reasons for this remove include but not limited to:
Teens are not considered kids as its a different kind of stupid.
Changing it would require installing an app that I don't really want to for obvious reasons. Additionally some bluetooth device never really turn down completely and still advertize their bluetooth ID via BLE so the teenager in question may not even have realized he could change anything and the commands given (turn off bluetooth) were completely stupid as it wouldn't change anything if people turned down their smartphone bluetooth.
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.
Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"? Do you think this behaviour has any meaningful true positives?
This is the kind of brainworms thinking that has people throwing our their 150ml liquids out at TSA and taking their shoes off.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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 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.
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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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).
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.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_airliner_bombing_a...
I do think we overreact on security matters, but I do think it's reasonable to not head over the Atlantic with something labelled "BOMB" if you can't figure it out.
I think if you set the amount of security to zero you'd get more bombings. Before 1990 we had a 2-3 per decade. This may not sound like much, but given that we have about 0-0.5 airliner crashes with fatality per year, it would be a significant contribution.
I agree with your comments more often than not, I empathize with your annoyance, but if you play out the game theoretic consequences there are no non-annoying outcomes. I don't like it but that's how it is.
Low probability events with outsized consequences are very difficult to reason through. One potentially chipped thermal insulation ceramic tile, should we engage reentry or not. What are the odds that the tile did get chipped, what are the consequences if it did.
The only good way to play this is for a country to not act in ways that motivates potential acts of organized terrorism. That would leave only the positively deranged solitary cuckoo brains to deal with.
Remember, I didn't say the odds are 0, I said these are extremely black swan events. In fact, there's a lot of more likely ways to die on a plane that are far more likely. If you aren't afraid of those, then your fear is fear, not reality.
I think the only way to play this is to ensure that terrorism against us continues to be only rare, unorganised black swans and not an act of any organized and motivated entity.
Coming back to this case. Say this was an operational error by incompetent terrorists. The pilot reports the observation but does nothing. The bomb goes off. Now the pilot and the airlines are made a bunch of scapegoats. They are declared professionally incompetent and insurance cover is denied to their family.
I can well imagine current administration doing exactly that, throwing the pilot and the crew under the bus. The 911 first responders were and they weren't even in a position to prevent it. Maybe the pilot and crew can imagine that too and in that case they took a rational decision.
Do not forget that this
https://youtu.be/_uYpDC3SRpM?si=lOWfqPEPCxTGu_Vj (Jon Stewart to the Congress for first responders)
is the society we live in.
There's so many real and big problems in the world. We don't seem to care about those things and we end up fighting about the name of a device? Something that is trivial to go about your day ignoring?
Another take: the likelihood of getting struck by lightening surely dictates what you do during a thunderstorm? In the same way that the likelihood (or lack there of) dictates how often you buy lottery tickets.
If we didn’t attempt to mitigate terrorist attacks at all, would they be as infrequent as they are now? I know that’s not really what you’re saying, but surely likelihood is extremely dependent on circumstances.
If you make a habit of running around in thunderstorms in an open field holding a metal rod in the air, then the likelihood suddenly increases A LOT.
What I mean is, the odds are only low that you get struck by lightening because precautions are taken place during lightening storms. In the same way, we only know the statistical likelihood of a terrorist attack involving an airplane in the current, overly cautious, context.
Sure, a lot of it is probably security theater, but I think the whole "don't talk about bombs on an airplane" is probably a pretty solid blanket rule.
If we stopped teaching kids what to do during a lightning storm, and if we stopped being overly cautious about airplane security, surely we would see both of those statistic move in the opposite direction.
But we've also got to factor in
A) How likely is it that this bomb is going to have some bluetooth component? It seems like needless complexity, so we should weigh strongly against this. Further, it's less likely that our hypothetical terrorist needs to have expertise in this domain as well.
B) How likely is it that he would clearly paint the word "BOMB" on the side of his device (figuratively, of course, since this is digital)? That's amazing levels of stupidity. And then intersect that with the claim that he's competent in all the other things (bomb making, sneaking through security, making a bluetooth trigger for his bomb) but is so incredibly stupid that he'd label it a bomb.
Factoring all of this in, godelski is being far too generous in assessing this with odds similar to finding the winning Powerball ticket outside the front door while simultaneously being hit by lightning.
I acknowledge that the airline captain has some responsibility for our security. But part of this responsibility is being a steward for our overall well-being. And in this case, the "security" aspect is so vastly overwhelmed by the damage it did to passengers in other ways, that it was obviously a bad call on the captain's part.
For example, the risk of not wearing your seatbelt on the motorway is high because, even though most journeys will not require a seatbelt to stop any negative effects, if something bad happens it will become very high risk without the seatbelt.
Without the negative effect there is no risk, so it's not just probability.
Or it's scary because it means we're going to go to war? Then why aren't we scared sooner? Be scared of the thing that causes people to want to blow up planes. It's not like they just wake up one day and a country decides it's going to blow up a plane. Our government spies off so many people and the result is we're still scared to get on planes? What a waste of money
That's not a sane way to do risk management. You have to be able to use common-sense human judgement as well as situational training.
And common-sense human judgement would tell you that, even if the possible effect is a plane full of people blowing up and that starting a war, the likelihood of that occurring because you didn't yell at a teenager to turn off a Bluetooth device is so infinitesimally small that it's not worth considering.
To qualify even for the 'far end of reasonable', you'd have to divert the plane. Returning to origin, especially when the origin is not one of the 10 closest airports and is in a much more densely packed urban area (with a much more harrowing approach) than any of those 10 renders this entire incident totally unserious.
There are real actual safety concerns to address in aviation. This doesn't make the top 1,000 list. It's wasted effort in a world where economy of opportunity is significant.
If you'll actually read the article, federal law enforcement was being called in this situation as well.
But some people are really dumb when it comes to having common sense with respect to tech (or non-tech too, hehe).
(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).
(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.
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.
I can't blame them too much.
(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'"
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.
2) How likely would a bomb's name really be "BOMB" vs anything else? If the latter is any higher, wouldn't it be reasonable to always turn around whenever the any other name shows up? In that case, all Bluetooth devices should be strictly banned in the cabin. But TSA is not doing that (not yet).
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.
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.
Sorry, you teed it up too well. I had to!
The staff's primary concern probably was not an actual bomb, but a prankster intentionally trying to create panic with elderly and technically illiterate.
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..."
Instead, everyone applied the same rudimentary "IF [bomb mentioned in any context] THEN [take the most extreme actions written in the playbook]."
The bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103 (the Lockerbie bombing) was hidden inside a Toshiba 'BomBeat' RT-SF16 radio.
And as correctly mentioned by others, we shouldn’t be concentrating on an ideal game theory spherical terrorist in a vacuum.
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.
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.
You know how they ask you if you have any contraband or if you’re a terrorist or whatever?
You’d be surprised at how many people get busted because they answer truthfully
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.
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 no matter the context. And that is very expensive for the attacker.
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.
3. don't touch the spaghetti makefile: add a specific rule about removing shoes after 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.
Conflating these all under a single "brainworm" category tells me you are exactly the kind of person who shouldn't be in charge of designing a secure system!
There's no mystery to an attacker. Now it is known to all that trigger words are part of airline security SOP. Attacker tradecraft will be refined.
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.
If they knew it was a BT speaker, they wouldn’t have returned.
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.
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]
[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 your 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 you are, it is a function of how good of a driver they are. So you really do want more people flying
[1] https://www.govexec.com/management/2012/11/tsa-killing-us/59...
[2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=677549
Just greping for 'Israel' or 'Palestine' gives 13 incidents, the latest occurring in 2000.
It's a quite large share of the hijackings on the list, much more so that I'd have imagined de novo.
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.
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.
The pilot should be fired effective immediately.
edit: oh you mean the "f z" guy
Airline pilots are morally and physically responsibile for the lives on their aircraft. This necessitates respect for their authority.
Like other professionals, they must compartmentalize personal beliefs and professionalism.
Playful antics and silly BS, whether it be for the lulz, politics, or anything else, is a disrespectful act of defiance to the individuals you entrust to deliver you safely to your destination.
They are the final authority in flight, and have broad discretion they must exercise prudently with a bias for risk aversion.
I've known 2 airline pilots. They are the most even keeled people I've ever come across. Literally, the coolest and calmest people.
The system (should) weed out anyone who would act unprofessional, like letting their political beliefs cloud their judgment.
26 years ago. That is not a current thing and isn't relevant.
I’d also be very wary of recency bias when looking at the extremist fringes of religious and political situations that have been ongoing for centuries. We might feel a couple decades is a long time, but in conflicts all parties can veto the other parties subjective interpretations.
Quite relevant in terms of? Security (theater?) measures that have been allowed to continue?
> you have the right to express it
Out in public sure. In an airplane you're in someone else's private space (ie the airline's) and everyone is not only confined with you in minimal comfort, they have no way to leave. Trying to 'own' the space in this context is a dick move. If I'm a traveling passenger I don't want to be subject to your political ideas/religious sentiments/music preferences/sporting affiliation or whatever else. Besides the irritation it may or may not inflict on other passengers, it's an unnecessary burden for the flight crew, who are going to have to field any complaints about it.
In short, please stow your rights in the overhead container or in your checked baggage and respect other peoples' right to be left alone.
Ah yes, the classic "your politics," but of course the person having this opinion's politics are perfectly fine, because they're the "normal" person with the "normal" politics, not like that crazy person who thinks some randos shouldn't be the subject of genocide. How dare they!
What does a Bluetooth device's nickname have to do with leaving people alone?
I agree! I'm getting so sick of politics on HN
That is a very, very, very different statement than "I'm calling the FBI."
You're talking about should or shouldn't. The issue here is past that point: whether it's then right to involve people who are empowered to take away your physical liberty, and worse.
Can you imagine how it would be if every contract you sign had a "I own you now, no backsies"?
For example, at home, I'm free to walk around nude and scream.
On a plane, I'm not.
On planes in general, many people jump nude for their 100th skydive - the original and best video of this has been scrubbed from youtube, but a quick search shows others.
Often screaming is included.
But if you want to f$ck around and find out, I'm sure it will make for a fun "How I Ended Up On the No Fly List" story.
It's a tale as old as the USA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile_high_club
More US censorship. Nude skydiving, terrible. Indepth reviews of how to kill things with insane levels of weaponry? Featured video time.
>>this is even written somewhere in the contract between you and the airline that you agreed on
What I wanted to say is that you'll never give up any civil liberties because of a contract alone. If the contract can take those away it's because a law never gave them to you in those circumstances in the first place, so you never had them to begin with.
I just wanted to make it clear that you cannot agree to give up something that the law gives you. If the law doesn't give you something, you have nothing to give up.
Freedom of speech is the peak of this. People think it means "I can say whatever I like wherever I like". But that's not what it is. The government cannot make laws curtailing speech (though, it does... enforcement and interpretation don't line up with the original intent). You can, however, sign an NDA which curtails your speech. A business can kick you out for saying something they don't like. An employer can fire you for saying "poodle" one too many times.
And that's what we are dealing with around airlines. They absolutely can kick you off the plane and ban you for almost any reason. For what you say, wear, or because they don't like how tall or short you are.
The law really only protects a few things. Your race, your gender, your religion. Everything else is fair game for a private institution to discriminate against. They can kick you off a plane because you are a journalist. They can kick you off because you won't quarter soldiers. They can kick you off because you don't submit to a search of all your property.
Don't confuse positive and negative rights[0]. Freedom of speech is something that can only be taken away. It is never something that can be given to you.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
That's incorrect. In fact this is exactly what all contracts do.
I think the reason for the captain not liking you is secondary and could get him fired but it’s still: mess around in federal airspace, deal with the feds. Follow all instructions of all flight crew or you’re a criminal, regardless (I think).
Not actually the FBI though is it? Captain probably wanted to sound serious (mission accomplished).
I think he would face discipline from his airline after the fact, but in the moment, he is in charge.
Terrorism by definition.
And yeah, if it was ridiculous or violated some other law or something they’d eventually have to deal with the consequences of that, but while in the air, what they say goes.
The wifi name probably should have been ignored. But the incidents of people airdropping profane pictures to randos on planes...
Really?
The unsolicited dick pic is gross, but not even in the same category as the other stuff.
But absolutely nothing will make a photo popping onto your phone a violent act.
Seriously, think about the fear here. That someone's trivial to ignore tacky political statement causes what problem? That it causes a fight to erupt? Arrest the person who actually starts the fight.
Do not police the actions of reasonable people just because they might upset unreasonable people. This is absolutely insane! You are just creating a world of Karens and crazy people by enabling them. The people that should get in trouble are the ones who start a fight.
FFS we're talking about a device's name. How often do you even see other device's names? Are you just staring at the WiFi and Bluetooth broadcasts all day? That's mental! You only see it when you switch to the plane's WiFi and then it is done. Over. You don't have to see it again. Anyone that is upset enough to start a fight over such a little thing should absolutely be arrested because they are clearly going to start a fight over some other absolutely bullshit and arbitrary thing. That's a person that is looking for a reason to be upset. That is a person looking for a reason to be angry. That is a person looking for a reason to start a fight. That is a person who is mentally insane.
Yes, but on an aircraft the captain is the dictator. They can do basically whatever they want within the confines of law and company policy - and honestly with enough seniority, which the captain on a transatlantic flight has a lot of - they can probably ignore company policy once or twice and get away with it and keep their job.
As far as I'm aware there is no law preventing the captain from deciding to go back because they don't like one of the passengers blasting their opinions to the entire aircraft. What the opinion is, its levels of subjectivity or objectivity, and whether or not it's popular is completely irrelevant.
Anyone being pissed off and willing to start a fight over a device name should be committed. Put that person in jail, not the person with the tacky device name. Otherwise you are just creating a world where you police the behavior of reasonable people because they might upset unreasonable people. Police the behavior of the unreasonable people.
If I can ignore seeing your neglected toenails tangled haphazardly around the sandiest pair of adidas flip-flops you possess, you can kindly ignore the SSID "Electronic Frontier Foundation", Karen.
Not only do the people have no way to leave, the owner of the place also has no practical way to make people leave, like they would for example in a restaurant. At least once the plane is in the air.
And the captain has to ensure the safety not only of the flying machine but also of the cabin. So I can absolutely understand the move here and the need to forbid everything that could incite violence in the cabin.
That would make me uncomfortable on the flight, and it's also one-hundred percent a political statement. One that is actively hostile to millions of Americans, and many more people outside of it.
That is up to the captain to decide.
1. In what way is it a risk to the plane? Or is the idea that we should not attempt to evaluate whether pilot's decisions are objective and reasonable? Is there some objective rule being used? (Or if an objective rule can't be stated, is it more like the pilot's feelings or mood about the passenger(s) at any particular moment?)
2. But if someone believes it's reasonable for pilots to turn planes around based on whether someone is wearing a pro or anti Biden/Trump shirt, etc. wouldn't the better solution for airlines to just proactively ban clothing, stickers, etc. with countries' flags, candidate names, political slogans, etc. rather than having pilots turn around planes midflight based on a whim(?), costing hundreds of people large amounts of time and money?
https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html
Rule 21 Refusal of Transport
Part H: Safety – Whenever refusal or removal of a Passenger may be necessary for the safety of such Passenger or other Passengers or members of the crew including, but not limited to:
5. Passengers who are barefoot, not properly clothed, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene or offensive;
This is such an insane thing we're doing. We're policing the behavior of functioning adults because it might upset dysfunctional adults? Why the hell are we creating a society that protects crazy people? It's absolutely insane
Nudist flights for the easily terrorized.
2. Because any rational person understands that we need to coexist in a society with a spectrum of political opinion, and that a fucking access point name doesn't cross the boundary between safe and dangerous to society.
3. Because doing it for one and not the other is obviously biased and arbitrary and demonstrates that it's not an actual danger to the plane, it's just some asshole with a bad day choosing to exercise his authority over someone whose politics he dislikes. To severe consequences to both that person and everyone else on board the plane. That's not a society you want to strive for.
No it isn't. You can read that implication into it, but it's not "actively hostile" in the way that an "F... X" statement is, for any X, and it's a sign of how slanted the discourse is that you would consider them equivalent.
Can we just recognize how crazy of a scenario this is?
People start actual fights over small groups of other people, that neither of them know personally, who are chasing after a ball on a pitch.
Why would you let the crazy people run the world. If they're that crazy you put them in a hospital because clearly they need help
> If they're that crazy you put them in a hospital because clearly they need help
Oh believe me, I would if I could...
And not all of the risks are about moving the cabin. Many of the risks are within the cabin and while some dickhead getting uppity at the pub will get collared by the police, it is a totally different problem while in the air.
So, while in the cabin, don't try to fuck around and find out. No one wants to find out anything. They just want to get to the other end of the trip.
Punish the dickhead getting upset over the easy to ignore and not that provocative of a thing.
Don't police functioning adults, police dysfunctional adults. Why is this even a contentious statement?
They turned what most passengers considered at most tasteless into a real threat worthy of returning to base. How can this possibly help with the stress? If this was to reduce stress, it was disproportionate and backfired in a major way.
Why are airlines adding to every part of that stress but drawing the line at a device's BT name?
Everything about flying is getting worse. The process of buying the tickets full of shady practices and dark patters, the check-in, the boarding process, the cabin luggage getting smaller for the same type of ticket, the ever more cramped seats, the removal of the old amenities like free food or snacks. They are all getting more terrible and adding stress. From what I can tell from my own ticket purchases with the same airlines in the past, the prices kept up with inflation over the past decades but the services have fallen far behind.
The only argument they are making is that you shouldn't be allowed to make you're device's name <Something Politically Tacky> because... it might make unstable and irrational people upset.
Why the fuck are we protecting unstable and irrational people? Punish them? What is so difficult about this? Seriously
It's something that never should have happened in the first place. (I'm agreeing with you, but stupid shit does happen and we should stop enabling people to act so dumb)
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2024...
Its not private space. Its public because they sell tickets. Its like going to any other event, and I don’t think there’s a constitutional exception to free speech on airplanes where you can’t express your opinions.
"not trying to make a political statement", but... Can we say, that Palestine is an enclosed space, considering its total land and sea blockade?
Oh, the irony
> The convention [...] recognises certain powers and immunities of the aircraft commander who on international flights may restrain any person(s) he has reasonable cause to believe is committing or is about to commit an offence liable to interfere with the safety of persons or property on board or who is jeopardising good order and discipline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Convention
Is there some reasonable test? Could he do this for a band t shirt
You're being unreasonable. Think about what you're saying. It's the equivalent of "You can't wear that shirt, someone might get offended and punch you in the face." We don't act like this in society. You arrest the person who throws the punch, not the person wearing the shirt. Just the same way you don't arrest a woman for wearing something slutty, you arrest the person who sexually assaulted them. This is the definition of victim blaming. It doesn't matter if the victim is increasing their odds of being victim (unless they are actively seeking out and attempting to become a victim).
Be reasonable. Punish the person who is actually committing the offense. Don't punish someone because of some imaginary offense.
If you are in any way harassing people by shouting through the plane for example, I agree. But the SSID of a WiFi network isn't that. No one is forced to continually read the list of available hotspots over and over again. There is nothing special about the fact that it's on a plane here.
At which point you are at least trespassing, and probably worse because it’s commercial aviation.
You agree to their terms when you purchase a ticket.
Indicating that you sympathise with terrorist while on an aircraft should 100% result in law enforcement getting involved.
But that isn't what they did. And even if they did, sympathizing isn't being a terrorist yourself. Law enforcement has nothing to do there, unless you're in a totalitarian state.
In fact, it's the other way around, it's because the right of free speech is recognized as a universal, natural right then the US Federal Government is not permitted to make a law suppressing speech. The First Amendment does not create the right. The right is there, naturally, whether or not the United States or its constitution or government exists. The First Amendment merely explicitly states that the government isn't permitted to impede that right.
Using the existence of the First Amendment to narrow free speech as a right to what the government is permitted to do and nothing else is a severe perversion of both the document and the beliefs of the framers.
In short, "it's a private entity doing it" is an incredibly poor defense of behavior that suppresses speech. It's like how young children will defend their rude or offensive behavior with "it's not illegal." The reason that's an unconvincing argument is that it's an incredibly low bar. The world is full of behaviors that may not be so universally offensive or outrageous that people have explicitly written down that nobody is every allowed to do that thing. It's actually a very small range of possible behaviors that that covers.
The only reason that there isn't a general law barring private parties from restricting the speech of others is (a) one's right to free speech does not necessarily negate another's rights in the same or a different area, (b) one's rights do not entitle one to the use of things owned by others against their desires, and (c) any such law could be used by the government to indirectly suppress other rights.
The narrow nature of the First Amendment is not to be taken as an implication that the right is narrow. It's an admission that the law cannot perfectly protect human rights.
And there are other human rights besides the right to free speech, which have to be balanced. One of them is the right to safe travel. That means people who are responsible for the safety of a planeload of people have to err very strongly on the side of being safe rather than sorry. And mature adults are suppposed to recognize that fact and not insist on exercising their free speech right everywhere they go, to the detriment of other rights.
Threats in airplanes, post 9/11, land different. “Free D.C., Fuck Americans” says something different to fellow passengers than “Free D.C.”.
Not crazy, not bonkers. Yes, a threat. And in an airline context: they are all treated as credible… that’s why your shoes get checked, and water gets stopped, and babies banana smoothies get confiscated because of potassium content.
Plus, there’s a red line from the PLO and hijackings through 9/11 to the current state of airline security. That’s not neutral, and not incidental, for an airline that knows recent history.
The founders believed in private property rights as much as free speech. Property was even a requirement for voting in most states.
This explains why Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty happily destroyed private property in the Boston Tea Party.
Anyway, airlines are hard because the basic problem is they’re public necessity still halfway regarded as private business. It’s also an unnatural situation that many people be forced to share such little space in “public”, and we’d likely have a different constitution were it always the case.
I don’t think this one will be addressed by principle from on high.
And Great Leader recently asked social media sites to provide details of critics.
The ship has sailed. The plane has crashed. The party is over.
There may be survivors, but right now it's too early to tell.
In short, a Pascal's wager and a demonstration that it is not easy to have good things.
And by the way, a terrorist is (by definition) someone who wants to incite terror in others. So any person knowingly broadcasting "we will all die” is a terrorist already.
Do you hear yourself? You're saying we should be irrational because there's irrational people. That we should send people to jail because they might upset an irrational person? You're sending the wrong person to jail. Are you crazy?
What I'm saying is that the decision whether or not something is considered a risk is completely at the discretion of the captain. And by accepting the terms of the airline when boarding the plane, you agree to follow the orders of the captain.
So if that captain says "turn it off", you turn it off. It's very simple.
But I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't want to understand for the sake of confrontation, so I'll leave it at that.
Don't go putting people into boxes. That's the path of persecution.
You have the inalienable right to say what you want on a plane, limited by what the government is allowed to prosecute. In a confined space, that is a bit riskier. That's a solely personal choice - no laws are being broken. The Captain has the right to ask you to conform or leave, but that's a separate issue.
People are being overly sensitive. A wifi name is not a protest. It does not disturb personal privacy and tranquility. It's about as offensive as an article titled "We’re All Gonna Die!" from your favorite news outlet - which by the way, is not an uncommon headline.
What if my wifi name was "peanut butter for all!" but unbeknownst to me and by some rare cosmic coincidence everyone on the plane was deathly allergic to peanut butter. Does that make me a terrorist? No! But I swear someone would try to drag me through decades of litigation regardless. These people seem to have divorced words and meanings from the mechanics of how the world works. Like, "this piece of paper says you shouldn't say this, so off with your head".
It's not a separate issue, because the captain very likely will err on the side of caution if he has to decide whether you are a terrorist or a nihilist.
Similar to woke/wokism, these have become words used by far right extremists and politicians around the world to name anything that is against their hatred and opinions.
To you, who made up the scenario and specified that it's not a threat, sure, it seems that way.
To the pilot of an airplane full of people whose safety he is responsible for, even a tiny probability that it might be a threat has to be paid attention to. In real life you don't get to specify what "clearly" is or is not the case. People have to make judgment calls, and in certain contexts they are going to err very strongly on the side of being safe rather than sorry.
> Being on the plane doesn't remove your right to free speech
This is not a free speech issue. This is a safety and consideration for others issue. The right to free speech does not mean the right to ignore the predictable effects that saying certain things is going to have in certain contexts. We're all supposed to be responsible adults who understand that we can't push our pet issues everywhere we go.
> We've just grown accustomed to security theater.
Easy for you to say since you're not the one responsible for the safety of a planeload of people. This is not a "security theater" issue either. You don't have the right to trumpet your pet issue everywhere you go.
What if it had been named "Teddy Ruxpin is my friend", but the pilot doesn't know whether that's a secret code for "I'm going to release aerosol sarin nerve gas on the plane"?
Should he react to all messages as if they are threats, because no matter how small the risk is, more than zero is too much?
If you can't know whether something is a threat or not, the only reasonable response is to treat it as a non-threat. Anything else leads to absurd outcomes that make it harder to protect from real threats.
>The right to free speech does not mean the right to ignore the predictable effects What are the predictable effects for the scenario in question? Please enlighten us, because most of us are apparently unable to predict those ourselves.
I'm unable to find any connection between Teddy Ruxpin and sarin gas online, so I don't see why a pilot would make such a connection. Am I missing something?
> If you can't know whether something is a threat or not, the only reasonable response is to treat it as a non-threat.
Have you ever been in a position where you were responsible for the safety of several hundred people?
> What are the predictable effects for the scenario in question?
That not turning that Bluetooth device off when told to was going to end up delaying the flight.
This thread is discussing the “Free Palestine, F Zionists” WiFi hotspot and the threat to turn it off within 30 seconds or face the FBI. Which is explicitly not a threat, whereas “BOMB” in the context of a plane is more obviously a potential threat.
I don't see that as necessarily true. I can imagine many situations where F INSERT NAME OF ENTITY would be considered threatening. If they had F the captain of this plane, would the captain be wrong to feel threatened at all?
If someone gets up and yells “F the captain”, it is reasonable to be fearful that they might act on that sentiment, but the statement itself is not a threat; not an expression of intention (or in the former case, presence of an object that is intended) to inflict evil, injury, or damage.
And I'm unable to see the connection that you're imagining in the original post. What is it? Can you explain it to me? Is the threat here in the room with us now?
The word "bomb" has a particular significance in the context of an airplane full of people who can't escape.
If you don't think it should, start your own airline and advertise that you have no problem at all with people using the word "bomb" freely aboard your planes, and see how many customers you get.
To someone whose primary consideration is safety, like the captain of an aeroplane, your logic is entirely nonsensical.
No. But he should treat messages that are blatantly intended to provoke others as such. If someone on the flight is going out of their way to cause trouble, kicking them off is the smart move.
The only issue I can see that causing is a fight. And anyone that is willing to start a fight because someone has s stupid device name should be committed because they're insane. That's crazy amounts of petty.
Freedom of speech for me not thee.
You realize that calling everyone who criticizes an ongoing genocide an antisemite isn't workable, right?
At what point did I ever mention that?
It’s a nasty antisemitic thing to say, but that’s all it is.
Only time violence is involved is when drunk American or Israeli tourists get uppity, otherwise the protestors just stand there and make noise.
Not sure about the protesters, I usually try to keep my distance to avoid hearing damage.
A threat? No.
I get my lighter through in Brazil all the time and a friend of mine got giant scissors through in Buenos Aires. It’s entirely a choice to freak out over nothing.
In most of the world you’re allowed to do outlandish things like have a beer at the mall. Or walk outside with one.
Flying is already a stressful experience - between security checks, waiting for flights, unruly passengers, super cramped seats etc. Why add more stress? Either protest seriously at an appropriate time/place or just use the airport for what it is, to go to your destination. Why get cute with ineffective methods of protest like changing WiFi name? In the end, all it achieved was hours of delay and even more stress to passengers, right?
For example I don't leave my house often, so a walking protest in the middle of a city has zero chance to reach me. HN post does.
Would you say the same if it praised Israels bravery? Honoured Charlie Kirk? Said anything you don't agree with?
I really don’t think this is an uncommon opinion.
> Does naming WiFi hotspot to reflect one’s political views achieve anything?
Does action-less speech achieve anything? Advertising, PSAs, political campaigning, etc. all indicate its value in attaining mindshare. Moreover, freedom of expression is liberating for people.
Currently signalling support for Palestine is common online. In videogames in my country (Spain) every third player has some such signal (flag or phrase). It's not a serious protest, it's a sign of belonging to group x (whatever group x is), something teens in particular are big in signalling. It's not a big deal and reacting operationally as if it were is a huge security error.
They do not, it is all woke signaling to others.
They can put a pic up on Reddit, Insta and get updoots for it from all the genz maniacs.
If you wear a PLO shal you are basically a terrorist in my eyes.
Still doesn't make it OK, though.
While I agree with you that this was obviously a ridiculous overreaction, an air plane is not a public space. It's more akin to being in someones living room in that the pilot has absolute authority over whom to kick out for whatever reason. If they don't like your hair, they can have you escorted out by police if you don't comply. They won't do it normally because it's bad PR and their employer wouldn't like it, but they could. Not free speech amendment violated.
PIC authority is strictly limited to in-scope items, this very obviously wasn’t in scope unless it was e.g. causing other passengers to behave in an unruly manner.
Also, in another reply you state, "aircrew has actual legal authority which stems from the fact that they’re aircrew."
Do your pilot credentials include an ATP cert?
If you have information to the contrary, I would like to be made aware because occasionally I have ended up stuck for hours in the air with unpleasant passengers.
Absolutely nothing to do with private property, especially considering that you can’t trespass people on a plane.
Maybe, maybe not. The Supreme Court of the USA has ruled that speech is not protected at all times and in all places. There are “time, place, and manner restrictions”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite...
I have a hard time believing courts wouldn’t side with the captain here. All they have to say is they are in charge, perceived a threat to their crew, provided a chance for resolution, and ultimately played it safe. All of which are true.
Fully agree, however consider the hotspot being called "fuck israel" on a plane half full of Hasidic Jews (the ones refusing to board because they're still praying and knocking their head against the wall, and refuse to sit next to women).
Or the hotspot's called something about Allah and porkchops on a flight to S-Arabia.
Or something about "fuck PSG" when there's 20 hooligans on board (these guys destroy their own city even when things go right for them)
Freedom of expression yes but these things are completely misplaced in that context. It's unnecessarily provocative in a tight confined space. It's a recipe for unrest during the flight, something nobody wants and the captain is right to call out.
I don't know why you've decided to explain what is a Hasidic jew in that way (or at all). However I hope you can at least understand in retrospect why describing a religious group as people who all follow some negative behavior is promoting hate towards all members of that group, regardless of their actions.
Second, you know full well such name is not a threat, neither passive no active. The reason for that being not allowed is not a threat or abundance of other options. It has nothing to do with any of that. It is just a continuation of the above strategy.
In case you missed it, it was a different incident than the one we're discussing.
>You can, and should be able to, name your WiFi hotspot anything. Even any "Free <X>, Fuck <Y>" forall X,Y
Edgy idea, bro.
Not like a certain terrorist organization[1] with Palestine Liberation in its name[1] literally pioneered armed airplane hijackings for its cause, successfully[2] performing[3] quite[4] a few[5] of[6] them[7] back in the day.
> whatever your side is you have the right to express it.
You seem to have confused an airplane for a public square.
The captain of the plane determines the extent of your rights in-flight, taking many factors into account. Including the comfort of passengers.
You ain't got no "free speech" right to blast music on your Bluetooth speaker, and the same applies to edgy Bluetooth device names which everyone on board can see.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_for_the_Liberati...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson%27s_Field_hijackings
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al_Flight_426
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_840_(1969)
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al_Flight_426
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Airways_Flight_255
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_Flight_649
And? What's your point? You're implying that a pro-Palestine WiFi network name could even slightly plausibly be interpreted as a threat to hijack an airplane? You can't be serious.
Also, the whole idea of being over backwards trying to stretch things into being interpreted as threats is absurd on its face. A threat is pretty much definitionally intended to be understood as a threat.
As a side note, why is it that in these discussions some people are so quick to equate anything critical of Israel with antisemitism, but we never see much push back in the other direction? I find your insinuation that expressing support for Palestine means you want to hijack an airplane to be wildly racist.
A zionist is someone who thinks Israel has a right to exist.
Then I am a zionist and I am white as snow.
eg: https://www.jewishcouncil.com.au/who-we-are
I can point you to threads here on HN where negative things are said about Jews and the term “Zionists” is used interchangeably with “Jews”.
Are Jew and Zionist equivalent words in your opinion?
The Jewish Council of Australia is not going to name their hotspot “F Zionists”. Ultra Orthodox Jews are not going to use swear words to express their view.
I’ll go as far as say that anyone who genuinely wants Jews and Arabs to live in peace side by side is not going to go about it with antagonistic one-sided rhetoric.
That's completely untrue and this is either bad faith or you need to go outside more.
Here, I'll say it myself: Fuck Zionism.
I have no issue with Jews. I just don't like settler colonialism.
You do with at least the 95%+ of Jews who support Jewish self-determination in the Jewish homeland. That's all Zionism is.
If you want to spew hateful dumb shit, go do it in the town square or on public property.
Airlines reserve the right to refuse serve to anyone at anytime for any reason and they’re not required to even give you a reason.
You’re literally their guest.
The First Amendment only prevents the government from penalizing your speech. It doesn't stop a private company (airline) kicking you off an airplane for something you said or did.
The PIC (Pilot In Command, aka Captain) is the final authority for the safe operation of the flight (14 CFR Part 91.3). If the Captain determines that a threat exists, they are empowered to do pretty much anything reasonable to deal with the threat. Turning the plane around and landing is certainly in the realm of "reasonable".
Whether you or somebody else who is clearly not an airline captain feel the original actions constituted a threat is pretty much irrelevant.
Signed, airline captain.
I don't care what your politics are, that is not a reasonable nor credible threat. If there was a credible threat the conversation would be different, but it is a tacky political statement.
The bluetooth device's name was BOMB. We're trained to treat even vague threats seriously.
The captain in this case is in a terrible situation. Do nothing, get pilloried for not taking action. Turn around, get pilloried for that.
I hope I'm never in this position because there are really no good options. All of you making comments have not been in this position, and were not there at the time with the information the captain had access to, and so are not in a position to judge the decision.
> Turning the plane around and landing is certainly in the realm of "reasonable".
Agreed. But doing it without the FBI threat would also be in the realm of reasonable. Which, it could be argued, means that making the FBI threat was unreasonable, or at least very close to it.
Beyond a certain point, even a PIC can cry wolf.
Our training is to treat even vague threats seriously.
It really does break both ways. Over-reacting to perceived threats has a cost too.
Warning - semi-political (but hopefully non-partisan) political content ahead: This is the same thing the FDA does with drug approvals. They are overwhelmingly biased toward preventing bad drugs that they prevent access to a lot of things that could help. Studies show that the FDA's difference between up-side and down-side risk costs a lot of lives on net. For example, the FDA delayed the approval of beta-blockers (used to prevent second heart attacks) for several years after they were widely available and saving lives in Europe. Analysts estimate that this delay alone cost tens of thousands of American lives.
Sometimes, accepting a risk provides the greatest net benefit.
Y'know, if America didn't treat intercity passenger rail like garbage, we wouldn't be having this problem...
You seem overconfident. For one thing, someone getting a Bluetooth signal has absolutely no confidence the device is genuinely only a speaker. For another, it is entirely possible that a nefarious actor could screw up and forget to turn off a wireless transmitter.
Can you imagine if the threat was real and news came out that the Bluetooth device name literally said what it was? People right here would be mocking the personnel for being so stupid that they ignored literally what was written in front of them.
> Though some have questioned why anyone intending to blow up a plane would broadcast the word bomb, many terrorist acts have relied on the threat of a bomb as leverage during attempted hijackings or hostage situations.
It makes sense from the perspective of zero tolerance. Any mention or reference is perceived as a threat regardless of additional actions taken.
Of course not!
That's what they'd name their bluetooth bomb.
Two comments.
If they did and no one took any action people would be asking for their (authority's) blood because they would look really stupid.
If terrorist are intelligent wouldn't they be doing exactly what is not expected of them.
This is modern version of Pascal's wager, a bad game theoretic outcome.
Your example of 150ml liquids has no connection to this security measure nor incident either. That's just a straw man.
That sounds terrible. Please get me the manager.
Planes traditionally have avoided certain kinds of movies and such to avoid creating panic in the cabin. Here every passenger is looking at their phone, and if one guy makes the obvious “there’s a bomb on the plane” joke, the captain/crew could be in a situation.
Crowd management is essential to crew safety and crowd safety.
It's still stupid, but they are imagining the news:
> This guy said "it's probably fine" right before Flight 1337 explodes over the Atlantic.
Now personally I'd actually be willing to take that risk: the odds are so overwhelmingly in favor of it being a dumb prank; you might as well refuse to take a shower for fear of slipping on the soap.
But all it takes is one person up the chain of command to say "this would be bad PR" and you've lost your job.
Because the alternative is a nebulous fog of war where safety decisions are mood, situation, experience, and personality influenced when they shouldn’t be. And when accidents happen we only have difficult to interpret decisions to trace back to. The decisions have to be brainless and black and white.
Could the black and white rules be better? Maybe yes. Then let’s change them carefully.
But I do believe the rules should be black and white, and I personally in this light truly don’t mind I can’t name my Bluetooth device bomb, and I can’t say bomb or joke about having a bomb, no matter how obvious it is that I don’t have one, if that’s the current black and white rules.
Yes
They're threatening to blow up an airliner or actually doing so to hit the news. 911 terrorists had blades, bomb jackets (whether these things are actual doesn't matter, saying you have them is enough), and eventually destroyed the tallest towers in NY and part of Pentagon and erased themselves while committing the crime
The point of terrorism is to be visible, dramatic and cause teror. It's not to get a stealth award for hacking the coupon system at the shop and get away with it
A bomb (real or not) planted by terrorists or hijackers is meant to be eventually known one way or another. It's the point
I agree with you... that's exactly what makes this situation so ludicrous. I'm not sure that an ambiguous, vaguely menacing Bluetooth device name is really going to do the trick.
Indeed it's so dumb that even in the extraordinarily unlikely event that it really was intended as a threat, you can still quite safely ignore it. I rather suspect that if someone wants to make a threat they won't just throw up their hands in despair because nobody bothered checking their Bluetooth pairing settings page. They'll actually communicate their threat to someone in a less ambiguous way.
No one sane would also name a Bluetooth device like that
But yeah, they didn't go for the closest airport either
Yes, this was a huge reaction to something that was almost certainly benign, but "almost certainly" isn't an acceptable risk for 100s of people in an explosive flying cylinder. It truly sucks, there maybe can be better procedures, but "100s of people majorly inconvenienced" is better than "100s of people dead in fireball."
That doesn't seem like a smart precedent to set.
Some industries just have trigger words to avoid.
To your point about a terrorist not naming the phone "bomb," I can foresee exactly that happening. Someone building a remotely triggered explosive device has a considerable incentive to not blow themselves up. Part of the safety behavior in that scenario could indeed include clearly naming the device "BOMB" or similar and then forgetting to rename it before sending it out the door.
Told to turn it off and refused to do so. Why are you defending the selfish little prick?
Plus there is an overall assumption here that the owner of a Fitbit knows that the device nickname is visible to anyone, and not just themselves.
These things are certainly not at all obvious in an app-centric bluetooth device context.
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.
But to turn an entire flight around because of a Bluetooth device name? How does that make any rational sense?
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?
I argue that P is unchanged. I’d be interested if anyone disagrees with this assessment.
Given the probability is unchanged, why do anything?
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
That’s not a time and place.
Was this LLM-driven development? I'm so glad that phase is over.
[1] Susan Kare https://kare.com/ at EG8 (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlb77dDHIXQ&t=273s
"I designed this image [unhappy Macintosh] and this bomb because I was told they would never be seen by anyone! So I thought I could be a little irreverent. But unfortunately, that was not the case."
"The programmers truly thought at the time that they would be deeply hidden. I know that right after the Mac shipped we were in our software area and a call came in fielded through Apple and it was a woman who was using MacWrite, and it had crashed, and she was afraid her computer was going to blow up! So, I felt kinda bad!"
Transcript from http://jimrattray.net/blog/2014/7/1/on-designing-an-iconic-b... .
Similarly there are various things like Aviation English for actual live comms, though they have less specifity, not to that level.
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
https://www.asd-ste100.org/
Feeling very proud. That compsci degree finally paid off
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.
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.
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...
There was a time when their advice for travels to the US of A was to not tell TSA or law enforcement that you had a bomb in your bag, as it wasn't funny anymore and they would not take it as a joke
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.
Wtf?
I can understand a bomb, but this is just free speech.
They have the last words on these events.
edit: you never go full jim bell
- communicate in English (because apparently even ancient Romans speak perfect English)
- name the device “bomb”
I remember I was not allowed to use a laptop with a CD or DVD attached.
Now you have internet on board.
Calling over the cellular network has been prohibited since time immemorial. What the parent comment is talking about is carriers also prohibiting making calls over airplane-supplied WiFi.
You can't, for example, join a Zoom meeting, or use your phone's built-in WiFi calling ability, on a typical flight nowadays, for better or for worse.
But the chances are high, they do lose their job if they don't (and/or potentially lose their life as well).
It's that simple.
(regardless of how dumb/overreaction some might view this as)
Would have been so much simpler.
That is just nutty. Are we now actively participating in the genocide?
I consider posts like this larp/ragebait by default unless there's any actual evidence of that happening (like the flight being aborted in this case).
The US has provided over 310 billion (not inflation adjusted) in military funding to Israel since the Nakba. So I’d consider “participating” a strong understatement.
America is basically Israeli's puppet at this point, can't let bad words being said about their masters
Better to scan baggage for the actual, ya know, bombs. Fine people joking about bombs verbally or written sure.
Also if they really thought there the plan was going to explode any moment they would have ditched in the ocean or at least diverted to the nearest airport. They didn’t because there was no danger except to their jobs.
> Though some have questioned why anyone intending to blow up a plane would broadcast the word bomb, many terrorist acts have relied on the threat of a bomb as leverage during attempted hijackings or hostage situations.
For aircrew, not following company SOPs is the express route to getting fired.
However, I don't understand this part:
> flight attendant told passengers over the PA system that they "must turn off Bluetooth immediately," or else the aircraft would have to turn around.
If there's a BOMB, turning off Bluetooth won't make it much safer. I mean, a turned-off bomb is probably safer than a turned-on bomb, but it's still a bomb.
Pilots: "Phew, BOMB is now turned off. It's absolutely safe to continue flying. Thank you for your cooperation, passengers and terrorist(s)."
<https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...>
And the relevant CFR: <https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C...>.
(TIL)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzzg3q1YuUE
What about non emergency situations such as, say, an objectional (to some) device name on a network?
I can't help but wonder would any of this happened had the device been named "Bomb" in Farsi using unicode.
Il nome della rosa - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose
If the story had been "Bomb detonated on plane after bluetooth name sparks alert" then it would've been more than just objectionable
The point of turning Bluetooth off or having to turn around the aircraft was to follow the airline's rules on terrorism, which likely tell them to abort a flight route if there's any symbol that could be interpreted as a bomb.
The captains were risking their jobs if they didn't follow this stupid request. This is a good case for getting common-sense exceptions to checklist-style rules.
Can you name your phone “not a bomb”?
And the "Free Palestine, F zionists" that made a return to ramp.
I shouldn't be surprised of the security by obscurity of the aviation industry after seeing it for 10+ years, but still am.
Remember the 737 Max guy. And the likes.
Of FFS.
If that’s the case the teen likely just owned the device and didn’t knot it was turned on. It’s rather long battery and it’s not obvious if it’s on or not.
Aditionally the order given by the crew (turning off bluetooth) would have done no results as most people would simply assume turning off bluetooth on their smartphone/videogame console/laptop and wouldn't know how to do that on anything else.
The comments ont that link are completely crazy, I read about jail time or even death penalty.
As can be seen in the naming treatment + the comments on that article + comments here. But also can be seen in various other places.
In fact, it has already happened to a degree where we see these lagging(!) indicators pop up. So wherever we currently stand is further than those. To which degree though I couldn't say.
Plan/act accordingly.
It's palpable in the comment sections of many corporate news outlets, as well as on reddit.
Unless there's evidence that this pattern of comments is from real biological humans, I see no reason to presume that it is.
Tinfoil hat on.
In the past few years, whenever I hear United on the news its not because they did something “good”.
Perhaps the joke is irresponsible on my behalf potentially causing unnecessary stress for whomever is directly or indirectly scanning my device...
..but on the other hand, if this person can't see the joke, perhaps they shouldn't have access to scanning devices.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts?
Cheers
When we had the IRA active in the UK everyone would be proud to carry on as normal after any incident, to show that life would go on as normal despite their efforts. This doesn't seem normal.
However, that is also not the actual goal. There is no true threat. No one actually believes that it would be a bomb.
The goal is compliance and to train people to self-police each other.
___
Good new torment nexus idea though. Just litter the plane with BLE antennas and triangulate exactly who it is that is having wrong thoughts.
We'll be seeing it 1-5y from now
At the same time, some people in the comments under the article are more or less calling for the death penalty for the kid...
Equivocating and straw-manning only weaken your argument.
Do we want this kind of thing to happen again? The kid was 16, ok. The columbine shooters were 17.
Throw the book at him, he should have known better.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say you probably don’t have kids. If your teenager got in trouble for a messed up “joke” like this and the result was a criminal proceeding where they’re tried as an adult you’d be (rightfully) crying that it’s too much.
Also what does columbine have to do with this? Unless your implication is that any kid around the age of 17 should be treated as a potential school shooter.
What book!? The book of laws that outlaw jokes in bad taste potentially made years ago, outside the context of air travel altogether, only to be forgotten about and accidentally brought into the context of air travel where one can conceivably think of laws that make those jokes problematic?
Come on!
Weird how you want kids to be punished for stupid mistakes. If you drive, you probably put more people lives in danger last week than that kids fitness tracker. When you speed, you put lives in danger (statistical fact, none of that “but I am good driver crap”) — will you ask for the death penalty if a cop sees you going 1mph over?
Or do you only want strong punishment for others as is usually the case with such opinions?
Mind you, this gets harder when powerful people have got in the habit of making mostly-joking threats on social media themselves.
The commenters' status as people (I presume here you mean biological humans) seems unlikely to me.
* police/prison/statist notions of justice * auto industry / auto-first infra * both pro- and anti-israel * pro-IP / copyright industrial complex
There are a bunch more. Maybe it's a shift in actual human sentiment, but without evidence, I don't think it makes sense for that to be the first presumption.
Fortunately, we're gonna get this here web-o-trust thing going in the next 10 years or so and not have to doubt who the humans are anymore. Riiight?
Take a step back. You yourself describe it as a joke. Are you really saying that the quality of the joke ("awful") should result in the origin of the joke (a kid, even!) should be banned from a major air carrier for 10 years? Does this really seem like a proportional response?
And this doesn't even begin to consider another possibility: the device was named what it was named in a completely different setting, and the owner just forgot about it. That makes it not even a joke, just forgetfulness.
Was any of this a good idea? No, probably not, but people need to calm down.
I can understand the safety concern - and I think the decision to turn around was ultimately the right call. Especially given that they had called for people turning off BT for some time.
The fact that the device was not turned off suggests to me that the owner did not know they were the cause of this. If they had done this by intent and were set on going through with it even after the turnaround was initiated, they would have also had the sense to drop the device into some other seat or leave it in the lavatory...
If it turns out they did this with full intent, there should be some _appropriate_ consequence
Sure, if evidence is uncovered of the guy say telling his friends "haha, I'm gonna make them turn the plane around", I can get behind the baying for consequences.
We're nowhere near that. There's plenty of non-nefarious ways this could all have come about, and people need to put down their pitchforks.
I don't, and I think it fits what Bruce Schneier called "Cover Your Ass" security (he was referring to the equally stupid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic)
It sounds like a fantastic DDoS opportunity, you could shut down an entire nation's aviation just by putting a few tiny bluetooth transmitters in places that air passengers might accidentally pick them up. The attack relies entirely on the overreaction to non-threats by ignorant buffoons in positions of authority.
Personally, I think the airline and its policies should be publicly ridiculed. If we don't punish the airline for doing this, and make unequivocably clear that it did the wrong thing, that its "what ifs" are meaningless and bluetooth/wifi channel names are not a security threat, then this nonsense will just continue.
Needless to say, we use the full "Bill of materials" phrase when anyone on the call is at the airport or travelling in general.
I had to call in a BOM threat.
Don't need to actually get explosives on board, just a bluetooth device. Manage to get 10 planes at once, and you've got a nice bit of chaos on your hands.
Wonder how easy it'd be to reverse pickpocket some fitbits into jackets left laying around before you catch your flight to a 'non-aligned country'.
Could cause lots of havoc with pre-planted speakers, too. Setting off random sirens at maximum volume, telling people to evacuate, etc. I wonder what the security solution would be if people started causing terror via text and sound.
Or can the name be retrieved even when they're not broadcasting it?
Bomba means Firemen in Malay.
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/fire-engine-photos.com/43...
https://apicms.thestar.com.my/uploads/images/2025/10/10/3563...
Now troublemakers have new way to make travelling even more stressful.
Did someone update fly by wire to run on 2.4Ghz BLE or something? What is even the deal with airplane mode?
Needless drama.
"Wife is on the plane. Guy had a speaker named bomb. He just confessed to it. He said he named it forever ago and forgot about it. He’s 16 years old. Wife’s friend is sitting next to him as they are questioning him."
https://www.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/1tsfu8y/emer...
At some point we need to start asking hard questions about when to charge administrators and staff for creating false alarms.