Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I've never heard of that before, is it common behavior?
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United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
271–280 of 1001 posts
Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
#272I 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 extr…
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Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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:
https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_closes_Wik...
Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Turning it off would have solved the bureaucratic problem for flight crew. Sadly, the passengers (collectively) failed to accomplish this basic task.
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.)
Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
#275I 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 extr…
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.
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.
Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
#276And terrorists will:
- communicate in English (because apparently even ancient Romans speak perfect English)
- name the device “bomb”
Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would a terrorist want to plant a Bluetooth device on someone else's bag when all it would accomplish is a minor delay of one flight and would result in a prison sentence after security camera review??
Remember: Kim Jong-Un’s brother was not killed directly by North Korean goons. They hired two women they convinced they were working on a prank show to spray him with the poisons. You’d do something like that.
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.
Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
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,…
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, demandi…
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.
Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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 contribut…
A "system where people can feed facts" already exists. It's WikiData. Why involve money and credentialism into this?
Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
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,…
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…
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.