Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

simpleflying.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 1001 posts

Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

#381

Post by HDBaseT »

jim33442 wrote: post #315
rayiner wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’…

Every other country seems to do the same thing though

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.

Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

#382

Post by jim33442 »

HDBaseT wrote: post #381
jim33442 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every other country seems to do the same thing though

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.

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.

Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

#383

Post by f_allwein »

dualvariable wrote: post #283
abejfehr wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just found the theory referenced on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/KidsAreFuckingStupid/comments/1tsts...

> 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.

Also, who carries a Bluetooth speaker on a plane? And for what purpose?

Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

#384

Post by carlostkd »

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?

Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

#385

Post by HDBaseT »

jMyles wrote: post #331
thrownthatway wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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 unde…

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.

Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

#386

Post by HDBaseT »

Stratoscope wrote: post #267
samgranieri wrote: post #9

A 16 year boy apparently named his Bluetooth speaker “bomb” and couldn’t turn it off, as it was probably in checked luggage. Woof.

> 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." https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/portable-electronic-devi...

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).

Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

#387

Post by godelski »

mlyle wrote: post #288
Zak wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 d…

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.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_airliner_bombing_a...

Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

#389

Post by HDBaseT »

lostlogin wrote: post #118
richstokes wrote: post #95

Andddd now everyone knows that an arbitrary text string in a device hostname is enough to ground a flight.

The other incident mentioned is worse I think. It wasn’t a potential threat, it was stating an opinion. “a Wi-Fi hotspot named "Free Palestine, F Zionists" prompted the pilot to issue a warning to the cabin, telling the passenger responsible that they had "30 seconds" to remove the name or the FBI would meet the aircraft.”

Genuine question, what could the FBI actually do?

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?

Re: United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

#390

Post by xboxnolifes »

peddling-brink wrote: post #359
DanielHB wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 /…

> 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.

Over? Hello person from the future, may I ask when this phase ends?
Post reply on HN