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United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

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

#471

Post by dap »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #358
drew870mitchell wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Is it a taboo, or is it just reserving specific words to mean specific things and insist everybody be precise about it?

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

#472

Post by dap »

bugufu8f83 wrote: post #452
dap wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#473

Post by MobiusHorizons »

virgil_disgr4ce wrote: post #460
anigbrowl wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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!

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.

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

#474

Post by linkregister »

15155 wrote: post #441
vl wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

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.

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.

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

#475

Post by mancerayder »

godelski wrote: post #379
Eridrus wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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…

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.

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

#476

Post by hliyan »

neilv wrote: post #178

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 extr…

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".

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

#477

Post by linkregister »

HDBaseT wrote: post #389
lostlogin wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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

#478

Post by frankacter »

bugufu8f83 wrote: post #452
dap wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

>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.

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

#479

Post by mlyle »

godelski wrote: post #387
mlyle wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ag…

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.

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