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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

#521

Post by steele »

driverdan wrote: post #490
Balgair wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings 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…

> the latest occurring in 2000 26 years ago. That is not a current thing and isn't relevant.

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.

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

#522

Post by hunter2_ »

pesus wrote: post #466
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…

> 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?

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!

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

#523

Post by kqp »

da_chicken wrote: post #487
mancerayder wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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.

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

#524

Post by dhosek »

PaulStatezny wrote: post #432
dhosek wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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!

Arg, that’s what I get for typing on my phone

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

#525

Post by godelski »

srean wrote: post #518
godelski wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 poten…

  > 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.

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

#526

Post by somewhatgoated »

jim33442 wrote: post #382
HDBaseT wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

See this excellent gwern article: https://gwern.net/terrorism-is-not-about-terror

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

#527

Post by akudha »

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…

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?

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

#528

Post by steele »

anigbrowl wrote: post #451
godelski wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

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.

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

#529

Post by hunter2_ »

sixothree wrote: post #513
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 idi…

I presume a passenger reported it. And the pilot was not allowed to ignore it.

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.

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

#530

Post by vkou »

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…

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.

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