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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

#881
post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> 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…

Big reaction that misses the nuance in what I said. Can you read the sentence after the one you quoted?

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

#882
post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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):

https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...>

And the relevant CFR: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C...>.

(TIL)

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

#883

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Even more you have to actively seek it out to even see it. These people are looking for ways to get triggered.

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 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

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

#884

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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?

  > 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)

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2024...

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

#885
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…

What do they call a software crash? Rapid unscheduled termination?

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.

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

#886

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…

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 perso…

  > 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.

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

#887
post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsolicited Dirty pictures via a protocol which is easy to disable (and rarely used anyway) vs getting punched in the face or shanked? Really?

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.

Grouping them together is the absurd part.

The unsolicited dick pic is gross, but not even in the same category as the other stuff.

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

#888

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Racist? Yes.

A threat? No.

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

#889

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…

> 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…

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.

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

#890
post #518

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…

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.

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