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samgranieri 4 hours ago [-]
A 16 year boy apparently named his Bluetooth speaker “bomb” and couldn’t turn it off, as it was probably in checked luggage. Woof.
jeroenhd 4 hours ago [-]
You can't rename most Bluetooth speakers. "Bomb" was the name the selling brand gave the speaker.
By making everyone turn off their Bluetooth, the kid whose speaker had turned on probably couldn't even see the device broadcasting the name. People linked to one by a company made Hellotec but Hama has a similarly named device, and plenty of other speaker manufacturers try to make a pun out of "boombox" by naming their devices "bomb" (iJoy, ZEB-MUSIC, and presumably other such brands).
Maybe if someone asked the passengers if anyone knew about this "bomb" Bluetooth device the kid would've remembered, but in this case I can't blame them. On the other hand, asking passengers if they know something about a bomb is probably the quickest way to cause a panic.
The entire thing seems like a ridiculous overreaction. What kind of terrorist would call their bomb "bomb"? This is "Al Qaeda Free WiFi" all over again.
Those new obfuscated links prevent old.reddit to work.
Is there a way for you to post proper direct links?
bayesianbot 6 minutes ago [-]
You can modify your regex to only match when it's not a shortened url - then the short one will redirect to the real www.reddit.com address, before the redirect matches.
(Don't have the correct regex on hand right now, as I changed browsers and decided to use Old reddit redirect extension instead of scripting, but it worked in my previous browser)
You can click on any of the links and replace "www" in the url with "old", then you'll have things more or less like how it used to be.
em-bee 2 hours ago [-]
to do that you have to open the link in new reddit first to expand it, then change it to old reddit. if you use a tool that automatically replaces www.reddit.com with old.reddit.com the shortened links break.
tehwebguy 2 hours ago [-]
For now!
ValentineC 3 hours ago [-]
> Those new obfuscated links prevent old.reddit to work.
Can't you just set the old theme in your profile? That's what I do.
em-bee 2 hours ago [-]
only if you actually log in. not everyone does.
3 hours ago [-]
Bender 4 hours ago [-]
People prank others all the time with goofy names [1] (2014) So are we at the point where that will change and devices will have to just assign random sanitized dictionary names? "Connect to my 'apple horse bunny farm'" There are programs that can flood an area with tens of thousands of fake access points (scapy-fakeap). Or thousands of drones for that matter. [2]
> a flight attendant told passengers over the PA system that they "must turn off Bluetooth immediately," or else the aircraft would have to turn around.
So if the person just takes back their bomb threat everything is ok? Or did they think the terrorist labeled their Bluetooth bomb “bomb” and this would disable it?
thih9 4 hours ago [-]
I guess they assumed there were two scenarios:
1. It was unintentional; someone had a bluetooth device called BOMB for some reason that made sense before boarding the plane. They would turn it off.
2. It was intentional; someone wanted to send a warning and chose this channel - they would leave the device on.
stefan_ 4 hours ago [-]
3. The level of tech illiteracy combined with airplane security theater is an affront to all thinking people.
kube-system 14 minutes ago [-]
4. A normal level of risk aversion in one of the most risk averse industries
If airlines ignored every threat that was “probably not” a real threat, they’d ignore all of them. It’s better to inconvenience a few thousand passengers than it is to kill a few hundred.
This is wildly inaccurate to the point of being dangerous advice. The goal during a bomb threat call is generally not to challenge, mock, or provoke the caller into a reaction. It is to keep the caller talking for as long as possible and gather information that could help assess the threat and assist law enforcement or security. There is no reliable rule that says a "real terrorist" will hang up if laughed at or that a hoax caller will stay on the line. People making threats behave in many different ways and simplistic tests like this are not a dependable way to determine whether a threat is real.
root-parent 28 minutes ago [-]
Looking at the deluge of downvotes, is the clearest example of what is worst with this community. Hardly no argument, no analysis, just social suppression.
The claim was not "ignore threats" and naturally execution matters. The claim was that threat making, and threat execution, are different behaviors. I provided a real example, of a real powerful mechanism of assessment. This was standard threat assessment logic using the best street smarts, that many here clearly lack.
Howlers use the threat as the weapon, while Hunters avoid warning because warning destroys surprise. The terrorist will hang up because the does not care about you, and the threat is real, the joker only power, is the strength of his bluff, so he will be have to reinforce it, specially if met with incredulity...
"All threats must be taken seriously" is politically correct, dont-sue-me, standard operating procedure...not reasoning. It is the safe corporate answer people repeat, when they cannot distinguish procedure from analysis.
Downvoting that distinction instead of engaging with it is cowardice with a ui button. I dont like your opinion, so let me just me muffle your mouth... Instead of engaging with the question: I am dealing with a Howler performing a threat, or a Hunter preparing an attack? Most here went for procedure substituted for thought, and social disapproval substituted for argument.
You are supposed to take every threat as real. Which is also why calling in a fake threat is considered a big federal crime to deter clowns.
jamwil 4 hours ago [-]
I was talking about this with someone the other day… How many real terrorism threats have been preceded by the terrorist telegraphing their intentions with a phone call beforehand? My prior is that this number is essentially 0 and we should ignore bomb threats as a society.
Probably not super common but it does happen from time to time.
And imagine ignoring a bomb threat and then it's real, you probably would not want to be responsible for that.
robrain 3 hours ago [-]
The IRA (Irish terrorists, for Americans confused at the acronym, or maybe confused at what the IRA did) did occasionally phone warnings and occasionally the information was accurate. Code words were used to authenticate the threat.
roryirvine 2 hours ago [-]
The PIRA actually do seem to have intended to give accurate warnings when they planted bombs, in Belfast at least. There were inevitably cases when the information was garbled or misunderstood but the use of codewords & the practice of delivering the warnings to a known set of media outlets was at least an attempt to minimise these.
The downside was that the vast majority of warnings were hoaxes - bomb scares were dozens of times more common than actual bombs.
The other main groups - INLA, UVF, and UFF/UDA also got in on the hoax game, but didn't often do real bombs (and didn't always give proper warnings when they did - see the UVF's Dublin & Monaghan bombings for a particularly grim example).
But real bombs were just common enough that the hoaxes from whatever source had to be taken seriously and so they caused huge amounts of disruption, probably more than anything that actually exploded.
hoppyhoppy2 3 hours ago [-]
The Weather Underground often warned the targets of their bombings via phone call. (I guess their goal was to attack gov't institutions and make a political statement, not to kill lots of people.) This was in the late '60s-'70s.
SteveNuts 3 hours ago [-]
Logically that probably makes sense, but it would require everyone in the chain of command agreeing to that policy, and there’s no way that would ever happen from a liability standpoint.
rndmio 3 hours ago [-]
The IRA bombs in civilian areas in the uk almost always had phone calls that preceded the bombs going off.
opengrass 23 minutes ago [-]
Why would it land in New York instead of St John?
dboreham 13 seconds ago [-]
Better food and theater.
IamCompliant 22 minutes ago [-]
This feels like one of those rare stories where everyone involved probably overreacted a little, but you can also understand why nobody wanted to be the person who ignored it.
These phones should have limits of how much you can use the tech...
wartywhoa23 4 hours ago [-]
Oh gosh, sure, terrorists always name their devices "bomb" in the open.
puttycat 3 hours ago [-]
What a usability nightmare this site is: 3-4 popups before I could even read the title. No thank you.
And this is with an adblocker turned on.
Don't these sites realize how many users they're losing?
sammy2255 4 hours ago [-]
IM THE BOMB AND ABOUT TO BLOW UPPPPPPPP
outside1234 3 hours ago [-]
Someone needs to explain to me how the name of a Bluetooth device has any bearing on anything. Isn’t the real security not letting a bomb on the plane?
Also, now anyone who wants to disrupt a flight can switch their WiFi or Bluetooth name to Bomb or “Free Palestine” and the flight gets disrupted? Get out of here.
eudamoniac 2 hours ago [-]
Even if you discount the possibility of an intentional threat as silly, this could have been a warning from someone under duress. Turning around was the right move.
alfiedotwtf 4 hours ago [-]
> "Free Palestine, F Zionists"
Does the FBI usually get involved when someone says these words in public in the US?
stego-tech 4 hours ago [-]
Not directly, no, but they’ll build a file for what they consider extremist views. Just look back to the Civil Rights Movement era for the list of things people said that would get them an FBI file - we have a long and storied history of surveilling anyone and everyone who says things that go against what political power desires.
That being said, I do think any cabin crew pitching a fit over such a hotspot name is absolutely in the wrong. That’s not a threat, that’s personal opinion, and it’s not the hotspot owner’s fault the crew conflates Zionist ideology specifically with Jewish Faith in general like an ignorant fool.
4 hours ago [-]
4 hours ago [-]
alfiedotwtf 53 minutes ago [-]
“Free Palestine” isn’t exactly fringe. In fact, outside America and Israel, I’d bet it’s the default stance
throw3580494 6 minutes ago [-]
Something can be a “virtuous” statement while still being an expression of hatred.
Someone shouting “free Palestine” at random Jews in Europe, for example, is just being an antisemite.
chimeracoder 13 minutes ago [-]
> “Free Palestine” isn’t exactly fringe. In fact, outside America and Israel, I’d bet it’s the default stance
That's certainly not true in many European countries
4 hours ago [-]
hluska 4 hours ago [-]
An aircraft is not really public. The Captain and FO have a tremendous amount of power they can wield to make sure a flight passes without incident. A plane is not the place to make statements.
Granted though, the FBI didn’t actually get involved. But why let facts get in the way of rage?
alfiedotwtf 56 minutes ago [-]
> A plane is not the place to make statements
Sounds like they should only be made in freedom designated zones a-la Bush-Cheney
fortran77 4 hours ago [-]
The "Palestinian" movement _invented_ airplane hijacking.
Which is kind of ironic, considering modern terrorism was basically an invention of the Zionist movement in Palestine.
Cyph0n 4 hours ago [-]
And when was the last time such a hijacking took place outside of so-called “Israel”?
hluska 4 hours ago [-]
> so-called “Israel”
What’s with the ‘so-called’? That’s what the country is called. Israel. But I’m not sure that you’re aware but there was a really big one 25 years ago this coming September. Maybe you heard of it?
Cyph0n 2 hours ago [-]
u/fortran77 used the phrase so-called “Palestinian” movement (slightly edited since), so I simply responded with the same rhetoric :)
Of course, I somehow doubt that you would have a similarly strong reaction when Palestine is erased.
msla 7 minutes ago [-]
No evidence of that, of course, but your comment stands.
2 hours ago [-]
kennywinker 3 hours ago [-]
No that was because they hate our freedom, not because of decades of occupation and war all over the middle east funded by US taxpayer dollars.
"Airplane hijackings have occurred since the early days of flight. ...Pre-1929, 1929–1957, 1958–1979, 1980–2000, and 2001–present."
"...Between 1958 and 1967, there were approximately 40 hijackings worldwide..According to the FAA, in the 1960s, there were 100 attempts of hijackings involving U.S. aircraft: 77 successful and 23 unsuccessful....
"..In a five-year period (1968–1972) the world experienced 326 hijack attempts, or one every 5.6 days.."
And your conclusion is "Palestinian" movement (that you wrote between quotes)...invented airplane hijacking?
esseph 4 hours ago [-]
The government of Israel has more freedom of speech and control over the US than voting citizens do.
ajross 4 hours ago [-]
Not sure why this is downvoted. This was an example from the same article.
And the answer is that the FBI wasn't involved. That was a threat the pilot made, which comes psychologically from the same place as terrorist bomb threats (and also "eat your vegetables or you'll die early" parenting). You want to control someone's behavior so you threaten maximalist retaliation.
tjpnz 4 hours ago [-]
In the UK you can get arrested for saying less.
isoprophlex 4 hours ago [-]
Imagine getting your jimmies this rustled over expressing antipathy for a genocidal regime, and sympathy for an oppressed people.
sbayg 3 hours ago [-]
Cognitive dissonance can explain a lot. If you don’t think the current regime is genocidal (whatever that even means) then you might get very concerned that anybody who says it is genocidal is a dangerous lunatic or terrorist sympathizer. Even saying something obviously truthful like “there are good people on both sides” becomes a threatening provocation. Hate is a system.
piokoch 3 hours ago [-]
... I can't believe what I am reading...
"Bluetooth speaker name had been set to a "four-letter word, [...] BOMB".
Luckily, it wasn't named "Nuclear Bomb from Cuba" because US Authorities would not have other choice than to nuke Cuba.
Seriously? What those people are doing when they see a fence with "ASS" painted on it? Do they believe that too?
By making everyone turn off their Bluetooth, the kid whose speaker had turned on probably couldn't even see the device broadcasting the name. People linked to one by a company made Hellotec but Hama has a similarly named device, and plenty of other speaker manufacturers try to make a pun out of "boombox" by naming their devices "bomb" (iJoy, ZEB-MUSIC, and presumably other such brands).
Maybe if someone asked the passengers if anyone knew about this "bomb" Bluetooth device the kid would've remembered, but in this case I can't blame them. On the other hand, asking passengers if they know something about a bomb is probably the quickest way to cause a panic.
The entire thing seems like a ridiculous overreaction. What kind of terrorist would call their bomb "bomb"? This is "Al Qaeda Free WiFi" all over again.
That, or they're such a small business that they never expected one of their random products to be HN hugged to death.
Real time insights from not one, but 9, redditors on the flight.
Main post: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/57lugEMhxl
All the redditors on board: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/Fh2KoqG4SY
A passenger with a hilariously illtimed username: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/W86tRI6ZVf
Is there a way for you to post proper direct links?
(Don't have the correct regex on hand right now, as I changed browsers and decided to use Old reddit redirect extension instead of scripting, but it worked in my previous browser)
> All the redditors on board: https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...
> A passenger with a hilariously illtimed username: https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...
Can't you just set the old theme in your profile? That's what I do.
[1] - https://observer.com/2014/03/park-slope-kiddie-shop-hunts-fo...
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jn_6EmYxE
So if the person just takes back their bomb threat everything is ok? Or did they think the terrorist labeled their Bluetooth bomb “bomb” and this would disable it?
1. It was unintentional; someone had a bluetooth device called BOMB for some reason that made sense before boarding the plane. They would turn it off.
2. It was intentional; someone wanted to send a warning and chose this channel - they would leave the device on.
If airlines ignored every threat that was “probably not” a real threat, they’d ignore all of them. It’s better to inconvenience a few thousand passengers than it is to kill a few hundred.
The claim was not "ignore threats" and naturally execution matters. The claim was that threat making, and threat execution, are different behaviors. I provided a real example, of a real powerful mechanism of assessment. This was standard threat assessment logic using the best street smarts, that many here clearly lack.
Howlers use the threat as the weapon, while Hunters avoid warning because warning destroys surprise. The terrorist will hang up because the does not care about you, and the threat is real, the joker only power, is the strength of his bluff, so he will be have to reinforce it, specially if met with incredulity...
"All threats must be taken seriously" is politically correct, dont-sue-me, standard operating procedure...not reasoning. It is the safe corporate answer people repeat, when they cannot distinguish procedure from analysis.
Downvoting that distinction instead of engaging with it is cowardice with a ui button. I dont like your opinion, so let me just me muffle your mouth... Instead of engaging with the question: I am dealing with a Howler performing a threat, or a Hunter preparing an attack? Most here went for procedure substituted for thought, and social disapproval substituted for argument.
"Threat Assessment and Management Strategies: Identifying the Howlers and Hunters" -https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/4183175-threat-assess...
Two: https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nye/pr/2012/2012nov08.h...
Three (not sure if the caller was the one planting the bomb here): https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/01/bomb-aimed-a...
Probably not super common but it does happen from time to time. And imagine ignoring a bomb threat and then it's real, you probably would not want to be responsible for that.
The downside was that the vast majority of warnings were hoaxes - bomb scares were dozens of times more common than actual bombs.
The other main groups - INLA, UVF, and UFF/UDA also got in on the hoax game, but didn't often do real bombs (and didn't always give proper warnings when they did - see the UVF's Dublin & Monaghan bombings for a particularly grim example).
But real bombs were just common enough that the hoaxes from whatever source had to be taken seriously and so they caused huge amounts of disruption, probably more than anything that actually exploded.
These phones should have limits of how much you can use the tech...
Don't these sites realize how many users they're losing?
Also, now anyone who wants to disrupt a flight can switch their WiFi or Bluetooth name to Bomb or “Free Palestine” and the flight gets disrupted? Get out of here.
Does the FBI usually get involved when someone says these words in public in the US?
That being said, I do think any cabin crew pitching a fit over such a hotspot name is absolutely in the wrong. That’s not a threat, that’s personal opinion, and it’s not the hotspot owner’s fault the crew conflates Zionist ideology specifically with Jewish Faith in general like an ignorant fool.
Someone shouting “free Palestine” at random Jews in Europe, for example, is just being an antisemite.
That's certainly not true in many European countries
Granted though, the FBI didn’t actually get involved. But why let facts get in the way of rage?
Sounds like they should only be made in freedom designated zones a-la Bush-Cheney
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings_an...
So yes, the FBI will get involved in this case. In this context it is something to worry about.
Looks like the first one was a Hungarian in 1919.
What’s with the ‘so-called’? That’s what the country is called. Israel. But I’m not sure that you’re aware but there was a really big one 25 years ago this coming September. Maybe you heard of it?
Of course, I somehow doubt that you would have a similarly strong reaction when Palestine is erased.
That says:
"Airplane hijackings have occurred since the early days of flight. ...Pre-1929, 1929–1957, 1958–1979, 1980–2000, and 2001–present."
"...Between 1958 and 1967, there were approximately 40 hijackings worldwide..According to the FAA, in the 1960s, there were 100 attempts of hijackings involving U.S. aircraft: 77 successful and 23 unsuccessful....
"..In a five-year period (1968–1972) the world experienced 326 hijack attempts, or one every 5.6 days.."
And your conclusion is "Palestinian" movement (that you wrote between quotes)...invented airplane hijacking?
And the answer is that the FBI wasn't involved. That was a threat the pilot made, which comes psychologically from the same place as terrorist bomb threats (and also "eat your vegetables or you'll die early" parenting). You want to control someone's behavior so you threaten maximalist retaliation.
"Bluetooth speaker name had been set to a "four-letter word, [...] BOMB".
Luckily, it wasn't named "Nuclear Bomb from Cuba" because US Authorities would not have other choice than to nuke Cuba.
Seriously? What those people are doing when they see a fence with "ASS" painted on it? Do they believe that too?