78 pointsby Eridanus25 hours ago14 comments
  • samgranieri4 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.
    • jeroenhd3 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.

    • jychang4 hours ago
      • JLO643 hours ago
        What kind of company doesn’t want to pay $5 per month for a paid workers plan for their website?
        • ValentineC3 hours ago
          A lot of non-software businesses probably outsource their websites to some bottom barrel consultant in LCOL countries.

          That, or they're such a small business that they never expected one of their random products to be HN hugged to death.

      • raverbashing3 hours ago
        Website already HN'd into oblivion it seems
        • sikozu3 hours ago
          Reddit got there first.
      • firesteelrain3 hours ago
        Oh man, talk about unfortunate set of circumstances. It looks like a cartoon-like bomb too.
        • echoangle3 hours ago
          I'm assuming that's where the name comes from
          • firesteelrain3 hours ago
            Yep, I found the product listing via Google. It says Bomb
    • thisislife22 hours ago
      When did Airlines start scanning Bluetooth devices?
      • aobdev8 minutes ago
        Airlines have kept tabs on Bluetooth and WiFi hotspots as early as the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 incidents (2016)
      • firesteelrain10 minutes ago
        Some Karen probably reported it
  • IamCompliant8 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...

  • CamelCaseName4 hours ago
    The Reddit thread on this was equal parts amazing and hilarious.

    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

  • opengrass9 minutes ago
    Why would it land in New York instead of Nova Scotia?
  • mikeocool4 hours ago
    > 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?

    • thih93 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_3 hours ago
        3. The level of tech illiteracy combined with airplane security theater is an affront to all thinking people.
    • jychang3 hours ago
      • croes3 hours ago
        > This website has been temporarily rate limited
    • root-parent4 hours ago
      [flagged]
      • jmisavage3 hours ago
        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-parent14 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.

          "Threat Assessment and Management Strategies: Identifying the Howlers and Hunters" -https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/4183175-threat-assess...

        • PearlRiver2 hours ago
          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.
      • jamwil3 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.
        • echoangle3 hours ago
          Here's one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing

          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.

        • robrain3 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.
          • roryirvine2 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.

        • hoppyhoppy23 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.
        • SteveNuts3 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.
        • rndmio3 hours ago
          The IRA bombs in civilian areas in the uk almost always had phone calls that preceded the bombs going off.
  • Bender4 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]

    [1] - https://observer.com/2014/03/park-slope-kiddie-shop-hunts-fo...

    [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jn_6EmYxE

  • wartywhoa234 hours ago
    Oh gosh, sure, terrorists always name their devices "bomb" in the open.
  • sammy22553 hours ago
    IM THE BOMB AND ABOUT TO BLOW UPPPPPPPP
  • puttycat3 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?

  • outside12343 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.

  • eudamoniac2 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.
  • alfiedotwtf4 hours ago
    > "Free Palestine, F Zionists"

    Does the FBI usually get involved when someone says these words in public in the US?

    • stego-tech4 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
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      • alfiedotwtf39 minutes ago
        “Free Palestine” isn’t exactly fringe. In fact, outside America and Israel, I’d bet it’s the default stance
      • 4 hours ago
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    • 4 hours ago
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    • hluska3 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?

      • alfiedotwtf43 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

    • fortran774 hours ago
      The "Palestinian" movement _invented_ airplane hijacking.

      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.

      • root-parent3 minutes ago
        Biased much? You could have used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking

        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?

      • breezybottom3 hours ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking

        Looks like the first one was a Hungarian in 1919.

      • elzbardico3 hours ago
        Which is kind of ironic, considering modern terrorism was basically an invention of the Zionist movement in Palestine.
      • Cyph0n4 hours ago
        And when was the last time such a hijacking took place outside of so-called “Israel”?
        • hluska3 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?

          • kennywinker3 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.
          • Cyph0n2 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.

          • an hour ago
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    • esseph4 hours ago
      The government of Israel has more freedom of speech and control over the US than voting citizens do.
    • ajross4 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.

    • tjpnz3 hours ago
      In the UK you can get arrested for saying less.
    • isoprophlex3 hours ago
      Imagine getting your jimmies this rustled over expressing antipathy for a genocidal regime, and sympathy for an oppressed people.
      • sbayg3 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.
  • piokoch3 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?

  • falcons-edge3 hours ago
    [dead]