alt Hacker NewsUnited Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
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According to the article, it was a Fitbit device belonging to a teenager... Chances are, the kid selected that nickname for the device a long while ago and forgot about it, and was probably unaware that the device was using Bluetooth at all, and that they should turn off their fitness tracker when the announcement came through...
At the same time, some people in the comments under the article are more or less calling for the death penalty for the kid...
Here is the reddit thread where passengers were live replying. I don't seem confirmation of what the Bluetooth device name was. There is one comment in there claiming the following:
"Wife is on the plane. Guy had a speaker named bomb. He just confessed to it. He said he named it forever ago and forgot about it. He’s 16 years old. Wife’s friend is sitting next to him as they are questioning him."
https://www.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/1tsfu8y/emer...
It’s seems like they just reported this initially as “four letter word” and then a media outlet later assumed it was bomb. It seems more likely it was a UE Boom, which has boom in its default Bluetooth name.
If that’s the case the teen likely just owned the device and didn’t knot it was turned on. It’s rather long battery and it’s not obvious if it’s on or not.
This decision almost certainly came about because of people thinking what action was least likely to get them fired. Any rational person would realize the odds of an actual bomb are so close to zero you would need to start worrying about the sun spontaneously exploding if you were worried there was a bomb. The problem is that if you ignored it your boss could say you ignored a bomb threat and fire you.
Also if they really thought there the plan was going to explode any moment they would have ditched in the ocean or at least diverted to the nearest airport. They didn’t because there was no danger except to their jobs.
I kind of get that a device named BOMB made the plane turn back.
However, I don't understand this part:
> flight attendant told passengers over the PA system that they "must turn off Bluetooth immediately," or else the aircraft would have to turn around.
If there's a BOMB, turning off Bluetooth won't make it much safer. I mean, a turned-off bomb is probably safer than a turned-on bomb, but it's still a bomb.
Pilots: "Phew, BOMB is now turned off. It's absolutely safe to continue flying. Thank you for your cooperation, passengers and terrorist(s)."
This is a hilariously stupid reaction to a stupidly hilarious decision made by a speaker manufacturer.
And also a new vector for a ransom-attack on the Bluetooth namespace in certain environments via malicious BLE advertising. The worst thing that could have happened here was for someone to take this seriously.
Which bomb would advertise itself as such.. this is something I’d expect in the movie Airplane!, not something to happen in real life.
A 16 year boy apparently named his Bluetooth speaker “bomb” and couldn’t turn it off, as it was probably in checked luggage. Woof.
What's to prevent terrorists from going through TSA, waiting in the scanning line when everyone is still going through, and then planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag? I never open my carryon once I have packed it.
This reminds me of the SNL sketch where TSA employees had no answer for someone bringing two separate bottles of 3.9 ounces onto the plane.
I'm sure Sean Duffy, of Real World and now Sec of Transportation, will fix this.
Isn't this terror-ists winning? When people give in to terror?
When we had the IRA active in the UK everyone would be proud to carry on as normal after any incident, to show that life would go on as normal despite their efforts. This doesn't seem normal.
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
In the hardware world, we use the abbrevation BOM (bill of materials) frequently.
Needless to say, we use the full "Bill of materials" phrase when anyone on the call is at the airport or travelling in general.
Ok, fine. Bomb is bomb, I get that. But how is “Free Palestine, F Zionists” a reason to call the FBI?
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...
I was following this "live" on Reddit, where, supposedly, nine Redditors were posting all the events. It was a wild ride. I'm glad it was a non-event, and everybody is safe.
I pine for the day when news is this:
- Flight 767 returned to airport after seeing a bluetooth device named "BOMB"
- After asking all passengers multiple times to turn off all devices and not getting the "BOMB" to go away, they flight had to return to the airport where officials were waiting to search the plane.
- This was not intentional, but a product that calls it self "BOMB" https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speake...
- Passengers on the plane commented of the event as it was going on in this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/57lugEMhxl
I guess I shouldn't pine, I can just have AI summarize all sources for me, and stop dealing with poor reporting that tries to drag 3 bullet points into multiple pages for the sake of selling ad space.
> 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?
How would turning bluetooth off convince anyone that there isn't a bomb on board? It seems like the bluetooth offering is the least of our worries in the insane case that this is how a threat was delivered.
The meta narrative here is a shift towards more authoritarian ideas gaining further foothold/dominance.
As can be seen in the naming treatment + the comments on that article + comments here. But also can be seen in various other places.
In fact, it has already happened to a degree where we see these lagging(!) indicators pop up. So wherever we currently stand is further than those. To which degree though I couldn't say.
Plan/act accordingly.
One thing I learned as a globe trotting cypherpunk: always respect sky law.
Provides many opportunities for cheaper and more scalable methods of terrorism.
Don't need to actually get explosives on board, just a bluetooth device. Manage to get 10 planes at once, and you've got a nice bit of chaos on your hands.
Wonder how easy it'd be to reverse pickpocket some fitbits into jackets left laying around before you catch your flight to a 'non-aligned country'.
Could cause lots of havoc with pre-planted speakers, too. Setting off random sirens at maximum volume, telling people to evacuate, etc. I wonder what the security solution would be if people started causing terror via text and sound.
I think its a move by United to set precedent so they can do whatever they want on subsequent flights. And because of that, to also help law enforcement say they can take away some of your rights when flying.
Tinfoil hat on.
In the past few years, whenever I hear United on the news its not because they did something “good”.
If my radio got FCC stamps on it, I'm sure the airplane has this figured out but in the opposite direction.
Did someone update fly by wire to run on 2.4Ghz BLE or something? What is even the deal with airplane mode?
I thought Bluetooth devices only announce their name when specifically asked to do so, and usually switch out of that mode after a minute or so.
Or can the name be retrieved even when they're not broadcasting it?
These stories are getting more absurd by the day
After this the number of the same occurrences will increase.... There are simple android apps that brings you literally near to the offender device this is not hard to do. But the question is, was this not spotted at airport? Or the name was set like that just in middle flight?
The most important question is not answered by the article - was it done intentionally or accidentally. That makes all the difference.
No pilot will lose their job by taking action to potentially save passengers lives.
But the chances are high, they do lose their job if they don't (and/or potentially lose their life as well).
It's that simple.
(regardless of how dumb/overreaction some might view this as)
The level of idiocy... like what was the alert for? "A bomb was registered through bluetooth?" They really thought that a legitimate bomb, calling itself a bomb and registering on a device bluetooth spectrum was a threat? And these people are allowed to fly planes? What if my laptop's name is dabomb and I register on the plane's wifi node, will that trigger a call to a SWAT team?
And I thought of an actually aviation-relevant bluetooth name like this: https://www.heise.de/imgs/18/1/2/6/3/5/5/9/gross-16329129490...
> Those onboard were also instructed to leave all their belongings on the aircraft before deplaning.
Andddd now everyone knows that an arbitrary text string in a device hostname is enough to ground a flight.
> "Free Palestine, F Zionists"
Does the FBI usually get involved when someone says these words in public in the US?
I find interesting that no one thought about localising the device based on the Bluetooth signal strength.
Always easy to guess which country has this reaction. The terrorists well and truly won.
You’re not going to name your bomb “bomb”.
Needless drama.
Flight policies have always been very weird.
I remember I was not allowed to use a laptop with a CD or DVD attached.
Now you have internet on board.
I would be worried about a device called "AR-924 Pager" but no one thinks that is an issue.
We need to start asking questions about when it's appropriate to charge staff for falsely escalating a nonsense concern. A teen with a bluetooth network named bomb is not a threat, and turning around a plane for it is creating false alarm. This happens a lot, frequently in schools, where someone will make a joke (like asking Benjamin Netanyahu to drop bombs on a school building in a clear joking manor) and officials shut down the building and have the FBI arrest the child under false pretense of a threat.
At some point we need to start asking hard questions about when to charge administrators and staff for creating false alarms.
Looks like I picked a bad day to stop smoking crack.
I hope somebody follows up to ensure that the kid isn't being punished for a completely unpredictable event involving a commercial device.
Why didn't they just ask the passengers to simply not try to connect to "BOMB"?
Would have been so much simpler.
Oh gosh, sure, terrorists always name their devices "bomb" in the open.
hellottec is down but a cdn mirror of the product: https://ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/tesancdn/hellottec/2_BH_...
And terrorists will:
- communicate in English (because apparently even ancient Romans speak perfect English)
- name the device “bomb”
I don’t know if we should laugh or cry
JTFC the comments on this one.
And the "Free Palestine, F zionists" that made a return to ramp.
I shouldn't be surprised of the security by obscurity of the aviation industry after seeing it for 10+ years, but still am.
Remember the 737 Max guy. And the likes.
Of FFS.
I wonder if this is some heightened alert measures taken after recent events
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 extremely seriously, for extremely good reasons. A miscommunication can trigger a lot of life-critical emergency mode sudden effort and stress for people. Effort and stress that is occasionally extremely necessary.
It made sense, once I thought of it.
In this particular case, it sounds like it wasn't the teen's fault, nor even a teen being slightly edgy. Just an innocuous product that broadcast a very unfortunate name over Bluetooth. Not something most people would've predicted would be a problem.
Yet, under the circumstances, with the information available, it also sounds like personnel were correct to follow the processes that were designed to prevent terrible disasters.