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United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
- IamCompliant 4mo ago[flagged]
- alfiedotwtf 4mo ago> "Free Palestine, F Zionists" Does the FBI usually get involved when someone says these words in public in the US?
- esseph 4mo ago[flagged]
- lostlogin 4mo agoGive citizens time, one of them might persuade Trump to attack another country, levelling the score. Greenland isn’t out the danger zone yet.
- stego-tech 4mo agoNot 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.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- alfiedotwtf 4mo ago“Free Palestine” isn’t exactly fringe. In fact, outside America and Israel, I’d bet it’s the default stance
- chimeracoder 4mo 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
- lostlogin 4mo ago> That's certainly not true in many European countries This suprised me. I’ve hunted for polling and can find plenty showing a plummeting opinion on Israel, but little on internal polling about a Palestinian state.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4mo agoPolls are interesting. They depend exclusively on people willing to respond. Let me give you an example of how they don't tell the whole story: In the USA, there are many, many firearms. And there's also a small but very vocal cadre of people who would like to disarm the people. In light of this, if a pollster calls and asks for your opinion on guns, and/or inquires if you have any, a common response is to hang up without answering the questions, due to the possibility that the information will be used against them. The result? They call someone else, and don't count "declined to answer" in their results. So the poll simply is the prevailing opinion of those who wished to answer, and thus is skewed one direction. (BTW, this is why everyone says there are "at least XXX hundred million guns in America; the best they can get is a low estimate) This happens quite a lot with controversial topics.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- ajross 4mo agoNot 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.
- fortran77 4mo ago[flagged]
- Cyph0n 4mo ago[flagged]
- hluska 4mo ago[flagged]
- kennywinker 4mo agoNo 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.
- lostlogin 4mo agoI’d like to see a rebuttal to this comment. Is the US now safer after the Iran attacks?
- linkregister 4mo agoThe stated reasoning by Osama bin Laden in a letter published in 2002 [1] was primarily a response to grievances over the US support of Israel's occupation of Palestine, as well as a number of unrelated grievances mostly due to the choices of the various monarchies in the Gulf Arab states. For example, retaining a presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia at the request of King Abdullah. It may be satisfying to affirm a world view in either direction in the topic, but an understanding of 20th century history suggests that Al Qaeda noted some legitimate grievances while others were not factual or misrepresented. For example, the United States did not support Russia's campaign in Chechnya. Additionally, American military campaigns in Afghanistan were in direct response to Al Qaeda's mass killings of noncombatants and Taliban refusal to stop Al Qaeda military activity based in Afghanistan. 1. https://scholarship.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/218e2431-0b76-43ff-8ac5-284ae73d29ad/content https://scholarship.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/server/api/core/bi... Note: this hyperlink may die. The original copy published in The Observer has tragically suffered from link rot.
- isoprophlex 4mo ago[flagged]
- sbayg 4mo agoCognitive 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.
- megous 4mo ago[flagged]
- lostlogin 4mo agoIt’s not just the beating and killing of people. That seems bad enough, but the recent episode of ‘settlers’ torturing a dog is horrific. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/world/middleeast/settler-attack-dog-west-bank.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/world/middleeast/settler-...
- megous 4mo ago[flagged]
- lostlogin 4mo agoDiscussion around it quickly turns into a ‘yes but look what they did’. It baffles me. A rich, powerful democracy should be held to a higher standard. But… yes, both sides have been terrible. Which side is going to work towards a peaceful coexistence?
- megous 4mo agoPunishing child killers is not a high standard.
- hluska 4mo agoAn 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 4mo 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
- tjpnz 4mo ago[flagged]
- lostlogin 4mo agoCan you? ‘I support Palestinian Action’ is all I can think of and it’s the same length.
- jim33442 4mo agoDoes that actually get you arrested, or do you have to go to a Palestinian Action protest? Not that there's that big of a difference.
- lostlogin 4mo ago> Does that actually get you arrested I can’t see that it ever has. Making it fractionally less ridiculous. "Those attending should be aware that showing support for a proscribed organisation is an offence under the Terrorism Act, and we will not hesitate to act where the law is broken," said commander Claire Smart, who is leading policing operations in London this weekend.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp38z9lylddo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp38z9lylddo
- jim33442 4mo agoAh so the wording suggests that it's a thought/speech crime, not that the particular event is outlawed. Yeah that's still nuts.
- tjpnz 4mo agoA paddy wagon is now speeding towards your home.
- lostlogin 4mo ago> when someone says these words in public in the US? Depending on where the plane was, it might not even have happened in the US.
- School-Cotton 4mo agoNo. It’s not illegal to express that opinion (or any opinion) in public in the US in any normal scenario. I’m not sure to what extent the law is different on planes, but you can go outside on the street and yell “free Palestine, F Zionists” to your heart’s content and you will not have broken any laws.
- mikeocool 4mo 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?
- root-parent 4mo ago[flagged]
- jmisavage 4mo agoThis 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.
- PearlRiver 4mo agoYou 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.
- root-parent 4mo ago[flagged]
- jamwil 4mo agoI 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.
- Bender 4mo agoPeople 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-for-owner-of-lulus-anal-bleaching-wifi/ https://observer.com/2014/03/park-slope-kiddie-shop-hunts-fo... [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jn_6EmYxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jn_6EmYxE
- btown 4mo agoPranks aside, this becomes remarkably scary when you think about all the ways that a malicious/compromised device could cause chaos.
- dylan604 4mo agoI really don't appreciate you posting my unhashed password to the public like that
- Bender 4mo agoWell next time pick one that browsers automatically filter out, example "hunter2" browsers automatically filter some passwords per W3C standards, notice you can't see my password. [1] [1] - https://bash-org-archive.com/?244321 https://bash-org-archive.com/?244321
- samgranieri 4mo agoA 16 year boy apparently named his Bluetooth speaker “bomb” and couldn’t turn it off, as it was probably in checked luggage. Woof.
- jychang 4mo agoIt was a bomb speaker: https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speaker-2bh15 https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speake...
- JLO64 4mo agoWhat kind of company doesn’t want to pay $5 per month for a paid workers plan for their website?
- ValentineC 4mo agoA 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.
- jlarocco 4mo agoIt probably worked fine until today, and will be back to working fine in a few days.
- cryptoegorophy 4mo agoCompanies that focus on product and not “investor value” through nice looking working websites
- dghlsakjg 4mo agoThe kind of company that normally is well within the free tier for years until their product is unexpectedly part of a news cycle. In all likelihood the site being down right now is actually a PR win.
- raverbashing 4mo ago
- CamelCaseName 4mo agoThe 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 https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/57lugEMhxl All the redditors on board: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/Fh2KoqG4SY https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/Fh2KoqG4SY A passenger with a hilariously illtimed username: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/W86tRI6ZVf https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/W86tRI6ZVf
- Insimwytim 4mo agoThose new obfuscated links prevent old.reddit to work. Is there a way for you to post proper direct links?
- bushwart 4mo agoYou 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.
- ValentineC 4mo 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 4mo ago
- wartywhoa23 4mo agoOh gosh, sure, terrorists always name their devices "bomb" in the open.
- falcons-edge 4mo ago[dead]
- sammy2255 4mo agoIM THE BOMB AND ABOUT TO BLOW UPPPPPPPP
- piokoch 4mo 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?
- puttycat 4mo agoWhat 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?
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 4mo agoThat adblocker does not sound very effective No popups when using uBlock Origin and/or uMatrix scheme=https:// host=simpleflying.com ip=34.233.113.241 path=/united-airlines-767-returns-newark-bluetooth-name-alert/ { echo url=$scheme$host$path echo output=/dev/stdout } \ |curl --resolve $host:443:$ip -K/dev/stdin \ |sed 's/<img src=[^>]*>//;/user-comment/,$d' \ |grep -o "<p>.*</p>" > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm #links -dump 1.htm The real "nightmare" is the browser that will automatically run all that garbage returned in the response body without any input from the user It requires an "adblocker" to stop its default behaviour Alternatively, one needs to disable Javascript, restrict the browser's access to DNS, etc. When an advertising company releases a "browser" that intentionally allows website operators to cram pages fuil of advertising and tracking is that a coincidence Is that the only way a browser can be designed No How many users realise this A small number For example, I'm using a browser that cannot automatically request resources, run Javascript, CSS, etc. where HTTP headers, including cookies, are trivial for the user to create, edit, save and delete. I do not need an "adblocker" "Don't these sites realise how many users they're losing?" The number is so small why would they care
- outside1234 4mo agoSomeone needs to explain to me how the name of a Bluetooth device has any bearing on anything. Isn’t the real security not letting a bomb on the plane? Also, now anyone who wants to disrupt a flight can switch their WiFi or Bluetooth name to Bomb or “Free Palestine” and the flight gets disrupted? Get out of here.
- jltsiren 4mo agoThere is nothing new in that. It's pretty common that people get drunk at the airport or on the plane and make jokes about bombs or something. Then the place is evacuated and flights are disrupted. The culprits get arrested and probably have to pay a fine and maybe some compensation to the affected airlines, but they usually don't get any prison time.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- NegativeK 4mo agoThere are simpler ways to disrupt a flight.
- lostlogin 4mo agoAre there? Setting a device name might be the lowest effort thing I can think of.
- basilikum 4mo agoRequires you to be on the plane. Just call the police and say you have a bomb planted on flight XYZ and want 100000$ or you'll detonate it.
- ElProlactin 4mo agoYeah. You should have seen the line to the bathroom when I named my WiFi hotspot "Free mile high club - meet me in the bathroom".
- eudamoniac 4mo agoEven 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.
- netsharc 4mo agoHow does that scenario work? Someone's under duress because presumably there's a terrorist on board. He lets the crew know there's a bomb onboard. The plane turns around, and the terrorist... lets the plane land safely? OK maybe the bomb blows up when it crosses some longitude, because this is like the movie Speed, and turning around means the plane never cross that longitude.. If you mean another type of duress, naming your device "plshelp-[seat number]" would be a hell lot more effective..
- lostlogin 4mo ago> How does that scenario work? It’s funnier than that. If they had turned off the ‘bomb’ the plane would have just carried on. The event is bizarre.
- jim33442 4mo agoPassenger trying to warn the crew would leave the device on
- anon84873628 4mo agoPeople have watched too many silly action movies.
- eudamoniac 4mo agoHow does your scenario work? Someone anonymously shouts BOMB ONBOARD and the plane just continues to its destination? "I guess they can blow us up whenever, so might as well keep going..."
- netsharc 4mo ago
- opengrass 4mo agoWhy would it land in New York instead of St John?
- dboreham 4mo agoBetter food and theater.
- anonymars 4mo agoPresumably the logistics of being back at a major hub
- School-Cotton 4mo agoIf you genuinely fear for the lives of everyone on board, who gives a shit about logistics?
- anonymars 4mo agoI guess you can infer how they weighted the two concerns
- vl 4mo agoBecause they knew it’s not a real threat and they wanted to land at United hub for cost saving reasons.
- xrd 4mo agoWhat'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.
- lazide 4mo agoThe same thing that is stopping them from suicide bombing the super crowded security checkpoint line before ID checks. Nothing really.
- bdcravens 4mo agoOr going into the baggage claim area with a bag containing an explosive device, then acting like they grabbed the wrong bag and putting it back on the carousel, and then leaving.
- bruce511 4mo agoAs an aside, this is something I've only seen in the US. At least in my country the domestic baggage claim area is not accessible unless from an arriving aircraft. I'm guessing that has more to do with theft though than security.
- hvb2 4mo agoNo, that's because in the US they're handling the international flights separately. It's also the reason why even when you have a layover, you need to clear customs. Domestic flights in the US are like busses/trains elsewhere. Most people fly without a checked bag
- thrownthatway 4mo ago[flagged]
- richstokes 4mo agoAndddd now everyone knows that an arbitrary text string in a device hostname is enough to ground a flight.
- basilikum 4mo agoTo be honest calling the police and saying you have a bomb planted on flight XYZ and want 100000$ or you'll detonate it, is probably also enough.
- bluescrn 4mo agoBut bombs apparently use bluetooth now, so he can't detonate it from more than a few metres away...
- lostlogin 4mo ago> he can't detonate it from more than a few metres away... Reliably bomb detonation is on the roadmap for Bluetooth 8.
- ssl-3 4mo agoIn the most simplistic terms, yeah. That's true. But the constraints aren't really shaped like that. For instance: A completely-innocent Airtag speaks only bluetooth, and it can be activated from continents away -- as long as any Apple phone is nearby with a shred of Internet access. My similarly-innocent Samsung phone is programmable (using its built-in Routines function) to perform actions in response to becoming disconnected from any given Bluetooth device.
- lostlogin 4mo agoThe other incident mentioned is worse I think. It wasn’t a potential threat, it was stating an opinion. “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.”
- justinhj 4mo agoThis is like the Adam Sandler movie where he says bomb on an airplane. It's an overreaction, is it not? A terrorist is not going to call their bomb's bluetooth trigger bomb. Even if they are, are you telling me we have no idea whether there is a bomb in luggage or not?
- Insanity 4mo agoWhich bomb would advertise itself as such.. this is something I’d expect in the movie Airplane!, not something to happen in real life.
- diab0lic 4mo agoI completely agree from a logical perspective. However 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… the court of public opinion would be pretty harsh. This was more or less their only choice from a liability perspective.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> 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 idiots. Whether due to power tripping or CYA, who knows, but I’m not surprised this happened on United.
- Spoom 4mo agoIsn't that what they did?
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoNope. Look at the flight track. They went all the way back.
- Spoom 4mo ago> Nope. Look at the flight track. They went all the way back. Good point, I was thinking they were over the ocean and that was naturally the closest airport, but it looks like they could have landed in e.g. Nova Scotia in a shorter time period.
- ChrisArchitect 4mo agoEarlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48342158 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48342158
- analogpixel 4mo agoI 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-speaker-2bh15 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 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.
- monkeywork 4mo agoI'd love that as well - can we not get LLMs to summerize and give us non-click bait versions of these events.
- analogpixel 4mo agoWe can, we just have to pay the $0.05 per articles to do it, and some articles aren't even worth the $0.05.
- rglullis 4mo agoI wouldn't mind paying $20/month to https://wikinews.org https://wikinews.org to help them build a system that indexed news from different sources, threw the links at an LLM summarizer and used as a draft submission to wikinews.
- analogpixel 4mo agoIt would be interesting to see some kind of future where reporters get paid per fact they feed into the system, and then the system just outputs a coherent list of what happened without any fluff, or opinion. The hard part would be figuring out the worth of each submission. LLMs might be able to assign a price based on the importance of the fact submitted? and then subscription fee people pay is paid to the contributors. I guess you could also have people rate the inputs and base it on that. (what the readers found important.)
- RagnarD 4mo agoI hope somebody follows up to ensure that the kid isn't being punished for a completely unpredictable event involving a commercial device.
- K0balt 4mo agoThis 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.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- chatmasta 4mo agoI’ve seen multiple comments referencing this was the default device name… did I miss something in the article or is that sourced from elsewhere?
- abejfehr 4mo agoI just found the theory referenced on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/KidsAreFuckingStupid/comments/1tstsqn/united_flight_turned_around_over_atlantic_as_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/KidsAreFuckingStupid/comments/1tsts...
- dualvariable 4mo ago> A redditor who's wife and her friend were on the flight said that the 16yo boy next to wife's friend admitted to naming his speaker "Bomb" long enough ago that he had forgotten he'd named it that. Wife's friend got to hear the questioning That is also stated clearly in the comments. Reddit really wants to run with the default speaker name theory, though.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- f_allwein 4mo agoAlso, who carries a Bluetooth speaker on a plane? And for what purpose?
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- neilv 4mo agoI 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.
- Eridrus 4mo agoThis 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.
- luxuryballs 4mo agoon the other hand someone could just be that stupid and if so at least you caught it, err on the side of caution basically
- Eridrus 4mo agoThe approach to flight security is a great example of why regularly erring on the side of caution is a terrible approach.
- 866-RON-0-FEZ 4mo ago[flagged]
- kleton 4mo agohellottec is down but a cdn mirror of the product: https://ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/tesancdn/hellottec/2_BH_15_S_Bomb_Kilavuz_210425_CNVRT_e4892c5701.pdf https://ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/tesancdn/hellottec/2_BH_...
- epolanski 4mo ago> 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. Wtf? I can understand a bomb, but this is just free speech.
- anon84873628 4mo agoI am curious about the laws governing something like that. Does it matter whether it's a domestic or international flight? Are pilots king of the vessel?
- epolanski 4mo ago[flagged]
- BlueBerry2001 4mo agoGOATed plane, love the engine power.
- blitzar 4mo agoLooks like I picked a bad day to stop smoking crack.
- firefax 4mo agoOne thing I learned as a globe trotting cypherpunk: always respect sky law.
- throw310822 4mo agoDoes this story mean that anyone can disrupt flights by hiding on planes some minimal device with Bluetooth (say a pi zero), programmed to turn on only at random and after a few days?
- tlogan 4mo agoAnd terrorists will: - communicate in English (because apparently even ancient Romans speak perfect English) - name the device “bomb”
- jim33442 4mo agoHonestly they would probably know decent English
- notorandit 4mo agoFlight 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.
- hammock 4mo agoDon’t get me started on TSA policies.
- vl 4mo agoWhat is even better now phone calls are prohibited, but all these airlines had actual credit card phones installed in every seat just 20-15 years ago and really wanted you to do phone calls for $1 a minute. And some people did, and it was annoying, and it was “fine”. Now that they can’t charge extra suddenly it’s “against regulations”.
- notorandit 4mo agoAnd, of course, terrorist manual states that any weapon needs to be labelled as such.
- 15155 4mo agoCan you potentially see the difference (red-tape-wise) between a centralized/trunking FAA-certified radio on one highly-specific frequency vs. random, uncertified rogue transmitters all over the spectrum? This wasn't a carrier regulation.
- vl 4mo agoWhat transmitters? Now calls happen over WiFi which companies sell.
- linkregister 4mo agoDoes your phone's cellular radio work at 30000 feet? Calls occur over flight wifi. Streaming video and audio are not permitted on most flights for bandwidth purposes, so it follows that calls are prohibited for the same reason.
- booleandilemma 4mo ago[dead]
- tiffanyh 4mo agoNo 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)
- charcircuit 4mo agoThe chances of potentially losing lives were not high in this case of an unusual Bluetooth device name.
- seydor 4mo agoI wonder if this is some heightened alert measures taken after recent events
- openbin_kng 4mo agoI think this part of the article actually explains what freaked out the crew lmaoo: "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."
- amelius 4mo agoWhy didn't they just ask the passengers to simply not try to connect to "BOMB"? Would have been so much simpler.
- 0xbadcafebee 4mo ago> 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. That is just nutty. Are we now actively participating in the genocide?
- orbital-decay 4mo agoThe article links to this Reddit thread as a source: https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tk2ktz/wifi_hotspot/ https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tk2ktz/wif... I consider posts like this larp/ragebait by default unless there's any actual evidence of that happening (like the flight being aborted in this case).
- henry2023 4mo ago> Are we now actively participating in the genocide? The US has provided over 310 billion (not inflation adjusted) in military funding to Israel since the Nakba. So I’d consider “participating” a strong understatement.
- tamimio 4mo agoGreat, so next time people will have an app to flood the Bluetooth with all sort of names if they ever decided to ruin the trip, and just delete the app later, undetected. Hell, you can even mod a small Bluetooth tracker and put it in someone’s bag while loading the stuff.. this opens so many attack vectors, ancient regulations don’t work with latest tech.
- Aeolun 4mo agoOk, fine. Bomb is bomb, I get that. But how is “Free Palestine, F Zionists” a reason to call the FBI?
- PunchyHamster 4mo ago[flagged]
- tayo42 4mo ago[flagged]
- amelius 4mo agoIn other news, Tom Jones got removed from a plane for singing the wrong lyrics.
- carlostkd 4mo agoAfter 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?
- HDBaseT 4mo agoSurely we could of just used some basic Bluetooth fingerprinting and reveal the MAC Address of the Bluetooth device, then realize its a speaker...
- alex_young 4mo agoHow 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.
- simulator5g 4mo agoThe idea wasn't to convince anyone of anything, it was to reduce RF noise so the cops could find the offending device more quickly. Also if it were a real threat you would probably quickly identify someone who is unwilling to turn off their Bluetooth.
- alex_young 4mo agoa flight attendant told passengers over the PA system that they "must turn off Bluetooth immediately," or else the aircraft would have to turn around.
- simulator5g 4mo agoif it were a real threat you would probably quickly identify someone who is unwilling to turn off their Bluetooth.
- andix 4mo agoCould've been me, but I'm glad it wasn't me. xD
- zx8080 4mo agoWhy would a bluetooth speaker be needed during a flight? It feels a bit antisocial to turn some loud music in a cabin.
- seany 4mo agoWell. I just changed my bl labels on 3 phones and wifi ap settings to variations of this. Done a million miles on aa in 1.5 years before.
- user01815-2 4mo agoAnd 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-163291294902e030.jpeg https://www.heise.de/imgs/18/1/2/6/3/5/5/9/gross-16329129490...
- stuckkeys 4mo agoThat should be a perma ban. I get jokes, but there should be boundries.
- dnnddidiej 4mo agoIf they even controlled the name the "joke" could have been done months earlier and meant bomb as in excellent. Better to scan baggage for the actual, ya know, bombs. Fine people joking about bombs verbally or written sure.
- lotu 4mo agoThis 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.
- brigandish 4mo agoThat is covered in the article: > Though some have questioned why anyone intending to blow up a plane would broadcast the word bomb, many terrorist acts have relied on the threat of a bomb as leverage during attempted hijackings or hostage situations.
- caconym_ 4mo agoIf they were really worried, they probably would have diverted, yes. But ditching in the north Atlantic is something no pilot is going to do unless they are 100% sure there is a bomb that's going to go off, because people are probably going to die either way.
- imwillofficial 4mo agoSecurity theater at its finest
- joxdosba 4mo agoAI slop article with 300+ upvotes, nice going guys.
- plastic041 4mo agoI 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)."
- protocolture 4mo ago[flagged]
- fsckboy 4mo agoit's not the case that the pilot has to think like you, it's that every passenger on the plane would need to. The pilot has unlimited discretion and every interest to keep the passengers on the plane calm, or act preemptively and land as soon as possible.
- duckduckman 4mo agoIt 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.
- tuumi 4mo agoEvery 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.
- dredmorbius 4mo agoFor 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/AC_25_795-6.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...> And the relevant CFR: <https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-25/subpart-D/subject-group-ECFR9bfdfe36b332e4a/section-25.795 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C...>. (TIL)
- whycome 4mo agoBlewtooth Can you name your phone “not a bomb”?
- tdhz77 4mo agoI don’t know if we should laugh or cry
- sschueller 4mo agoI would be worried about a device called "AR-924 Pager" but no one thinks that is an issue.
- shrubby 4mo agoJTFC 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.
- klustregrif 4mo agoIt’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.
- prmoustache 4mo agoYes I have a speaker of the same brand, bluetooth ID is Boom4 as it is the model name. I have no idea if it can be changed, if it can, probably only through an app only a minority of users would have had installed anyway (I don't). Aditionally the order given by the crew (turning off bluetooth) would have done no results as most people would simply assume turning off bluetooth on their smartphone/videogame console/laptop and wouldn't know how to do that on anything else. The comments ont that link are completely crazy, I read about jail time or even death penalty.
- mrheosuper 4mo agoAlso people could assume airplane mode turning off all wireless connection. It does not turn off bluetooth(at least on my phone)
- hdgvhicv 4mo ago[dead]
- doginasuit 4mo agoI thought it was strange the airline didn't disclose the actual word, how could that be sensitive? Covering up what was a clear overreaction in hindsight seems to fit. Best to let people blame the teenager.
- tuumi 4mo agoIt was in the article. The kid renamed his Fitbit "Bomb".
- hypfer 4mo agoThe 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.
- jMyles 4mo agoIt's beyond obvious at this point that we exist alongside a massive bot brigade (or many midsize bot farms) ready to chime in with senseless, cookie-cooker support for short-shrift authoritarian ideology. It's palpable in the comment sections of many corporate news outlets, as well as on reddit. Unless there's evidence that this pattern of comments is from real biological humans, I see no reason to presume that it is.
- ExoticPearTree 4mo agoI 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”.
- oddmade 4mo agoAwhile ago I named my phone "you-have-been-hacked" and to my joy it made me look twice at my router a few months later haha Perhaps the joke is irresponsible on my behalf potentially causing unnecessary stress for whomever is directly or indirectly scanning my device... ..but on the other hand, if this person can't see the joke, perhaps they shouldn't have access to scanning devices. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts? Cheers
- cs02rm0 4mo agoIsn'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.
- speedgoose 4mo agoI find interesting that no one thought about localising the device based on the Bluetooth signal strength.
- hypfer 4mo agoThat needs a skillset that is not on board of that plane. However, that is also not the actual goal. There is no true threat. No one actually believes that it would be a bomb. The goal is compliance and to train people to self-police each other. ___ Good new torment nexus idea though. Just litter the plane with BLE antennas and triangulate exactly who it is that is having wrong thoughts. We'll be seeing it 1-5y from now
- RankingMember 4mo agoI was just thinking "watch someone now invent a single-purpose easy-to-use Bluetooth hone-in device and sell it to the airlines for exactly this situation".
- AgentReinAi 4mo ago[dead]
- voidpointer 4mo agoAccording 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...
- yulfvanschmidt 4mo agoPretty absurd stuff. Obviously if FAA safety first is going to apply not to aviation employees but to something that is easy to DOS attack as the consumer this doesn't work.. They could at least implement a policy of scanning Bluetooth and similar beacons at security gates though. More theatre, more fun at least doesn't mean more turning around.
- thrownthatway 4mo ago[flagged]
- Xirdus 4mo ago> Hard to imagine at least one person didn’t see the device name and immediately brush it off as entirely unimportant. There are hundreds of BT devices everywhere that people waiting for a flight hang out. Without automatic scanning for the specific purpose of catching weird names, it'd be near impossible for the weird name to ever show up for anyone except the owner. And most devices don't advertise their BT name unless in pairing mode, so no, it wouldn't show up in the security screening either.
- voidpointer 4mo agoSo, how did it eventually show up? Owner's phone goes off/airplane-mode, watch starts advertising; someone else wants to connect their BT headphones and sees the name of the watch?
- anujdeshpande 4mo agoIn 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.
- stavros 4mo agoOne of my coworkers once told me that, unless I changed our hardware design, he'd be forced to add a buggy part to our bill of materials to handle the use case. I had to call in a BOM threat.
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 4mo agoAlways easy to guess which country has this reaction. The terrorists well and truly won.
- gaiagraphia 4mo agoProvides 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.
- giantg2 4mo agoThe most important question is not answered by the article - was it done intentionally or accidentally. That makes all the difference.
- barbazoo 4mo ago> Those onboard were also instructed to leave all their belongings on the aircraft before deplaning.
- gpvos 4mo agoI 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?
- Markoff 4mo agoI wonder what would they do to Malaysian firemen travelling with work devices. :-) Bomba means Firemen in Malay. https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/fire-engine-photos.com/4322.jpg?r= https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/fire-engine-photos.com/43... https://apicms.thestar.com.my/uploads/images/2025/10/10/3563823.JPG https://apicms.thestar.com.my/uploads/images/2025/10/10/3563...
- pluc 4mo agoThe 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?
- NordStreamYacht 4mo agoGreat. Now troublemakers have new way to make travelling even more stressful.
- timnetworks 4mo agoIf 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?
- whh 4mo agoYou’re not going to name your bomb “bomb”. Needless drama.
- chrisss395 4mo agoHere 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/emergency_declared_on_united_flight/ https://www.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/1tsfu8y/emer...
- maerF0x0 4mo agoIf he confessed and indicated it was forever ago, they didnt need to waste all that fuel and time. It was clearly a mistake and just like other controls the owner was on the plane keeping him accountable (this is something they do for luggage, they'll remove luggage if the owner is not on the plane) .
- guywithahat 4mo agoWe 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.
- rimworld 4mo agoThese stories are getting more absurd by the day
- NoSalt 4mo agoI 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.
- chatmasta 4mo agoNote the article has been updated today (June 1) with a statement from United and reporting from the New York Post which clarified the device in question was a FitBit. > This article was updated on Monday, June 1, 2026, to include an official statement from United Airlines and additional context on the incident. It was originally published on Sunday, May 31, 2026. > … > It has now been reported by various outlets, including the New York Post [0], that the device responsible for the threatening Bluetooth name was a Fitbit. This is a wearable smartwatch and fitness tracker that comes with Bluetooth capability to sync with other devices, such as phones or computers. The 16-year-old owner and the device were not deemed a threat by authorities. [0] https://nypost.com/2026/05/31/us-news/united-airlines-flight-diverts-back-to-newark-after-bluetooth-devices-name-sparks-security-scare/ https://nypost.com/2026/05/31/us-news/united-airlines-flight...
- ryukoposting 4mo agoThe comments on the article (not on HN) are wild. One person says the kid should do time in federal prison, another guy says "that's ridiculous" and then they get dogpiled by people who actually think this kid should go to jail. Sometimes I feel like I'm from a different planet than some people.
- iQoxi 4mo agoA good reminder that security teams often have to act on incomplete information. False positives are frustrating, but missing a real threat would be much worse.