UA flight – 'turn Bluetooth off or we're turning around' (opens in new tab)

Someone should make a list of all these weird overreactions. Didn't they turn one flight around because a passenger found something scribbled in Arabic script inside the inflight magazine (I think a previous passenger had written out a prayer)? And another one because there was an abandoned mobile phone that had presumably dropped out of someone's pocket?

Yeah this is really dumb. If someone really wanted to cause harm, they would just name their device "April's iPhone" or something. If they really wanted to send a threat, they'd pass a note to a flight attendant or name it something like you said.

I get the "abundance of caution" mentality and it's a big part of why airplanes are so safe. But at some point, pilots _have_ to assume that the rest of the apparatus has done its job. They have to assume that when maintenance clears them, the plane actually works (at least with some degree of trust). And they have to assume that when security lets people on the plane, those people don't have bombs.

That doesn't mean they need to ignore the evidence of their eyes and ears, just that they should apply some base level of reason and logic to the situation.

Do real bombs have bluetooth?

I mean you could make the argument that a real bomber wouldn’t make a bomb threat either

It was in the luggage compartment. Even if he had thought about it he probably would not.

While it may or may not be infeasible, it is entirely possible to determine the source of a radio signal. It is also possible to overlay that tech on a camera feed so that you get a composite image showing like, someone standing in the airport & their Bluetooth info above their head.

I would not find it surprising if I learned that a system like this already existed in many airports. I mean now with AI the whole thing could be automated if you don't care about a few egregious errors here and there.

It was a Bluetooth speaker named "bomb" in the cargo. Really stupid shit on the part of whichever passenger owned it. Even in general, you don't just leave devices powered on in your luggage, but especially not if they are called "bomb".

> I wonder if there’s Bluetooth interference

This would be both extremely unlikely, and absolutely impossible for the crew to diagnose in flight.

I like to do that more subtly. If I want to have IT check on an ongoing engagement, I usually use Raspberry Pi based OUI/MAC addresses.

Other than that, I can recommend going for IoT devices like VOIP phone MAC addresses in conference rooms, because they're specifically allowlisted for everything and/or are in a different VLAN that doesn't block the endpoints.

Enterprise-grade security is always fun :D