Bomb Hoax/Threat on an Easy Jet flight

[Lonewolf_50]

Even though this seems to have ended with the kind of result that sits well with me (https://www.businessinsider.com/spanish-fighter-jet-easyjet-flight-bomb-hoax-plane-menorca-london-2022-7)
An Easyjet flight was intercepted by a Spanish fighter jet Sunday after a teenage passenger faked a bomb threat on social media, police said.The 18-year-old hoaxer, who was traveling on the London-to-Menorca flight with five friends, was arrested at Menorca airport, spent Sunday night in jail, and is awaiting a court hearing, Spanish police told Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/easyjet-plane-spains-menorca-escorted-by-fighter-jet-after-bomb-hoax-2022-07-04/) Monday. What the heck was she thinking?
EasyJet flight EZY8303, which left London Gatwick airport at 1 p.m., landed safely at Menorca airport in the Balearic Islands around half an hour late, just before 5 p.m., and was escorted to a security area.

[DaveReidUK]

Some more details:

Alleged EasyJet bomb hoaxer is a teen chess star with a place at Cambridge who said he'd 'blow this plane up' in a Snapchat post, reports say (https://www.businessinsider.com/bomb-hoaxer-easyjet-teenage-chess-star-barred-spain-2022-7)

[FUMR]

Goes to prove that academics are not always the sharpest tools in the box!

[tdracer]

Goes to prove that academics are not always the sharpest tools in the box!
I've noticed that many really smart people - based on IQ - are seriously deficient in "common sense".
In other words, the smarts that make you a math or chess genius (or even a good engineer :rolleyes:) don't necessarily transfer to 'real life'.

[Odins Raven]

So, just to be clear, the Airport WiFi picked the transmission up due to the trigger words ‘I’m going to blow up the plane, I’m a Taliban”.

Can anyone please provide evidence of an event where a Taliban blew up a plane after announcing it on Snapchat? I have a sneaking suspicion that somebody wasted a bit of time, money and resources looking for threats in the wrong place.

Deary me.

[MATELO]

So, just to be clear, the Airport WiFi picked the transmission up due to the trigger words ‘I’m going to blow up the plane, I’m a Taliban”.

Can anyone please provide evidence of an event where a Taliban blew up a plane after announcing it on Snapchat? I have a sneaking suspicion that somebody wasted a bit of time, money and resources looking for threats in the wrong place.

Deary me.

Nope.. but there have been a few terrorist incidents that have been stopped. Just one... Marlonn Hicks (https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/indiana-isis-supporter-sentenced-102218)

[lobby]

Can anyone please provide evidence of an event where a Taliban blew up a plane after announcing it on Snapchat?

Nope. So monitoring Snapchat obviously works.
Will we ever know how many attacks are prevented by monitoring social media?

[giggitygiggity]

I shouldn't imagine it was being actively monitored... Rather shared, then reported and ultimately escalated to the appropriate authorities promptly.

[Denti]

Wonder if Cambridge will hold er spot if she comes a year it two too late and unable to pay her tuition…

[meleagertoo]

What a useless system if it picks up a death threat on the airport wifi yet allows pax to board and flight to depart and only hours later launches interceptors.

Utterly ridiculous!

Heads need to roll in the organisation of that travesty of a 'system'.

[Herod]

Logged into Snapchat at work? Disciplinary offence surely.

[KRviator]

So, just to be clear, the Airport WiFi picked the transmission up due to the trigger words ‘I’m going to blow up the plane, I’m a Taliban”..Let this be a salutatory lesson on the dangers of using publicly accessible WiFi access points!

[DaveReidUK]

What an appallingly useless system if it picks up a death threat on the airport wifi yet allows pax to board and flight to depart and only hours later launches interceptors.

Utterly ridiculous!

Heads need to roll in the organisation of that travesty of a 'system'.

Hmmm.

Think about it - you're sitting in the departure lounge killing time before your flight, and you use the airport's free wifi to post a message on social media that (apparently) contains a trigger word. That (supposedly) is automatically detected by the airport's wifi monitoring.

Short of stopping all flights and interrogating all departing passengers to see who it was, and what flight they are on, how is the airport going to identify the culprit? It may well be that all they have at that stage is an IP address, possibly a social media ID and maybe an anonymous Gmail or Hotmail address used to register for the wifi.

I think you'll find that a fair amount of detective work has to be done on the "travesty of a system" before the individual can be identified, and then of course that ID has to be cross-checked against all the airlines' passenger lists for departing flights.

Personally, I think Gatwick is to be commended, rather than criticised, for its action.

[RoelB]

The story about this being an intercept on the airport wifi is bogus. All communications between a device and snapchat is encrypted (SSL). There is no way the airport can intercept this without having the Snapchat certificate and key - which of course they don't.

There are only two options here: either (1) one of those "friends" played an active role here, or (2) Snapchat itsself actively monitors all communications on their platform and flagged this and forwarded it to authorities. Which, if true, is pretty scary - a private companiy which is monitoring private communications between regular individuals for "keywords", and reporting those individuals just based on what they tell each other, context not taken into account. Good reason never to use Snapchat if that is true.

[DaveReidUK]

The story about this being an intercept on the airport wifi is bogus. All communications between a device and snapchat is encrypted (SSL). There is no way the airport can intercept this without having the Snapchat certificate and key - which of course they don't.

There are only two options here: either (1) one of those "friends" played an active role here, or (2) Snapchat itsself actively monitors all communications on their platform and flagged this and forwarded it to authorities. Which, if true, is pretty scary - a private companiy which is monitoring private communications between regular individuals for "keywords", and reporting those individuals just based on what they tell each other, context not taken into account. Good reason never to use Snapchat if that is true.

Fair enough.

And of course in either of those scenarios, it would be equally unfair to dump sh*t on Gatwick for failing to be on the ball.

[FUMR]

Facebook does the same. I was blocked on two occasions until I informed them that the offending word in question was taken completely out of context. One of them btw was "cracker". I wasn't aware of it's racial epithet in the USA. A friend (in Europe) had sent me a beautiful photo and I (also in Europe) had replied simply with "cracker". It was flagged and my account was blocked until they received my appeal.

[Sepp]

...
One of them btw was "cracker". I wasn't aware of it's racial epithet in the USA.
---

Christmas is going to be quite a busy time at FB towers this year, then.

[MichaelKPIT]

Let this be a salutatory lesson on the dangers of using publicly accessible WiFi access points!

Or even a warning against saying such stupid things anywhere near an airport/aircraft!