A flight was late because someone named their Wi-Fi hotspot ‘Galaxy Note 7’ | Hacker News Reader

A flight was late because someone named their Wi-Fi hotspot ‘Galaxy Note 7’

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133 pointsdvichg87 comments

I was on this flight. The flight wasn't late; but we almost had to be diverted because no one came forward with the device. It took about 30 minutes and 4-5 reminders from the flight attendant and pilot to resolve the issue, making me think the person either forgot he renamed it to that or he himself was pranked and didn't realize his phone was renamed until he took a second look. I was hoping someone didn't buy a galaxy note 7 as a gift and had it in a bag somewhere. But yeah, definitely one of the more interesting flights i've been on :/

How was it resolved? Did the person come forward, turn off the phone, etc.?

What do you think would have happened if they didn't?

They said they would have searched every bag, but they wouldn't have find it since it could have been any kind of Android with a changed SSID. It's the ultimate troll!

edit: > no further action was taken on the passenger with the device (from the BBC article)

Could have been an iPhone, too, since you can write whatever you want as the hotspot SSID.

The person came forward with the device and it was determined that the phone wasn't actually a Galaxy Note 7, but was just named that way. We were very close to being diverted though.

If I recall correctly, don't some older versions of Windows broadcast (as an adhoc network) the SSID of the last hotspot they successfully connected to? [0]

If so, wouldn't it be quite plausible that an owner of a Galaxy Note 7, who had previously used tethering elsewhere (with that SSID), would then accidentally broadcast that SSID when using their Windows laptop on the flight, even though the Galaxy Note is not there?

[0] https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20101011/031...

XP did this, but it's pretty unlikely that someone was running Windows XP on a plane in 2016.

I did this 3 weeks ago.

I was carrying an old Thinkpad we use for interfacing with a legacy PLC at a customer's manufacturing plant, and didn't want to bring my regular machine in addition to that behemoth. Still going strong!

Unfortunate that nobody checked/saved the MAC of that hotspot. I believe it doesn't change when you switch between the AP / client mode, so you could identify the person later on.

Then again, it would be interesting to know if you can actually get charged for having a specific SSID and whether anyone can prove it's been done on purpose, not accidentally.

> Unfortunate that nobody checked/saved the MAC of that hotspot. I believe it doesn't change when you switch between the AP / client mode, so you could identify the person later on.

The person identified him/herself on the flight preventing the diversion, according to the (better) BBC account: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38404711?ocid=socialflow_...

only inceases/decreases by 1

I'm probably in the minority, but I change my MAC address at the airport quite often.

For the airports that only give you 30 minutes of internet, if you change your MAC address, you can get repeated free sessions.

Regardless, the main problem with what you suggest is that it would require going through everyone's phones, so you'd need to get a warrant, or many warrants, and it would be a very long drawn-out process.

Shhhh!

The first rule of changing your MAC is that you don't talk about changing your MAC.

Any lawyer types willing to comment on the applicability of Schenck v. United States[1] decision to prospective trolls looking for a few lulz?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

I was on an LHR-IAD flight earlier this week that was 2 or 3 in line for takeoff and had to taxi back to the gate so they could remove something from the hold. From the conversations I overheard it was a phone that had to be removed from someone's checked baggage.

If Note 7s are so dangerous, how is it that people are asked to turn them off, rather than prevented from taking them on a flight in the first place?

The only thing worse than security theater is voluntary security theater.

(and yes, I'm aware that the device in question here was not actually a note 7).

People are told repeatedly that Note 7s are not allowed on flights at all now. You get announcements in line for security, at the gate, and on board before leaving.

Why don't they check for this particular phone in TSA security? The process is already ridiculous with shoe removal and toiletries in ziploc. Why not check the model number on my phone?

They do check for it. I've seen people pulled aside with their phone getting inspected, presumably when TSA sees a something resembling a 7 in the scanner. (They probably know what to look for)

Are you sure that's what they were checking? They've randomly pulled people aside and swabbed electronics for years so it may just be that.

They explicity asked, and then manually inspected. (I was in the line for getting electronics swabbed so I could see)

Interesting... here in the EU they are just told to turn them off, not charge them onboard and not keep them in the overhead locker (although details vary by flight).

Because EU doesn't have any initiative to push Apple's agenda.

I just flew UK to Spain this week an no one even mentioned Galaxy. Note 7. Nothing but the standard "phoned must be off or in airplane mode"

Because that's what the sane approach is. The odds of Galaxy Note 7 is going in flames are very very small, this happening during these few hours when on plane, makes it even more smaller by few orders of magnitude. That's why in my parent post I suspected hidden agenda by direct competitors, not that there's real hazard. We accept bigger risks every day and don't make big deal of them.

And yet it already actually happened[1], within a few days of the device's re-launch after the first recall.

[1] http://gizmodo.com/galaxy-note-7-explodes-during-boarding-of...

I doubt there's an agenda to push Apple products but the sane approach is just to insist all phones are switched off as you say.

If we're completely honest, with little effort any LiPo can be turned into a threat. Puncture a sufficiently large LiPo, throw it in the toilet bin and go back to your seat. With a phone, laptop and camera - all with spare batteries it's conceivable that you could cause some serious damage.

It's impossible to remove all risks on an aircraft - they will always be there. It would be better to have better handling - i.e. a large fire proof bag and a bucket of sand. Inevitably this will end up happening regardless of what checks they put in place. Fire extinguishers simply don't cut it with LiPos and I doubt their staff even know that.

I fly UK-Spain (and back) twice a month. In October and November, there were specific alerts about Galaxy Note 7s (you had to give them to the crew that would put them somewhere IIRC, I didn't pay much attention). In my last flight (December) it was only generic for all phones.

-Not quite.

Last week the flight crew on my Scandinavian and Lufthansa (Both Star Alliance) flights repeatedly informed us prior to departure that anyone caught with a Note 7 on them would be hung, drawn and quartered to the full extent of law and then some more, just to be sure.

I think they went from just requiring them to be switched off to banning them altogether sometime in September. Ban was definitely in effect in October.

I also think that the flight attendant claimed this was due to a recommendation from the EASA (European Air Safety Agency), though I didn't pay all that much attention as I was reading E-mail on my positively ancient S4 Active at the time. :)

I flew from UK to Germany and back on Ryanair last month. No announcements about the Note 7.

That's an FAA (US gov't) ban, though, right? I imagine it wouldn't apply to planes that aren't traveling in/to/from the US.

They are banned on all US flights, so they're undoubtedly banned in many other countries as well. You are not simply asked to turn them off.

I've been on 6 EU flights since the US ban went into place. 2 were BA, 1 was Norwegian, 2 were flybe and 1 was wizzair. However, none of them said we could not have them on board.. but we were told that they must be off, and not charging during the flight. One said that if we dropped the phone and couldn't retrieve it, we were to notify flightcrew as a matter of urgency.

I just checked into my Flight, UA2, from Singapore to San Francisco (SIN->SFO). Traditionally when checking in to this flight, I'm asked questions about sharp objects, has anyone given me anything to carry, did i pack my bag, has my bag been under my control. This time, the security person had one, and only one question (That's actually what he said, "I only have one question for you" - They held up a sheet of paper with "Galaxy Note 7" on it, and asked me if I had one in my possession, either checked or carry on luggage. That's it, that's all they cared about.

They really don't want those phones on planes in any form.

Next person who tries that will likely end up in jail.

Joking? You can't be jailed for naming your phone or wifi Galaxy Note 7.

Creativity knows no boundaries, especially (unfortunately?) in America's legal system.

This is true, but people don't want to hear it. Some sheeptard might flag your comment. I've had experience with restraining orders. Do people realize that you can literally be sent to court for harassment if whatever you do, X, is considered harassment by the victim? X can literally be anything, as long as the victim sees it as harassment, and is smart enough to feign (or be in) distress. If your action, X, can somehow be considered as terrorism or boy-who-cried-wolf, you can be detained by the Government. It's funny because people don't wanna hear that they "can be jailed for pretty much anything", even if it's more-or-less true. Even less so do they want to hear that their sorry asses are responsible for giving permission to the government to do this.

Just remember the video of ISIS burning two Turks to a crisp. If that's not bad enough, which it isn't (our government doesn't give a shit about those two soldiers), remember 11am September 11, 2001, when two jets destroyed our tallest creations and killed so many people. In 2001, they fucked with us on our own turf. This is the reason why you're fucked if you make an Allah Akbar joke on a plane.

Not for naming it that, but for falsely implying the existence of an explosive device on the plane.

I am puzzled by how the headline switched from holding a random smartphone in one's pocket to wilfully carrying a dangerous explosive device.

It's barred from flight by the FAA, presumably because it's known to... you know... explode...

So I guess it would count as carrying a dangerous explosive device.

Except they don't explode by definition and it is just the persistence by the media plus fear and ignorance that continues this stupidity. This Galaxy Note bullshit needs to die.

The Galaxy Note 7 will be outlived by stupidity and ignorance (not that it doesn't catch fire - you know what I mean)

I called it an explosive device because we now know that they literally explode.

I grant that basically any large lithium batter can do the same (or be induced to do the same), but this one was both common and could go off accidentally, making it a more common and therefore likely threat.

It could very well be an honest mistake. Maybe whomever named it was trying to find the network on their Note 7.

Suggesting that someone go to jail over "SSID naming convention contains Note 7" is absurd.

It's all about intent.

Except they don't "literally" explode. They catch on fire and melt, if you think that fits the definition of explode I have some fireworks that I would like to sell to you.

Explosion: A release of mechanical, chemical, or nuclear energy in a sudden and often violent manner with the generation of high temperature and usually with the release of gases.

This is definitely a description of what happens to the batteries.

I think he's trying to argue that because they deflagrate instead of detonating, it's incorrect to call the process an explosion. That's the only thing I can see that makes sense, at least, incorrect and apparently disingenuous though it is in this context.

If you announce verbally on a plane you have something that can explode even if you do not you will still get arrested/jailed.

What difference does it make that you decided to do so electronically?

The scenario described is almost literally a modern interpretation of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. [0]

Speech used to incite panic or create a riot can absolutely land you jail.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

A bad decision and a scapegoat for all kinds of nonsense. Where does it end? If everyone is afraid of X and someone says X! do they lose their 1st and not pass go?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyoOfRog1EM

I would suggest we start by blacklisting certain Emojis from being used in Hotspot names such as "️ ... ... ... 🇮🇷"

( image for those with clients that don't support those glyphs - http://i.imgur.com/hvz8yHY.png )

Thanks for the image.

I was actually wondering the same thing. Hoping resident lawyer types chime in to discuss whether Schenck v. United States precedent is applicable.

I was going to say you can be jailed for interfering with a flight crew (and you can), but in this case you'd probably only incur civil penalties (fines).

Can we crowdfund this?

I can see some crazy youtuber attempting this soon.

Mostly off-topic, but does anyone know how to hide a neighbor's wifi name? Where I live for part of the year someone nearby has a really crude anti-Semitic wifi name. I'm not trying to get into a discussion on free speech and how they have the right to call their wifi that, but I just don't want to see it on my devices.

And don't shout "Alahu Akhbar" on a plane as well. That tends to upset people for some reason.

Just don't shout at all, unless you need help.

or any other Arabic words for that matter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43RgvVY_wvQ

Or mathematical notation.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/07/professor-fl...

Some context:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/21/adam-saleh-del...

"A YouTube star known for filming elaborate hoaxes was escorted off a Delta flight on Wednesday morning after he claimed that other passengers complained when they heard him speaking in Arabic.

Adam Saleh, a 23-year-old YouTube star from New York, posted multiple videos to Twitter and Periscope on Tuesday, showing himself being escorted from a plane by Delta flight attendants.

Saleh said in the videos that after passengers heard him speaking Arabic, they “felt uncomfortable” and called flight attendants. However, while it is clear that he was removed from the flight at London’s Heathrow airport, the circumstances leading up to the video – retweeted more than 644,000 times – are not known and cannot be verified.

Saleh has created videos in the past that involved staged scenes on airplanes and with actors playing authority figures."

Also, the controversies section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Saleh ,

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/delta-passengers-dispu...

You're looking for "Akbar."

"Akhbar" means "has more experience"

So what I was saying is "Allah has more experience"?

I guess it's not against the law to scream that.

If you're ever on the way back from Hawaii and happen to run into friends of yours that are in-costume Star Wars enthusiasts, it'd be wise not to use the native "Aloha" greeting.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_Ackbar

Also, don't greet your friend Jack.

Flight crews should have an onboard device--I'll call it a tricorder--that constantly scans the electromagnetic spectrum onboard watching for certain things. "Please turn off all whatevers" should not be left to the honor system. You scan and find what's on, always showing you a live report.

If it finds something unusual, it could be carried down the aisles and quickly locate the source, whether in your hand, your pocket, your luggage, or below in the cargo hold.

It should also have jamming capabilities that will activate instantly and automatically in some cases, manually in others.

With this extra monitoring should come extensive testing of just what is and what isn't an issue--an the necessary reengineering of avionics, etc., to make certain things no longer be an issue--so devices that must be off can be guaranteed to be off (or quickly found or instantly jammed), but on the flip side, things that don't actually need to be turned off can be left on.

Devices are supposed to be shut off / put in airplane mode to prevent interference with avionics. Intentionally jamming a part of the spectrum would be counter-productive.

The jamming would not be routine--not a substitute for keeping a channel clear--but would be available as an emergency measure if for some reason it became necessary.

Depending on how much of the spectrum is jammed, the pilots might have to fly without some avionic support for a time until the issue is resolved, but they should be able to do this, anyway. If they can't fly on manual, then a passenger with electronics designed to interfere with avionics could crash the plane.

A cheap $50 phone from 2010 can stay constantly connected to 6 base stations (at 6 different frequencies) and swap over between them in milliseconds.

You'll need to emit 100 times the power of a phone over a wide range of frequencies to jam them.

It's not even counter-productive, it is destructive. Don't suggest that as an idea in a plane.

It's got nothing to do with avionics. It's to stop interference with base stations on the ground.

But you're allowed to have phones on the ground.

Within the airport you are nowhere close enough to an antenna for it to matter.

You know how old gsm phones made a d-d-d d-d-d ddZzz-d now and then when near a playing radio?

That is long enough to completely mangle a control tower message. They let phone on grounded plane because a parked plane is not in critical contact with the tower.

Now, having them off by age/model/features would be extremely complicate, most people won't genuinely know if their model is affected etc. So it's all electronic should be switched off or in airplane mode.

Nice theory, but not true. You're allowed to use your GSM phone the second you land, but there is still plenty of critical communication to be done, like negotiating crossing other active runways while taxiing. 100% of runway incursions happen on the ground!

My understanding is that the concern is not interference with voice radio but interference with the more sensitive analog radionavigation equipment, e.g. VOR and ILS. These both aren't used on the ground and don't work on the ground anyway because of antenna orientation and other issues. VOR and ILS are very old and very simple technologies (at least as radio goes), making it fairly plausible that radio interference in particular bands could skew the ILS needle and cause a badly failed landing approach.

But remember that both GSM and ILS/VOR/DME are licensed radio services, and thus shouldn't interfere. The speakers you hear the TDMA modulation in have a sticker on them that says "This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation." Indeed, it does accept the interference that causes undesired operation.

This is a bit of a misinterpretation of Part 15. Part 15 devices bear the "must accept" language to indicate that they enjoy no particular regulatory protection from interference - the operator of a part 15 device may not compel action on the part of another person because that person's lawful operation is interfering with the part 15 device.

Licensed services do enjoy regulatory protection, but that protection doesn't change anything physically - it just means that there is a regulatory remedy when interference is a problem. And one of those remedies is FCC regulations about where other devices can and cannot be used.

While radionavigation equipment should be built to high standards for interference rejection, their being a licensed service is in no way a guarantee that other devices won't cause problematic interference. It just means that when other devices do cause interference, FCC enforcement is a possibility.

around here it is said to keep them off until the plane stops. almost noone does and the pilot aren't screaming at them, so there's that.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/121.306

No, it's not. All electronic devices are banned by default, "[unless] the part 119 certificate holder [the air carrier] has determined will not cause interference with the navigation or communication system of the aircraft on which it is to be used."

The throwaway is probably thinking of the ban on cell phones, which is an FCC restriction, not an FAA one.

This is correct as this article was concerned around the Samsung phone.

That was the original intent, I guess, and it’s better to err on the safe side, but as far as I know, it’s not actually clear that they do interfere. And the FAA doesn’t regulate mobile devices on aircraft, leaving it up to the FCC and individual airlines.

But of course you can’t jam the part of the spectrum you intend to use. :P

Well, if you have a FHSS frequency hopper, you could jam on all the channels except the one you are talking on at that instant (for 50ms or however long you hop). That would make the spectrum unusable by anyone except you. (It's also why regulatory bodies have strict rules on how long (and short) you can idle on a channel, how you have to hop through all channels before transmitting a second time on one, etc...)

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