Slashdot reader Bruce66423 shared this report from the BBC.
A British man who joked to friends that he had blown up a flight from London Gatwick to Menorca has been acquitted of public order offenses by a Spanish court.
Aditya Verma admitted to telling friends in July 2022, “I'm going to blow up a plane. I'm part of the Taliban.” But he said he had made the joke in a private Snapchat group and had not intended to “cause public distress”… The message he sent to a friend before boarding the plane Continued to be picked up by security authorities. They then alerted Spanish authorities while the EasyJet plane was still in flight.
Two Spanish F-18 fighter jets were dispatched to flank the aircraft. One person followed the plane until it landed on the island of Menorca, where it was searched. Verma, who was 18 at the time, was arrested and held in a Spanish police cell for two days. He was subsequently released on bail… If found guilty, the university student faces a fine of up to €22,500 (£19,300 or $20,967) and a further €95,000 (£81,204 or $103,200) in costs. become. It looks like the jet plane is being scrambled.
But what was his first message? obtain From encrypted apps to UK security services?
One of the theories put forward at the trial was that it could have been intercepted via Gatwick's Wi-Fi network. However, an airport spokesperson told BBC News that the airport's network “doesn't have that capability”. A Snapchat spokesperson said the social media platform “does not comment on what happened in this individual case.”
richi (Slashdot reader #74,551) thinks it's obvious what happened. SnapChat's own website says it scans messages and reports them to authorities for threats. (“We also … seek to proactively escalate to law enforcement any content that appears to involve an imminent threat to life, such as bomb threats…”
“For emergency disclosure requests from law enforcement, our 24/7 team typically responds within 30 minutes.”