TL;DR
Don’t use snapchat
he wrote “On my way to blow up the plane (I’m a member of the Taliban).” in a private group chat on snap chat
…a private group chat. Nothing stupid like posting it on xitter or other public place.
Its a fucking in-joke. Do I need to worry about what I say to my friends now in private and worry about what my friendly local government spy would think about it… ?
All this invasion of privacy all these years and all they have to show for it are a few false positives.
Honestly I hope that this trial is swift and that the government ends up paying him for lost time and money.
On the other hand this is a really good reason to use encrypted communications
In general I agree, but there’s no privacy on airport Wi-Fi. And very little at an airport in general.
Shouldn’t it be all encrypted with SSL?
All the airport wifi could do is see the DNS requests (and the modern trend is to have DoH or DoT enabled by default, for example in the up to date versions of Android)
From the article:
A court in Madrid heard it was assumed the message triggered alarm bells after being picked up via Gatwick’s Wi-Fi network.
Public wifi without a VPN is like sex without a condom. The connection may not be encrypted (very risky) and even if it is, you are still susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks: https://www.garlandtechnology.com/blog/how-to-monitor-encrypted-traffic-and-keep-your-network-secure
I guarantee there will be a flood of articles about this over the next few days because of what I quoted above.
It’s also possible that one of his “friends” reported him or something like that.
Snapchat gave the info to police. From BBC:
On its website, in a section titled “How We Work with Law Enforcement Authorities”, Snapchat says one of its goals is to “maintain a safe and fun environment where Snapchatters are free to express themselves and stay in touch with their real friends”.
It adds: "We also work to proactively escalate to law enforcement any content appearing to involve imminent threats to life, such as school shooting threats, bomb threats and missing persons cases, and respond to law enforcement’s emergency requests for disclosure of data when law enforcement is handling a case involving an imminent threat to life.
Yes, especially in the UK, since they’re a surveillance state.
There are some things that will always get flagged on any platform. This, drugs, and connections to sanctioned countries, for example. I’ve heard of people in the US having their Venmo accounts suspended because they put “Havana” in the transaction description. Havana is a local dance club.
