Brit chess prodigy tells court he was ‘messing around’ when he joked ‘I’m Taliban’ in message that sparked fighter jet escort during easyJet flight
by nimobo
Brit chess prodigy tells court he was ‘messing around’ when he joked ‘I’m Taliban’ in message that sparked fighter jet escort during easyJet flight
by nimobo
20 comments
> It was not made clear how they [GCHQ] obtained the information [the message to a Snapchat group], although a friend of Aditya’s said the information – including the photo – could have been picked up from Gatwick Airport WiFi servers that one of the friends in the Snapchat group was using
This doesn’t really make any sense, nor does the fact we didn’t charge him here too and just let Spain deal with it
Just weird procedure in this case over all
Who has signed off this prosecution as in the public interest? I was reading the whole article expecting to get to whichever of his friends had reported him and never got to it… What is the actual offence?
If your best argument is “if he had shouted this on the plane it would have caused a panic” something has gone very wrong.
Put all your points in chess, fail at using Snapchat
And this is why everybody should be using end-to-end encrypted messaging.
>’I said in the message I sent with the photo before we boarded: ‘On my way to **blow up the plane**. I’m a member of the Taliban.
So it was a bit more than the headline suggested.
>But Aditya’s friend, who was on the same flight to Menorca and gave his name in court as Akash Raf, insisted: ‘If anyone had taken a screenshot or shared the photo with anyone outside of the group we would all have received a message on our phones and we didn’t get anything.’
Possibly. My last phone used to be able to take screenshots in Snapchat group chats without anyone getting a message. It was a running joke in one of the groups I’m in.
If you haven’t realised that the state monitor or at least have the ability to monitor every message you send especially on major social networking apps then you are just willfully ignorant. Edward snowden and Julian’s leaks have proven their capabilities some time ago.
The usual argument from those who don’t value their freedom is “nothing to hide, nothing to worry about”
Snapchat should die already, use encrypted messaging!
If GCHQ is able to get some random kids messages from Snapchat. The why the fuck have they jot got half of our governments covid messages. Which suddenly “vanished” for several members of the cabinet.
Where’s the proof it was “snooped” far more likely to have been a member of the group reporting this guy for being a cunt, out of genuine concern, or as an extreme form of swatting.
That was a really, really stupid thing to do but I also feel bad because he was so young and he didn’t say it out loud. He probably had no idea the message wouldn’t be private.
Essentially charged for making a private joke and having his messages intercepted without a court order and incompetently or maliciously interpreted.
And quite a few people support this lack of legal insecurity.
lol typical statism – government reads your private messages, government overreacts and sends violent force to meet you, government takes you to court and sends you the massive bill
Assuming that there’s nothing more to the story than has been reported, then this is bloody stupid and I feel for the kid.
It’d be totally different if he’d said this directly to a member of staff, as some people do. The authorities, however they managed to see this message, were not wrong to scramble a jet if they considered him a possible threat, but to pass the cost to him is ridiculous.
If I call 999 and joke that my house is on fire, I should be fined for the resources I waste. If I send a joke text to a friend that my house is on fire, this somehow gets intercepted by the fire dept and they send out services… That’s on them.
first of all, taliban is not even a terror group. they are the governing body of afghanistan. “al qaeda” is the terror group right?
In court because the government spied on your private conversation and overreacted.
Bunch of clowns
I love all the keyboard warriors here complaining about the police who would also be the first to complain if they missed this sort of message from an actual terrorist, resulting in a successful attack.
I wonder if he was reported or this is PRISM at work. Nice to see whatever it was works even if this case was a bit over the top
This is literally insane.
What the fuck has this country come to where you can be arrested for sending a joke to your friends privately
Did anyone read the article? The message was sent via public airport wifi, Snapchat is not end to end encrypted, and it is likely they have a flag for messages deemed suspicious. This is not a case of “the govt is spying on us & reading our private conversations!!”.
It was a stupid mistake, which led to a normal response to a possible bomb threat, which led to hefty costs to pay.
Should they have not enquired this boy once they suspected something? It could’ve been assessed it was a joke isn’t it and sorted out without much drama? Letting the plane fly and scrambling fighter jets much later doesn’t sound efficient at all! While I am happy they are having an eye on security and keeping us all safe clearly they were not efficient and does this warrant a case on the boy for cracking a joke?