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WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

jamesbvaughan.com

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Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#331

Post by smfjaw »

commandlinefan wrote: post #205

When my son was younger - maybe 9 or 10 or so, we were on a plane and he was using his phone and I looked over his shoulder and realized he was on the internet... but I hadn't paid for an internet plan. I said, "son, how are you using the internet?" He said, "oh, a kid at school showed me - if you go here" (he opened up the wifi settings where the DHCP assigned IP address is) "and start changing the numbers, eventual…

Love stuff like this, it's how kids get into computers. I used to make minecraft servers for my friends and I to play on when I was 12, which lead to a software engineering career. Sounds like you've got something similar on your hands

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#332

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

jedberg wrote: post #172
dgellow wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WA chat is not HTTPS (or even TLS) If you don’t mind, could you expend on this? Are there specific reasons to not be using TLS?

We didn't use TLS at Netflix either, and instead used our own encryption protocol that ran on top of HTTP. We could do this because we controlled the clients too. The why was because of trust store issues. Every device has its own built in trust store, and especially on devices like TVs and DVD players, they couldn't be updated. After looking at all the devices we supported, there was no common certificate signer amo…

> Every device has its own built in trust store, and especially on devices like TVs and DVD players, they couldn't be updated.

Was creating your own certificate authority and pinning it in the app not an option?

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#334

Post by catiopatio »

s3p wrote: post #278
constantly wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is asking for a survey of apps that do this. You’re making the claim that it’s far from rare, so you have enough knowledge to make this claim. Share with us the smallest piece of your knowledge by naming one single other app that does this. It’s the least you can do since you’re making the claim. Please, I’m very curious!

I'm curious as well.

Why?

Do you genuinely believe it’s uncommon for applications to leverage this useful, trivial, long-standing platform API for its intended and explicitly documented purpose?

I can’t imagine why you’d believe that, but another commenter already provided the requested single example up-thread.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#335

Post by CommieBobDole »

hackmiester wrote: post #87

Here is how to get the equivalent data on a Delta flight. $ curl https://wifi.delta.com/api/flight-data | jq % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed 100 448 100 448 0 0 5600 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 5743 { "timestamp": "2023-07-11T14:54:41Z", "eta": "17:48", "flightDuration": 278, "flightNumber": "DAL786", "latitude": 39.723472595214844, "longitude": -97…

As always, there's a relevant XKCD:

https://xkcd.com/2170/

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#336

Post by wkipling »

ceejayoz wrote: post #247
yread wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they got a lot more precise with implementation of Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) - planes had to be separated by 2000 ft and this was reduced in early 2000s to 1000ft

It was probably fairly precise already. To get their license, a private pilot must demonstrate via a checkride the ability to stay within 100 feet of an assigned altitude, even in a steep turn.

Not quite how it works.

These are the instruments we are referring to not the ability of pilots. In fact in RVSM airspace the autopilot must be used.

Instruments must be very accurate given the reduced separation in RVSM airspace. Often on modern aircraft multiple altimeters are compared and voted to provide a single output provided to the displays and autopilot.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#337

Post by mynameisvlad »

catiopatio wrote: post #181
mynameisvlad wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me one example, then. Of an app which uses a notification as an actual app data source and not just as a notification which opens the app. And which also updates the primary app view to reflect this new information. No other app has updated its app state based on the content of notifications. Slack/Discord/Teams et al (the ones that aren't allowed on free messaging plans) will show you previously cached messages…

Slack/Discord/Teams ? Those are desktop web applications hosted via Electron. Failing to leverage basic platform functionality is practically their telos. It’s a trivial, documented, supported, long-standing API for a common use-case. It is widely used, as documented, for its intended purpose. I cannot share information about specific applications.

Uh, all those apps have mobile counterparts.

> I cannot share information about specific applications.

So you don't have an example of an app using such a basic and widespread feature? Ok.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#338

Post by zikduruqe »

interestica wrote: post #183
dag11 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi fellow Alaska frequent flier. So about that! There's this iOS app called Flightly that does a brilliant little hack where the app updates itself in (almost) real time on the "free messaging" plan. The way it works (according to a friend) is that their servers send your phone a push notification every couple of minutes from take-off until landing, containing some serialized info such as lat,long,alt,eta,etc. And th…

> There's this iOS app called Flightly I guess it's Flighty ( https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flighty-live-flight-tracker/id... ) I love that people are into this. In the days before iPhones, I had "Microsoft Streets and Trips" + a USB GPS unit + Laptop. It was fun having it on a flight and seeing movement data in realtime. It was less fun answering questions from people who thought looking at the GPS data was somehow…

I used to do that also.

Way before cellphones, I'd bring my 2m radio on the plane and make contacts on simplex. That was fun to throw your callsign out and say "aeronautical mobile".

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#339

Post by superkuh »

someotherperson wrote: post #167
technothrasher wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many years ago, when hotels first started having and charging for WiFi connections, I wrote a simple little tunnel using the DNS port back to my server. Since the hotels didn't block that port or even bother to check what traffic was going over it, it worked like a charm. I tried it on a trip to Tokyo and immediately got completely blocked. It took me a few minutes to figure out they'd blacklisted my MAC address. I c…

Reminds me of using VPNs in hotels in China some years ago. Traffic would work for a few minutes and then the Great Firewall kicks in, fingerprints the traffic as VPN and the IP address and the MAC gets blocked. I'd rotate the endpoint and the MAC address and get a few more minutes, rinse and repeat. I think I had to use Shadowsocks or something at the end to completely bypass it.

Shadowsocks(-libev) is great. I use it in the USA with Comcast to prevent their MITM attacks on HTTP connections.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#340

Post by MostlyStable »

thedanbob wrote: post #317
chankstein38 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this same reason you used to be able to send messages via platforms like whatsapp without internet as well! I don't remember the airline I just remember I hadn't paid for internet but I could message and do a few other things but I couldn't browse the internet.

That was probably deliberate. I flew United recently and they advertised free wifi for certain messaging apps, or you could pay to access more apps or the general internet.

I also flew united recently and, in addition to the free messaging access, they also provided free access to the inflight entertainment, in case you wanted to watch it on your device instead of on the screen.

I would have loved to take advantage of this since my wireless earbuds were significantly better than the wired pair I had. Unfortunately, a little pop-up warned me that this was not available on Android 13 devices. I was more than a little annoyed, but also curious as to why this might have been the case.

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