WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight • Hacker News Board

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#401

Post by gsk22 » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 9:25 PM UTC

denvaar wrote: post #369

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…

What makes it so that you can only resolve the host wifi.delta.com during a flight?

I assume the DNS server on the in-flight router is programmed to resolve that hostname to some local device.

Similar to how I can log into my ASUS router from my home wifi by visiting asusrouter.com.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#402

Post by sznio » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 9:25 PM UTC

savrajsingh wrote: post #219

KMnO4 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to do the same thing at hotels. Still often works. nmap -sn 192.168.0.1-255 To find everyone on the network, then start spoofing each of their MACs until you find one that works

I should probably know the answer, but what happens when two devices have the same MAC address?

Since Wi-Fi is a broadcast medium, shouldn't it not matter? With a switch it would break things because MAC tables, but a Wi-Fi AP is a hub. Each device will receive packets for both devices, sure, but will that break things?

I know Windows gets upset when that happens but the network seems to still work.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#403

Post by quickthrower2 » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 9:27 PM UTC

rockostrich wrote: post #208

chatmasta wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the plane is staying level but the ground is variable terrain.

Elevation is relative to sea level, not the ground.

And using the ground proximity to guide a landing instead of altitude has lead to some crashes I have read.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#404

Post by coffeebeqn » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 9:28 PM UTC

not2b wrote: post #148

But SouthWest will give you a much prettier display of that same data (track your flight, see the current altitude and ETA, and a lot more, like the plane's position on the map) without paying for their WiFi. My guess is that they are using the same data that article writer wrote a program to process. Essentially there is one site you can visit for free and that's where it is.

I was on some US flight recently - maybe Alaskan airlines - and they basically had a LAN box with movies and shows accessible on wifi without internet access

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#405

Post by wasmitnetzen » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 9:28 PM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #298

hackmiester wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, a train has airspeed. :)

Heh, true. I deliberately left out altitude because this is HN but you caught me anyway. Presumably a train's groundSpeed and airSpeed are the same. If they diverge you have bigger problems than a JSON schema. Is there a variant of this for ships? surfaceSpeed vs seaFloorSpeed?

A train can easily run in a head- or tailwind in the same order of magnitude as its groundspeed.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#406

Post by Eumenes » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 9:31 PM UTC

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…

9-10 seems young to have a phone, smart kid though

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#407

Post by nickf » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

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.

I really think you’ve missed the point. Opening any of those apps after receiving the notification requires a network connection to then update. It’s not done via the push notification itself. I have never seen that happen in my experience. Flighty does, hence why it’s deemed clever.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#408

Post by dangus » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 9:44 PM UTC

lxgr wrote: post #295

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…

That's an amazing anecdote! The state of "open Wi-Fi" security is actually really sad. I'm not aware of an easy way for the airline to actually do better than this! I suppose they could use Opportunistic Wireless Encryption [1] and bind session authentication to that (i.e. authenticate a given OWE session, not a given MAC address) if the device supports it, as at least modern Apple devices do? But I have no idea how…

Isn’t this data meant to be exposed? You can get all this flight status on the Southwest intranet when you’re connected to WiFi as part of the flight status page.

This hack just goes a step further to plot the data over time.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#409

Post by withinboredom » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 9:49 PM UTC

colanderman wrote: post #393

aeternum wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the key to doing this more seamlessly is to spoof both the IP and the MAC so your machines are not constantly fighting with the other person over the ARP table entry.

Aren't you then fighting the switch's port learning? Or RSTing each other's TCP connections?

Its wifi. You both just pick up the same frame when it is broadcast, then it sees two stations (a level below IP) with the same MAC. Most routers just don't care about that. (it's technically a valid edge case that two stations have the same mac address. It should be vanishingly rare in the wild ... but this is a practical example of why it isn't).

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#410

Post by catiopatio » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 9:49 PM UTC

nickf wrote: post #407

catiopatio wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I really think you’ve missed the point. Opening any of those apps after receiving the notification requires a network connection to then update. It’s not done via the push notification itself. I have never seen that happen in my experience. Flighty does, hence why it’s deemed clever.

I have not missed the point.

Background notifications can and do carry arbitrary application data, and are used to update the application state in the background.

This is their intended purpose, it’s what they’re documented to do, it’s how Apple intends them to be used, and it’s common application behavior.

This is literally a plainly documented feature of the platform. It’s not clever or unique or unusual — it’s a simple feature that Apple specifically documents.

I cannot even begin to fathom why people are confused about this, and it’s truly mind-boggling that this has required a thread at all.

Slack/Discord/Teams are non-native applications that do not leverage the platform’s support for updating application state via notifications. That does not mean the use of background notifications is unusual or rare. It is not.