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Bypassing Gogo’s Inflight Internet Authentication

bryceboe.com

21–30 of 57 posts

Re: Bypassing Gogo’s Inflight Internet Authentication

#21
post #7

I'm amazed by some of the comments like "Wow great article. I knew there must be a way to avoid paying." and by author's apparent believe that contacting the support several times via twitter and not getting a response morally justifies sharing his recipe with other people and wishing them "Happy “free” surfing, for now anyway". Stealing is stealing, no matter what "justification" one may have about high prices. edit…

If they are providing the service, it isn't stealing. It is just using the service in a way that was not intended by the provider.

What about bypassing an electric meter to connect to the grid directly?

Re: Bypassing Gogo’s Inflight Internet Authentication

#22
post #19
post #16

You could also change your user agent to that of a mobile device and pay $5. Dishonesty is always an (unethical) option. The technical complexity of getting a seamless Wifi connection 30,000 feet above ground warrants its $12.00 in my opinion.

On my last flight, the price had been raised to $20 or so. I'm not sure if it was holiday price-gouging or they've simply raised their prices, but in either case I was not pleased - especially as the service quality seems to have gone down recently.

I'm sure service quality being reduced has absolutely nothing to do with people bypassing the pay wall or changing their desktop user agents to be mobile for cheaper prices. Nah.

Re: Bypassing Gogo’s Inflight Internet Authentication

#23
post #9
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This bakery's bread is OKish, but $10 is too much to pay for a loaf. But I found a cool trick: when you're offered to take a free sampler, you can actually take the whole lot while the owner is not watching. I sent him couple of postcards telling about this but he never responded, so enjoy this free bread while you can!"

And when you're done sampling, the whole bread is gone, just like in the case of internet access, right?

For clarification: I'm not advocating illegal access, my point is that the analogy with theft is not a good one.

Re: Bypassing Gogo’s Inflight Internet Authentication

#24
post #23
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when you're done sampling, the whole bread is gone, just like in the case of internet access, right?

For clarification: I'm not advocating illegal access, my point is that the analogy with theft is not a good one.

What's wrong with it, exactly?

Re: Bypassing Gogo’s Inflight Internet Authentication

#25
post #7

I'm amazed by some of the comments like "Wow great article. I knew there must be a way to avoid paying." and by author's apparent believe that contacting the support several times via twitter and not getting a response morally justifies sharing his recipe with other people and wishing them "Happy “free” surfing, for now anyway". Stealing is stealing, no matter what "justification" one may have about high prices. edit…

If they are providing the service, it isn't stealing. It is just using the service in a way that was not intended by the provider.

No, you see, using the service in a way not intended by the provider would be, for example, setting up your laptop as an ftp server from the airplane. This is different since it's pretty obvious you are circumventing measures put in place to force you to pay for access.

Re: Bypassing Gogo’s Inflight Internet Authentication

#26
I've made it a habit to ping and dig my servers before signing in to a new wireless network. Of the hundreds of coffee shops, trains, planes, airports, etc that I've done this at, there has only been one network that blocked/rerouted both ICMP and DNS requests: a university that shared its network security team with a nearby national lab.

However, exploiting these holes on a wireless network is incredibly easy to detect and block for an admin worth their salt. It's quite likely that at least a few of the networks I've been on would start blocking traffic from an unregistered device making tons of DNS requests.

That being said, just pay the few dollars they charge for access. If your time is money, this small fee won't be noticed. If you just want to be able to refresh Reddit/lurk on HN, maybe you should take this opportunity to get away from technology for a few hours (while sitting in an aluminum tube hurdling through the skies).

Re: Bypassing Gogo’s Inflight Internet Authentication

#27
post #19
post #16

You could also change your user agent to that of a mobile device and pay $5. Dishonesty is always an (unethical) option. The technical complexity of getting a seamless Wifi connection 30,000 feet above ground warrants its $12.00 in my opinion.

On my last flight, the price had been raised to $20 or so. I'm not sure if it was holiday price-gouging or they've simply raised their prices, but in either case I was not pleased - especially as the service quality seems to have gone down recently.

I've found the price jumps around a bit - I don't know if there's some metric to it or what.

Re: Bypassing Gogo’s Inflight Internet Authentication

#28
post #7

I'm amazed by some of the comments like "Wow great article. I knew there must be a way to avoid paying." and by author's apparent believe that contacting the support several times via twitter and not getting a response morally justifies sharing his recipe with other people and wishing them "Happy “free” surfing, for now anyway". Stealing is stealing, no matter what "justification" one may have about high prices. edit…

I fly virgin a lot. The gogo internet used to be $8 bux. Then $15 - last week it was now $20... for three hours.

You claim stealing is stealing, well to you, I say gouging is gouging and fuck them.

Re: Bypassing Gogo’s Inflight Internet Authentication

#29
post #24
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For clarification: I'm not advocating illegal access, my point is that the analogy with theft is not a good one.

What's wrong with it, exactly?

If you steal something from someone then you'll have the item in question in your possession afterwards while the original owner does not have it any more. Access to the internet is nothing you can steal.

Of course that is no justification for using the provided service without paying for it, but it's fundamentally different from theft.

Re: Bypassing Gogo’s Inflight Internet Authentication

#30
post #22
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my last flight, the price had been raised to $20 or so. I'm not sure if it was holiday price-gouging or they've simply raised their prices, but in either case I was not pleased - especially as the service quality seems to have gone down recently.

I'm sure service quality being reduced has absolutely nothing to do with people bypassing the pay wall or changing their desktop user agents to be mobile for cheaper prices. Nah.

You think MAC spoofing and editing your hosts file to get around a paywall has gone mainstream?

I'd be astonished if there were two HN readers on most flights.

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