How I hacked Gogo inflight wireless Internet with Chrome

Issue spotter: I think we've got him on trespass to a protected computer system used in interstate commerce, common law fraud, and theft of services. What <i>other</i> crimes did he just admit to that I missed? (We'll ignore that he hacked a computer while on an airplane, a detail which I would <i>not expect the government to be neutral about</i>.)<p>Seriously, kids: this is an <i>astoundingly</i> bad idea.

Not sure what's less impressive. A pricing model based on browser headers, or a 10,000 word article on "hacking gogo inflight" based on changing a browser header.

On a flight to a conference we once set up our own wifi hotspot using two laptops.<p>We had one company gogo subscription. They connected and shared their internet through ethernet to another laptop. That laptop shared it out through wi-fi. We had 4 people using the Internet. It was awesome but fairly impractical. At least I could tweet from the clouds.

This is unbelievably lame. The whole thing could have been related in under 100 words. Plus he is defrauding a perfectly legitimate service. $15 is not a ripoff. This isn't the MPAA.<p>It would have been acceptable if the author was 13 or something but they appear to be an adult who works for google.<p>What next, spoofing referer to get into porn sites? l33t d00d!

You can get internet on a flight?! We live in the future!<p>Oh, it's $15? Nevermind.

TL;DR: Wifi was cheaper for mobile so he changed the User-Agent header.

Really clever. Also really stupid to post it on the internet. I hope nothing bad comes your way because of it.

I understand the proof of concept is cool, but why do this? High speed Internet at 35k feet isn't worth $15 to you? You said yourself it was going to be a long flight. Why hussle them out of what is one beer on a plane?

From September 2010: <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5650175/how-to-get-cheap-or-free-in+flight-wi+fi" rel="nofollow">http://lifehacker.com/5650175/how-to-get-cheap-or-free-in+fl...</a>

This explains why the Internet is more expensive everyday. I shall hack my mobile so it presents as a desktop browser so I can pay full price. Every little bit helps.<p>Oh, and what a seriously lame article in almost every respect. Awesome interface etc etc. This was the gentle reminder I needed to push me from these mind-numbing articles. Good luck and good night.

Would it be illegal to connect to the internet with your phone (pay mobile price) then tether your phone to your laptop?

I'm flying to san fran from the east coast next week and specifically booked a Gogo flight in order to get work done by mile high. I saw the pricing structure on the airlines website though and I agree that it's shady. Where I'm from the law of Shade for Shade applies, shall try your method.

Discuss: How do you feel about Gogo's pricing model? According to this article they charge $9.95 if they detect you're on mobile. $15.95 otherwise.

GoGo sucks. Their service has been unusable on recent SFO/JFK flights. At $18 a pop, you can't even get the google home page to respond. What a joke of a company...