I just recently took a very long flight and used the GoGo in-flight WiFi. What I couldn't understand is why, after I had created my account, signed in, paid and was ready to connect, I was given a CAPTCHA just prior to internet access being granted.
I kept thinking, what could they *possibly* be trying to prevent, people from setting up new accounts, paying for them and connecting in an automated fashion? If anything, that'd make them money. But this post makes me think that the folks at GoGo may have had this scenario in mind. A "bomb on a plane" designed to connect via WiFi would have a tough time handling the CAPTCHA, but it would be unlikely to stop the creation of a device like this.
As you correctly state, a ban wouldn't do much to mitigate risk. Someone left their MiFi on for the entire flight. I can't be sure that it was actually able to communicate with the cellular network, but my mom used to call us from a cell phone in my dad's small plane to let us know when they were about to land and it always worked. Nobody went to any trouble to find it and have it turned off, even though it was broadcasting its SSID and anyone connecting to GoGo would have seen it in the list.
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CAPTCHA
I kept thinking, what could they *possibly* be trying to prevent, people from setting up new accounts, paying for them and connecting in an automated fashion? If anything, that'd make them money. But this post makes me think that the folks at GoGo may have had this scenario in mind. A "bomb on a plane" designed to connect via WiFi would have a tough time handling the CAPTCHA, but it would be unlikely to stop the creation of a device like this.
As you correctly state, a ban wouldn't do much to mitigate risk. Someone left their MiFi on for the entire flight. I can't be sure that it was actually able to communicate with the cellular network, but my mom used to call us from a cell phone in my dad's small plane to let us know when they were about to land and it always worked. Nobody went to any trouble to find it and have it turned off, even though it was broadcasting its SSID and anyone connecting to GoGo would have seen it in the list.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by matthewdippel.
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