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An acquaintance attempted that with Kindle, by keeping it in flight mode. After some days it popped up a message kindly asking to give it some network access. A

by lrem 7y ago

An acquaintance attempted that with Kindle, by keeping it in flight mode. After some days it popped up a message kindly asking to give it some network access. After a few more days it simply ignored the flight mode and connected to get fresh ads. Edit: I've checked with my wife who has an ad supported Kindle for over a year and keeps it in flight mode for months at a time. It never did that to her. So either Amazon changed that a long time ago, or I've believed a lie.

cameronbrown 7y ago
> After a few more days it simply ignored the flight mode and connected to get fresh ads. Worrying. "Flight" mode exists for a reason and should not be overridden.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Flight mode exists because the FAA applies unsafe-until-proven-safe methodology to everything flight related (as they should). If flight mode mattered at all planes would be falling out of the sky on the regular, many people just leave their phones on the whole trip. The only reason I turn my phone off is because it wastes a lot of battery as it tries to manage tower hopping the whole time. Planes are getting blasted by RF in the cellular bands continuously from the ground, too, so this is taken into consideration in the design process. Don't get me wrong the Kindle shouldn't do what it's doing but it's by no means a safety issue.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    > Planes are getting blasted by RF in the cellular bands continuously from the ground, too, so this is taken into consideration in the design process. It's a totally different affair if you are receiving a signal by a 100 Watt transmitter at 10 Km or a signal from a 1 Watt transmitter at 5 meters distance. The 1 Watt transmitter will overpower anything in its band with great ease and any dirt on the spectral output will have the same effect in other bands. Note that most cellphones will crank up their output if they can't connect to a base station that they can receive. Of course plane designers will still do what they can to reduce this nuisance but leaving our phone on makes it harder than it should be. Please turn your phone off or to airplane mode and consider it a very small price to pay for flying an airplane. Yes, flight mode does matter, no it probably won't crash a plane but does it have to before you would consider following a very simple rule?
  - derefr 7y ago
    IIRC there isn't a problem for most of the flight; but right as you're ascending/descending your phone can end up getting a very weak line-of-sight connection to a whole bunch of cell towers at once, which causes a few different problems, but all of which come down to "it makes both your phone, and all the towers, shout really loudly at one-another to try to achieve a circuit." Which, sure, means that there might be EM interference (on bands ATC doesn't even use, but which the pilots might like to switch to in event of emergency.) But, more importantly, it puts your phone's radio through an unusual high-power-draw situation that the phone's manufacturer may not have bothered testing for, which can make phone batteries explode that might not have otherwise ever exploded. Oh, and also, a plane-load of people whose phones are all ranging hogs circuits on a bunch of towers at once (for no productive purpose, since the phones don't have high-enough SNR to actually communicate anything useful with any of the towers they can "see"), so the cellular service providers have politely asked the FAA to get people to not do that.
    - seehafer 7y ago
      Thanks for this clear explanation of why this rule exists. Never understood it until now.
      - diminoten 7y ago
        I would take his explanation with a hefty grain of salt...
        arcticbull 7y ago
        Indeed, the reality is that people will leave their phones on intentionally or unintentionally so engineering within aerospace has to, and does, take this into consideration. There's reasons the rule exists, but it doesn't put you at increased risk.
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      I have never seen the claim that cell service providers played an active role in this. Do you have a source for this info? I am curious to learn more.
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  The reasons being (1) you are moving faster than the network hand over protocol is designed for and (2) even if it worked you could be impinging on the juicy margings of in-flight service offers. If airplanes could be brought down by turning on a cellphone you would never have been allowed to travel with one in the first place.
0xffff2 7y ago
Do you have a real source for this? That’s a pretty serious accusation.
- russdill 7y ago
  I'm guessing it's an ad supported kindle. The user paid less on the agreement that they would see ads. My non-ad supported kindle has never done anything like this.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    That’s fine, but until the FAA changes their policy, devices need to actually turn off their radios while in airplane mode. It’s not okay to lie to the user about things like that.
- lrem 7y ago
  Even if I went through the trouble of finding where he described it, you would get a pseudonymous guy on the Internet saying a thing, instead of a pseudonymous guy on the Internet mentioning an anonymous guy told him something. So, well, apply your pinch of salt. But I remember it pretty cleanly, as it did shock me a bit. As others suggested: it was an app-supported Kindle indeed. So it's not like Amazon went crazy unprovoked evil or something. Edit: I've checked with my wife who has an ad supported Kindle for over a year and keeps it in flight mode for months at a time. It never did that to her. So either Amazon changed that a long time ago, or I've believed a lie.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    It’s not the evil of displaying ads, but the evil of connecting while in airplane mode that bothers me. I don’t personally believe that it’s actually going to crash a plane, but until the FAA agrees with me devices shouldn’t be connecting while claiming to be in airplane mode. I’ll have to dig into it a bit, but I expect that doing so is a violation of FAA or more likely FCC regulations.
WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
> ignored the flight mode and connected to get fresh ads. What's the worst that could happen? It's not like a plane's gonna fall out of the sky - Exhibit A.
carterehsmith 7y ago
>> After some days it popped up a message kindly asking to give it some network access. After a few more days it simply ignored the flight mode and connected to get fresh ads. Yeah that's gross. Btw, Amazon does sell some cheaper ebook readers on the understanding that they will show ads. Was that the case here?
- pkaye 7y ago
  Yes they do sell some ad supported ebook readers. And the price difference is not a lot. $20 savings for months of ads is not worth it.
  - fake-name 7y ago
    I have a relatively old ad-supported kindle. It was fairly straightforward to replace the ad images. Now it shows me cat pictures when turned off.
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    Honestly, I wish I could switch my non-ad-supported Kindle Oasis to a mode where the lock screen would cycle book recommendations. The normal cover is a bit boring.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
LynxInLA 7y ago
That is surprising. I've had my Kindles on airplane mode for up to a year and haven't received any notices like that.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  Do you have the ad supported version?
  - reificator 7y ago
    I have the ad supported version and leave airplane mode on at all times. I don't believe it has ever exited airplane mode without my consent. Kindle Voyage 1st generation, if that's relevant.
  - pacman128 7y ago
    My ad supported Kindle Paperwhite has never turned off airplane mode either. I only turn off airplane mode when I have a new book to download to it and turn it back on afterward.
  - LynxInLA 7y ago
    Yes. It shows cached ads for about a week after turning airplane mode and then just stays on a default Kindle ad screen indefinitely.
driverdan 7y ago
I had the same thing happen. I rooted my Kindle and kept it in flight mode to avoid tracking and updates. After not using it for months I recharged it and when I turned it on it had auto updated to the latest version, killing root. So not only did mine exit flight mode it somehow re-enabled updates and updated itself.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  It's possible that it may have cleared its settings after being away from power for that long.
  - driverdan 7y ago
    It shouldn't since settings aren't stored in volatile memory.
- bradstewart 7y ago
  Not sure about Kindles, but with the super cheap Fire Tablets, Amazon basically tells you "this device is subsidized by ads". You can pay a small fee ($15 IIRC) to remove them permanently.
  - Crespyl 7y ago
    Unless you do pay the fee, and then somehow the device still keeps resetting itself to the advertisement mode. I just use a Kobo now.
paggle 7y ago
Change your WiFi password on the little bugger.
andreilys 7y ago
You can also ask Amazon support to turn off those ads, that's what I did and don't have to deal with ads on my Kindles screen anymore.
packet_nerd 7y ago
My Kindle's never been connected to the network (always in flight mode) since I got it and I haven't had issues. I use Calibri and a USB cable to load ebooks. Not sure, would it be possible for it to call home through the USB cable?
- lscotte 7y ago
  Same for me, mine has been in flight mode for over a year, it's definitely not connecting to sync collections.
ajxs 7y ago
That's honestly outrageous to the point of scandal. Aside from the point that these are expensive devices, these are devices that you own. You, the owner, should be able to control them to a complete degree.
- turc1656 7y ago
  I'd agree with you but the user agreement that you sign when turning on the device the first time states they can do shit like this. EULAs are an entirely separate problem, though.
- thirdsun 7y ago
  While I agree with you it's my understanding that this was an ad-supported Kindle. Amazon offers them with a discount, which means the buyer explicitely accepted ads for a slightly lower purchase price. I'm not saying it's ok to ignore flight mode options, but neither is the expectation to completely avoid ads when buying this very version of the Kindle.
myaccount80 7y ago
If you want to get rid of the ads without hacks, just contact amazon with the web chat and ask if they can remove them. They did it for me for free. (I’m serious)
- mrpopo 7y ago
  It makes sense. Not enough people care about it enough to go through the ordeal. By offering an option for concerned people, they can avoid bad publicity about what they do.
ctack 7y ago
Nothing I've purchased matches the level of outright disgust I feel for the Kindle and it's ads.
- travisp 7y ago
  Given that you can pay just a little bit of money to have it be ad free, it seems that your level of outright disgust isn’t that high.
dsenkus 7y ago
just do factory reset and immediately put it into flight mode. It can't update if it has no wifi password. If you want to update, just do it via cable. I have couple kindle paperwhites of different generations, and none of them did any unexpected update for years.
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Well that is pretty much what you paid for - a low cost device with the caveat being that it's ad supported. You get what you (don't) pay for. Of course, it used to be that Kindles were relatively low cost because you could easily buy books from Amazon directly from it. I guess they didn't earn enough money from that - piracy maybe?
Kneecaps07 7y ago
I leave my Kindle in airplane mode for weeks at a time and have never experienced this. I've had Kindles for 6 or 7 years now.
- october_sky 7y ago
  Same. My ~2017 Kindle stays on airplane mode for weeks/months at a time. It's the only device I read on, so I leave it in airplane mode to save battery. I've never had it re-enable wifi.

by lrem 7y ago

cameronbrown 7y ago

> After a few more days it simply ignored the flight mode and connected to get fresh ads. Worrying. "Flight" mode exists for a reason and should not be overridden.

arcticbull 7y ago
Flight mode exists because the FAA applies unsafe-until-proven-safe methodology to everything flight related (as they should). If flight mode mattered at all planes would be falling out of the sky on the regular, many people just leave their phones on the whole trip. The only reason I turn my phone off is because it wastes a lot of battery as it tries to manage tower hopping the whole time. Planes are getting blasted by RF in the cellular bands continuously from the ground, too, so this is taken into consideration in the design process. Don't get me wrong the Kindle shouldn't do what it's doing but it's by no means a safety issue.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > Planes are getting blasted by RF in the cellular bands continuously from the ground, too, so this is taken into consideration in the design process. It's a totally different affair if you are receiving a signal by a 100 Watt transmitter at 10 Km or a signal from a 1 Watt transmitter at 5 meters distance. The 1 Watt transmitter will overpower anything in its band with great ease and any dirt on the spectral output will have the same effect in other bands. Note that most cellphones will crank up their output if they can't connect to a base station that they can receive. Of course plane designers will still do what they can to reduce this nuisance but leaving our phone on makes it harder than it should be. Please turn your phone off or to airplane mode and consider it a very small price to pay for flying an airplane. Yes, flight mode does matter, no it probably won't crash a plane but does it have to before you would consider following a very simple rule?
- derefr 7y ago
  IIRC there isn't a problem for most of the flight; but right as you're ascending/descending your phone can end up getting a very weak line-of-sight connection to a whole bunch of cell towers at once, which causes a few different problems, but all of which come down to "it makes both your phone, and all the towers, shout really loudly at one-another to try to achieve a circuit." Which, sure, means that there might be EM interference (on bands ATC doesn't even use, but which the pilots might like to switch to in event of emergency.) But, more importantly, it puts your phone's radio through an unusual high-power-draw situation that the phone's manufacturer may not have bothered testing for, which can make phone batteries explode that might not have otherwise ever exploded. Oh, and also, a plane-load of people whose phones are all ranging hogs circuits on a bunch of towers at once (for no productive purpose, since the phones don't have high-enough SNR to actually communicate anything useful with any of the towers they can "see"), so the cellular service providers have politely asked the FAA to get people to not do that.
  - seehafer 7y ago
    Thanks for this clear explanation of why this rule exists. Never understood it until now.
    - diminoten 7y ago
      I would take his explanation with a hefty grain of salt...
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        Indeed, the reality is that people will leave their phones on intentionally or unintentionally so engineering within aerospace has to, and does, take this into consideration. There's reasons the rule exists, but it doesn't put you at increased risk.
  - shkkmo 7y ago
    I have never seen the claim that cell service providers played an active role in this. Do you have a source for this info? I am curious to learn more.
PeterStuer 7y ago
The reasons being (1) you are moving faster than the network hand over protocol is designed for and (2) even if it worked you could be impinging on the juicy margings of in-flight service offers. If airplanes could be brought down by turning on a cellphone you would never have been allowed to travel with one in the first place.

0xffff2 7y ago

Do you have a real source for this? That’s a pretty serious accusation.

russdill 7y ago
I'm guessing it's an ad supported kindle. The user paid less on the agreement that they would see ads. My non-ad supported kindle has never done anything like this.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  That’s fine, but until the FAA changes their policy, devices need to actually turn off their radios while in airplane mode. It’s not okay to lie to the user about things like that.
lrem 7y ago
Even if I went through the trouble of finding where he described it, you would get a pseudonymous guy on the Internet saying a thing, instead of a pseudonymous guy on the Internet mentioning an anonymous guy told him something. So, well, apply your pinch of salt. But I remember it pretty cleanly, as it did shock me a bit. As others suggested: it was an app-supported Kindle indeed. So it's not like Amazon went crazy unprovoked evil or something. Edit: I've checked with my wife who has an ad supported Kindle for over a year and keeps it in flight mode for months at a time. It never did that to her. So either Amazon changed that a long time ago, or I've believed a lie.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  It’s not the evil of displaying ads, but the evil of connecting while in airplane mode that bothers me. I don’t personally believe that it’s actually going to crash a plane, but until the FAA agrees with me devices shouldn’t be connecting while claiming to be in airplane mode. I’ll have to dig into it a bit, but I expect that doing so is a violation of FAA or more likely FCC regulations.

WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago

> ignored the flight mode and connected to get fresh ads. What's the worst that could happen? It's not like a plane's gonna fall out of the sky - Exhibit A.

carterehsmith 7y ago

>> After some days it popped up a message kindly asking to give it some network access. After a few more days it simply ignored the flight mode and connected to get fresh ads. Yeah that's gross. Btw, Amazon does sell some cheaper ebook readers on the understanding that they will show ads. Was that the case here?

pkaye 7y ago
Yes they do sell some ad supported ebook readers. And the price difference is not a lot. $20 savings for months of ads is not worth it.
- fake-name 7y ago
  I have a relatively old ad-supported kindle. It was fairly straightforward to replace the ad images. Now it shows me cat pictures when turned off.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Honestly, I wish I could switch my non-ad-supported Kindle Oasis to a mode where the lock screen would cycle book recommendations. The normal cover is a bit boring.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

LynxInLA 7y ago

That is surprising. I've had my Kindles on airplane mode for up to a year and haven't received any notices like that.

cortesoft 7y ago
Do you have the ad supported version?
- reificator 7y ago
  I have the ad supported version and leave airplane mode on at all times. I don't believe it has ever exited airplane mode without my consent. Kindle Voyage 1st generation, if that's relevant.
- pacman128 7y ago
  My ad supported Kindle Paperwhite has never turned off airplane mode either. I only turn off airplane mode when I have a new book to download to it and turn it back on afterward.
- LynxInLA 7y ago
  Yes. It shows cached ads for about a week after turning airplane mode and then just stays on a default Kindle ad screen indefinitely.

driverdan 7y ago

I had the same thing happen. I rooted my Kindle and kept it in flight mode to avoid tracking and updates. After not using it for months I recharged it and when I turned it on it had auto updated to the latest version, killing root. So not only did mine exit flight mode it somehow re-enabled updates and updated itself.

saagarjha 7y ago
It's possible that it may have cleared its settings after being away from power for that long.
- driverdan 7y ago
  It shouldn't since settings aren't stored in volatile memory.
bradstewart 7y ago
Not sure about Kindles, but with the super cheap Fire Tablets, Amazon basically tells you "this device is subsidized by ads". You can pay a small fee ($15 IIRC) to remove them permanently.
- Crespyl 7y ago
  Unless you do pay the fee, and then somehow the device still keeps resetting itself to the advertisement mode. I just use a Kobo now.

paggle 7y ago

Change your WiFi password on the little bugger.

andreilys 7y ago

You can also ask Amazon support to turn off those ads, that's what I did and don't have to deal with ads on my Kindles screen anymore.

packet_nerd 7y ago

My Kindle's never been connected to the network (always in flight mode) since I got it and I haven't had issues. I use Calibri and a USB cable to load ebooks. Not sure, would it be possible for it to call home through the USB cable?

lscotte 7y ago
Same for me, mine has been in flight mode for over a year, it's definitely not connecting to sync collections.

ajxs 7y ago

That's honestly outrageous to the point of scandal. Aside from the point that these are expensive devices, these are devices that you own. You, the owner, should be able to control them to a complete degree.

turc1656 7y ago
I'd agree with you but the user agreement that you sign when turning on the device the first time states they can do shit like this. EULAs are an entirely separate problem, though.
thirdsun 7y ago
While I agree with you it's my understanding that this was an ad-supported Kindle. Amazon offers them with a discount, which means the buyer explicitely accepted ads for a slightly lower purchase price. I'm not saying it's ok to ignore flight mode options, but neither is the expectation to completely avoid ads when buying this very version of the Kindle.

myaccount80 7y ago

If you want to get rid of the ads without hacks, just contact amazon with the web chat and ask if they can remove them. They did it for me for free. (I’m serious)

mrpopo 7y ago
It makes sense. Not enough people care about it enough to go through the ordeal. By offering an option for concerned people, they can avoid bad publicity about what they do.

ctack 7y ago

Nothing I've purchased matches the level of outright disgust I feel for the Kindle and it's ads.

travisp 7y ago
Given that you can pay just a little bit of money to have it be ad free, it seems that your level of outright disgust isn’t that high.

dsenkus 7y ago

just do factory reset and immediately put it into flight mode. It can't update if it has no wifi password. If you want to update, just do it via cable. I have couple kindle paperwhites of different generations, and none of them did any unexpected update for years.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago

Well that is pretty much what you paid for - a low cost device with the caveat being that it's ad supported. You get what you (don't) pay for. Of course, it used to be that Kindles were relatively low cost because you could easily buy books from Amazon directly from it. I guess they didn't earn enough money from that - piracy maybe?

Kneecaps07 7y ago

I leave my Kindle in airplane mode for weeks at a time and have never experienced this. I've had Kindles for 6 or 7 years now.

october_sky 7y ago
Same. My ~2017 Kindle stays on airplane mode for weeks/months at a time. It's the only device I read on, so I leave it in airplane mode to save battery. I've never had it re-enable wifi.