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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 su

• vtail 14y ago
  "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!"
  • kleiba 14y ago
    And when you're done sampling, the whole bread is gone, just like in the case of internet access, right?
    • rayiner 14y ago
      Given that GoGo is like 3.1 megabits shared between dozens of people on a plane, yeah. Also, the "marginal cost of information/bandwidth/etc is zero" is specious. You are not entitled to get things for their marginal cost. I can't take a Prada handbag out of store and leave the $50 marginal cost of the bag + $10 for restocking.
    • vtail 14y ago
      Internet access on board of a flying plane is non trivial and certainly doesn't come free: you need to install and maintain equipment on board, maintain a network of ground stations, write and debug some software, pay money to other internet providers etc. With relatively small number of paying customers (yet), you have to keep prices high to maintain the profitability of your business. Think about this: if nobody pays, they will close this service. Just like the bakery will close if nobody pays for the bread.
    • kleiba 14y ago
      For clarification: I'm not advocating illegal access, my point is that the analogy with theft is not a good one.
      • gfodor 14y ago
        What's wrong with it, exactly?
        • kleiba 14y ago
          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.
          • burnstek 14y ago
            You obviously don't fly much. This is you stealing access from me when you're on a platform meant to have just a handful of paying users.
            • kleiba 14y ago
              (This will be my last post on this thread because I think I've now gotten into a mode where everyone's just downvoting whatever I say.) I would just like to point out that I said more than once that I am not trying to justify the behavior described in the original article. Maybe I just didn't make myself clear enough, or people really just disagree. But all I've been trying to say that this illegal behavior does not run under the heading "theft". The reasoning is similar to why illegal file sharing is not theft - it is copyright infringement. It is also not relevant whether a paying customer will have less bandwidth to their disposal if someone accesses the internet service on a plane for free because the paying customer would also lose the same bandwidth if another /paying/ customer would use it. Thus the paying customer would not be able to sue the one who accesses the internet illegally. The access provider could, but not for theft.
• hakaaaak 14y ago
  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.
  • vtail 14y ago
    What about bypassing an electric meter to connect to the grid directly?
  • gfodor 14y ago
    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.
    • bbzbryce 14y ago
      The real take-away from the article is that by allowing access to _any_ Google service, access to the entire Internet is indirectly granted. This knowledge has applications well beyond "stealing" Internet on air planes.
• samstave 14y ago
  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.
  • aaronbrethorst 14y ago
    So buy a monthly pass or write a letter to Richard Branson.
  • untog 14y ago
    You know what you do when you want the prices to go down? Don't buy it. In-flight internet is a new product. They are establishing what an acceptable price point is.
  • bjustin 14y ago
    They should charge whatever makes them the most money per flight. Unless a competitor to GoGo comes along, or using cellular devices is allowed on planes, it is likely a good decision short term and long term. jonafato mentioned in another comment that they could use the price to control usage rates, increasing the price to keep the number of users down and the bandwidth:user ratio up.
• Xcelerate 14y ago
  I agree with you. I consider using GoGo's internet connection without paying for it to be stealing. However, the article intrigues me because connecting to the outside internet is like a giant puzzle looking for a solution, which would provide plenty of in-flight entertainment. I don't consider that immoral (since you're not actually using the resulting connection), but I suppose if you get caught trying to hack through their system you'll get in some kind of legal trouble.
• bbzbryce 14y ago
  > I'm amazed ... by author's apparent believe that contacting the support several times via twitter and not getting a response morally justifies sharing his recipe with out people and wishing them "Happy “free” surfing, for now anyway". The article alludes to further conversation via the image containing the Gogo employee's email. I established contact with Gogo via email and made my intentions clear about my desire to post such an article. After receiving an initial reply that another Gogo employee would contact me, I heard nothing from them after a number of days -- note the eight days between initial twitter contact and article posting. The primary purpose of the article was not to provide a formula for free Internet (that was just the "cover" to the article), but rather to detail how allowing access to any one Google service can result in access to the entire Internet. In retrospect, I admit the comment at the end of the article is not consistent with the point I attempted to convey.
• EliRivers 14y ago
  Stealing is indeed stealing, but this isn't stealing. It's unauthorised use of a computer service. The unauthorised user isn't permanently (and unlawfully, without permission) depriving someone of something they own, so it isn't theft. "Stealing" carries meaning and emotional reactions than are not applicable in this case. Yes, it's wrong; no, it isn't theft.