In 2012, Boeing engineers conducted a unique experiment where they filled passenger seats on a decommissioned airplane with sacks of potatoes.

The goal was to test the behavior and reliability of in-flight Wi-Fi systems.

Why potatoes? Engineers needed a substitute for humans—something that could simulate the way the human body absorbs and scatters radio signals.

Potatoes, due to their high water content and chemical composition, have electromagnetic properties that are strikingly similar to those of human flesh.

This made them a surprisingly accurate stand-in for passengers in terms of how Wi-Fi signals propagate through the cabin.

The effort was part of Boeing’s project to enhance in-flight wireless systems without risking human test subjects.

The project even had a humorous code name: “Project SPUDS” (Synthetic Personnel Using Dielectric Substitution).

Over several weeks, they used thousands of pounds of potatoes to simulate real passengers while collecting data.

This clever approach helped Boeing optimize antenna placement and signal strength, ensuring passengers would get better and safer connectivity during flights.

Now add Starlink equipment — yes, SpaceX’s satellite-based internet provider — that’s interfering with radio communications on some United Airlines regional jets, according to The Wall Street Journal, leading the airline to shut down the WiFi service aboard its Embraer E175 jets.

Whenever they communicated with air traffic controllers, pilots were getting static interference on their radio transmission, which was then linked to the recent installation of Starlink antennae. The WSJ reports that the airline doesn’t think it was a safety issue.

“Starlink is now installed on about two dozen United regional aircraft,”

Etelä-Korea asetti helmikuussa uusia rajoituksia, jotka koskevat varavirtalähteiden ja kannettavien litiumioniakkujen kuljettamista lennoilla. Muutokset tulevat voimaan 1. maaliskuuta ja koskevat maan omia lentoyhtiöitä.

Varavirtalähteistä on tullut suosittuja lennoilla, sillä matkustajat käyttävät usein omia laitteitaan matkan aikana. Vaikka varavirtalähteiden syttyminen tuleen on harvinaista, ne ovat viime vuosina aiheuttaneet vaaratilanteita eri puolilla maailmaa.

Suomessa toimivista lentoyhtiöistä Norwegian on jo aikaisemmin rajoittanut varavirtalähteiden käyttöä lennoillaan.

– Varavirtalähteitä saa tuoda koneeseen, mutta niitä ei saa käyttää lennon aikana, Norwegianin viestintäjohtaja Charlotte Holmberg kertoo.

Finnairin käytännöt varavirtalähteiden käyttöön ovat jonkin verran sallivampia kuin Norwegianilla.

– Varavirtalähdettä saa käyttää matkalennon aikana, mutta maassa rullatessa sekä nousun ja laskun aikana laitteiden lataaminen, eli tällöin myös varavirtalähteellä laitteen lataaminen, on kiellettyä.

We’ve all been there. You are on a flight, there’s WiFi, but you hate to pay the few bucks just to watch dog videos. What to do? Well, we would never suggest you engage in theft of service, but as an intellectual exercise, [Robert Heaton] had an interesting idea. Could the limited free use of the network be coopted to access the general internet? Turns out, the answer is yes.

Admittedly, it is a terrible connection. Here’s how it works. The airline lets you get to your frequent flier account. When there, you can change information such as your name. A machine on the ground can also see that change and make changes, too. That’s all it takes.

It works like a drop box. You take TCP traffic, encode it as fake information for the account and enter it. You then watch for the response via the same channel and reconstitute the TCP traffic from the remote side. Now the network is at your fingertips.

PySkyWiFi: completely free, unbelievably stupid wi-fi on long-haul flights
https://robertheaton.com/pyskywifi/

The plane reached 10,000ft. I took out my laptop, planning to peruse the internet and maybe do a little work if I got really desperate.

I connected to the in-flight wi-fi and opened my browser. The network login page demanded credit card details. I fumbled for my card, which I eventually discovered had hidden itself inside my passport. As I searched I noticed that the login page was encouraging me to sign in to my airmiles account, free of charge, even though I hadn’t paid for anything yet. A hole in the firewall, I thought. It’s a long way from London to San Francisco so I decided to peer through it.

I logged in to my JetStreamers Diamond Altitude account and started clicking. I went to my profile page, where I saw an edit button. It looked like a normal button: drop shadow, rounded corners, nothing special. I was supposed to use it to update my name, address, and so on.

But suddenly I realised that this was no ordinary button. This clickable rascal would allow me to access the entire internet through my airmiles account. This would be slow. It would be unbelievably stupid. But it would work.

Before I could access the entire internet through my airmiles account I’d need to write a few prototypes. At first I thought that I’d write them using Go, but then I realised that if I used Python then I could call the final tool PySkyWiFi. Obviously I did that instead.

Prototype 1: Instant Messaging

Here’s the basic idea: suppose that I logged into my airmiles account and updated my name. If you were also logged in to my account then you could read my new name, from the ground. You could update it again, and I could read your new value. If we kept doing this then the name field of my airmiles account could serve as a tunnel through the airplane’s wi-fi firewall to the real world.

This tunnel could support a simple instant messaging protocol. I could update my name to “Hello how are you.” You could read my message and then send me a reply by updating my name again to “Im fine how are you.”

I created a test airmiles account and logged into it on both computers. I found that I could indeed chat with myself by updating the name field in the UI.

This was a lousy user experience though. So I wrote a command line tool to automate it.

Using this tool I could chat with someone on the ground, via my terminal. I wouldn’t have to pay for wifi, and neither of us would have to know or care that the messages were being sent via my SkyVenture Premium Gold Rewards account.

Prototype 2: Live headlines, stock prices, and football scores

The tunnel I’d constructed through my airmiles account would be useful for more than IMing. For my next prototype I wrote a program that would run on a computer back at my house or in the cloud, and would automatically send information from the real world up to me on the plane, through my airmiles account. I could deploy it before I left for my next flight and have it send me the latest stock prices or football scores while I was in the sky.

The real thing: PySkyWiFi

During the rest of the flight I wrote PySkyWiFi. PySkyWiFi is a highly simplified version of the TCP/IP protocol that squeezes whole HTTP requests through an airmiles account, out of the plane, and down to a computer connected to the internet on the ground. A daemon running on this ground computer makes the HTTP requests for me, and then finally squeezes the completed HTTP responses back through my airmiles account, up to me on my plane.

This meant that on my next flight I could technically have full access to the internet, via my airmiles account. Depending on network conditions on the plane I might be able to hit speeds of several bytes per second.

DISCLAIMER: you obviously shouldn’t actually do any of this

The EU is deciding whether to let airplane passengers use data and make calls while in the air.
The ruling would allow airlines to provide 5G connectivity instead of requiring passengers to pay for slow Wi-Fi.
If agreed upon, members of the EU would need to make 5G on airplanes ready by June 30, 2023.

Helpommin ja turvallisemin nettiin lentokoneessa

Julkaistu: 12.10.2022

Networks Software

Lentomatkustajille on jo usein tarjolla internet-yhteyksiä, mutta usein verkkoihin liittyminen on ongelma. Esimerkiksi yritysten VPN-yhteydet voivat jopa estää liittymisen koneen verkoon. WBA-järjestö (Wireless Broadband Alliance) on nyt julkaissut suuntaviivat sille, miten lentoyhtiöt voivat poistaa esteitä Wi-Fi-käytön tieltä.

WBA:n raportti “In-Flight Wi-Fi Connectivity: Improving Passenger Experience, Engagement and Utake” kattaa tärkeimmät liiketoiminta- ja teknologiset haasteet, joita sidosryhmät, kuten lentoyhtiöt, identiteetin tarjoajat, mukaan lukien matkapuhelinoperaattorit, satelliitti- ja ilma-maa-backhaul-palvelut, avioniikkatoimittajat ja verkkovierailua helpottavat hub-palvelut kohtaavat.

Vaikka lennon aikana Wi-Fi on nyt laajalti saatavilla monissa kaupallisissa lentokoneissa, matkustajat eivät ole yhteyksistä vielä innostuneet. Yksi suuri syy on perinteisen captive portal -menetelmän aiheuttamat vaikeudet muodostaa yhteys Internetiin. Matkustajien on yhdistettävä oikeaan Wi-Fi-verkkoon, navigoitava sitten oikealle aloitussivulle ja lopuksi määritettävä, minkälaisesta yhteydestä he haluavat maksaa.

Tutkimusten mukaan jokainen vaihe johtaa ongelmien ilmaantuessa yleensä keskeyttämiseen, ja lentoyhtiöille, palveluntarjoajille ja muille ekosysteemin jäsenille jokainen tästä tarpeettoman monimutkaisesta yhteysprosessista johtuva keskeyttäminen tarkoittaa tulonmenetyksiä.

Lentoyhtiöt ovat investoineet lennon portaalipalveluihin, ja työnantajan VPN on este niitä käyttäville liikematkustajille. Kun heillä on Internet-yhteys, yhteyden muodostaminen VPN-verkkoon estää heitä pääsemästä näihin sisäisiin palveluihin. Saadakseen yhteyden heidän on katkaistava VPN-yhteys. Tämä edestakaisin liikkuminen vähentää todennäköisyyttä ostaa lennon aikana palveluita.

WBA:n raportissa tarkastellaan, kuinka sidosryhmät voivat voittaa nämä ja muut suuret esteet ja parantaa prosessia. Esimerkiksi Passpoint-kirjautumisen käyttöönotto vapauttaa matkustajat joka kerta kirjautumistietojen manuaalisen syöttämisen vaivasta. Sen sijaan lentokoneen verkko tunnistaa laitteet automaattisesti ja yhdistää ne jokaisella lennolla automaattisesti ja turvallisesti.