by Dan Moren
Accessing inflight Wi-Fi for free via your air miles account’s “name” field
I don’t know what to say about this other than that it is technological insanity in the absolute best way.
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
Software engineer Robert Heaton essentially built a way to access the internet by updating the “name” field on his air miles account, which could be done without actually paying for the Wi-Fi. A home computer reads the updated “name”, fetches the relevant request, and returns it…also via the name field. It’s unquestionably the least efficient way to have internet access in flight, or, as he puts it “You will now almost certainly pay for wi-fi, because your curiosity has been satisfied and your time on this earth is very short.”