On a flight right now with a major US based airline. Saw the >$15 WiFi for a single flight and decided to try my VPN. Took a little while then it connected.
Good to go we’re still in the air now while I write this without paying for the WiFi.
Edit: not able to load the flair list in my app. Sorry if this is posted without the minimum pieces of flair.
And if this doesn’t work, VPN-over-ICMP or over DNS often does.
Also applies to coffee shops and libraries and hotels and basically anywhere.
Not always - but often enough to be worth trying.
If you could just add some flair to this post, that’d be great, thanks.
Interesting. Would the airline in question happen to be delta?
Great, I don’t know what that is and now I have to watch 15 YouTube’s, and read 14 wikipedia articles haha
Also just port 443 with tcp works.
If all fails try with a tor proxy.
I was trying to hint at that but couldn’t remember any quotes!
Don’t really want to disclose cause I don’t want to be the guy to ruin it for everyone. I was actually conflicted on even making the post, but I figured people would see this and just try it out. Hopefully it works for you guys like it did me.
I presume he connects to the plane WiFi, then there is a paygate to access any website while on the WiFi, like you would see in a coffee shop, libary etc, so he uses a VPN to avoid this paygate.
Yeah, I don’t understand either. If they’re not using the WiFi, then what are they connecting to the VPN through? Do they have mobile towers in the sky now? What is this, the Jetsons?
Lol!
So I’m sure you’re familiar with ping? That uses the ICMP protocol; akin to TCP or UDP. Just different. Many captive portals will allow icmp traffic because it’s usually used for testing. But there’s no reason you can’t write an application that actually puts useful, meaningful data in the payload of an ICMP packet. So people have done just that!
VPN-over-DNS is the same idea; DNS is often allowed through because it’s important for [stuff] to work. But there’s no technical reason that you have to actually be doing domain lookups through DNS. You can shove whatever data you want into those packets and MAYBE the firewall will be dumb enough to just go “ah this is DNS we’ll let that through.”
Of course in either case you need a VPN server set up and ready to speak these weird, bastardized protocols.
443 rarely works behind a captive portal. If the network blocks vpns but you do have outbound https access, yes.
I know it doesn’t work on United so could be Delta. Or AA
That’s a great explain to me like I’m 5. Thanks totally makes a lot more sense now.
Emphasis on bastardized, I love dns and doing networking but protocol-over-other-protocol is hell, especially when the first protocol is TCP
Also, worth clarifying that DNS is technically udp (and sometimes tcp)
I’m on a United flight as I type this lol