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Comment by declan | Hacker News Reader

But there's no evidence that either of your assumptions is true. Gogo has said publicly[1] that they're trying to "shape bandwidth" to YouTube and other streaming sites. Let's not spread conspiracy theories about "national security" on HN when the truth about the NSA's domestic surveillance hijinks is disturbing enough.

I say this even though I've criticized Gogo[2] and suggested ways in which they may be legally liable as a result of their fake *.google.com cert.

For those who may not be familiar with his work, David Reed, the author of the linked post, helped with the early development of what would become the modern Internet. That includes UDP and IP signaling, which is one reason (I believe) he won an ACM hall of fame award.

[1] http://concourse.gogoair.com/technology/statement-gogo-regar...

[2] https://twitter.com/declanm/status/552365531798716417

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"In designing its existing network, Gogo worked closely with law enforcement to incorporate functionalities and protections that would serve public safety and national security interests"

"Although FCC rules “do not require licensees to implement capabilities to support law enforcement beyond those outlined in CALEA…,” Hastings noted, “[n]evertheless, Gogo worked with federal agencies to reach agreement regarding a set of additional capabilities to accommodate law enforcement interests. Gogo then implemented those functionalities into its system design.”"

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/gogo-collaboration-feds/

http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Gogo-Letter-...

The Snowden documents explicitly point to heavy effort going into monitoring internet use by passengers on airplanes, including using information about connecting flights to connect passengers to MAC addresses. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if they were doing a bit of work to make sure that the actual content is readable. It's barely a conspiracy theory.

Why would Gogo need to MITM YouTube to shape traffic? Can't they just cap each passenger's traffic, regardless of the website or whether it is encrypted?

Fair point. It's most likely nothing nefarious, but who knows, maybe they log everything and will one day face a data breach like Sony? Maybe they data mine it?

IRL if somebody intercepted all of your mail, opened the envelope and then put your private letters and bank statements in their own envelope to re-send it, then told you they were doing this to shape postage traffic because they physically cannot handle certain kinds of packages to your location, then you can both A) Believe them that they cannot handle such packages and B) worry about what goes on during the process of opening and repackaging your mail. You don't know the employees doing the repackaging and what if one of them moonlights as a thief. The post was about A, my response was about B. Sorry if it's off topic but you can and should take steps to protect yourself without interfering with their bandwidth shaping.

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