Tracking a Lufthansa flight on the Internet

by Cem Basman

Todd Underwood, Chief Operations and Security Officer of Renesys Corporation, an internet routing and market intelligence firm, describes in detail in his company blog:

I just saw my plane cross the mid-Atlantic, not by looking out the window, but by watching routing updates cascade across the Internet. I'm writing from a Lufthansa jet right now, travelling from Munich to Boston. This plane offers the (relatively) new Connexion by Boeing wifi + satellite Internet service.

Pretty smart. But in these days this is a bit scary too. Not only the air control will watch you ... This is how Lufthansa presents their in-flight service which is available since 2003.

Comments

Scary? Why? Do you have fear that someone blows the plane out of the sky? The plane is about 10 km high and up to 900 km fast while internet is working. You need a cruise missile or a plane-bases air-air combat missile for such a job. Guys that have access to that kind of weapons don't need a traceroute for their target. The other guys (if they exist in real) try to hit the plane while starting or landing. And there it makes no difference wether your plane has internet access or not. But if you told your wife that you are flying to moscow but the ping shows you near Hawaii than you have a lot reasons to feel scary...;-)

Richard Kaufmann, 2006-04-29

apart from the ready, aim, shoot thingy which seems rather hypothetical to me, I wonder if anybody has checked out skype on a LH flight lately.

Armin Roth, 2006-04-29

@ Armin:
Ed and Mitch did "some time" ago:
http://vowe.net/archives/005480.html#010660

Besides the high latency, VoIP (SIP, skype) works very well.
Greetings!

Uwe Walter, 2006-05-01

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