Airlines Plan To Filter, Censor In-Flight Internet Access

BlueMerle notes that the much-vaunted arrival of internet access in the friendly skies may come at the cost of heavy content filtering by the Airlines. Ars Technica's commentary is prompted by an Associated Press article which does its best to make checking your email seem sinister. "Seat 17D is yapping endlessly on an Internet phone call. Seat 16F is flaming Seat 16D with expletive-laden chats. Seat 16E is too busy surfing porn sites to care. Seat 17C just wants to sleep. Welcome to the promise of the Internet at 33,000 feet -- and the questions of etiquette, openness and free speech that airlines and service providers will have to grapple with as they bring Internet access to the skies in the coming months."

OMG censorship!!!

[The_Mystic_For_Real (766020)]

God forbid anyone regulate behavior in a situation where they are liable for the results. The airline has 100+ strangers including children and overprotective, on edge, a little under the influence parents. They have a duty to keep order on their plane. I'm not sure that I, while I have no problem with porn and have even *gasp* watched it, would want to see a giant gangbang going on right next to me, while my rowmate eyes it longingly.

Re:OMG censorship!!!

[SterlingSylver (1122973)]

I support this sort of filtering for the same reasons that I support the rules prohibiting cell phones on planes. Now, ignoring the safety concerns of cell phones, the second that two or three business travelers start competing to be the loudest person so that their incredibly important conference call can hear their thoughts on the Johnson proposal is the second that other passengers start acquiring arguments for reasonable homicide. Idiots on the web can only be an even worse idea.

I don't mind people checking their e-mail, but if airlines wish to enforce civility while I'm paying $150+ for a 1.5 hour flight to DC with a bunch of philistines...I say more power to them.

Re:OMG censorship!!!

[catwh0re (540371)]

I think these issues will pretty much disappear once the pricing structure comes out. I doubt this is something airlines are going to offer for free. Price sensitive consumers will option it out of their ticket price. Or charging by the kilobyte will entice users to be sparing with the service.

The flipside of course is that everyone is on for free and the plane is slashdotted by anonymised porn.

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[spleen_blender (949762)]

The problem with censorship isn't the desire to prevent harm, but the fact that it implies that there is some moral standard by which we all should run our lives, which I find utterly offensive to my own freedom. Children will see things eventually, so instead of hiding the truth from them, as an adult give them some parallax and understanding on what they are seeing.

Religion, mysticism, and the supernatural are all rooted in this same tenet of moral superiority, and it is so unintelligent to be a propon

Re:OMG censorship!!!

[YrWrstNtmr (564987)]

Children will see things eventually, so instead of hiding the truth from them, as an adult give them some parallax and understanding on what they are seeing.

The problem with that is that it is not up to you to determine when I should have a teaching moment with my kid.

Do you invite your kids into the room when you and the wife are gettin it on? Do you surf porn with your 6 year old? Have you explained the finer details of tubgirl to her?

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[Cairnarvon (901868)]

So how does this relate to the issue of airlines censoring internet access? Do you expect the airlines to act as a parent to your children because you can't be bothered to look over their shoulder while they use the in-flight internet access, or tell them they aren't allowed to use it?

Because if your concern is that the person sitting next to your kid is looking at porn and your child can actually see it, then you'll be happy to know that that person is guilty of disseminating pornography to a minor, which

Re:OMG censorship!!!

[Albanach (527650)]

If every moment isn't a teaching moment for your kid, then you're doing something wrong.

No, sorry. I think you are wrong

Every moment for children tends to be a learning moment, but parents can decide the time, pace and subject for teaching.

As they say, your right to swing your arm ends just before my nose. Equally, your right to watch stuff on a plane ends when it starts to offend or disturb those flying with you.

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[fredklein (532096)]

your right to watch stuff on a plane ends when it starts to offend or disturb those flying with you.


Well, they shouldn't be looking at my screen then!

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[YrWrstNtmr (564987)]

We're cruising along at 30,000', having a 'teaching moment' about cloud formations and what all those little 'squares' are, when the asshat next to us decides that I must redirect my scholarly pursuits, and instead explain what is wrong with that mans butt.

No thanks.

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[gaspyy (514539)]

Oh cut the crap. Do you even have kids? How old?

It's so easy to preach when you have no clue.

I do have a three year old son (btw, I'm European, so no prude). He does ask a lot of questions and we do our best to answer them. But there are thing difficult to comprehend at that age. You can't simply expose your child to EVERYTHING and expect them to actually understand it.

And let's forget for a moment about the whole "think about the children". Talking about "porn" is very general. Do YOU like ALL KINDS of por

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[spleen_blender (949762)]

There are methods of preventing kids from seeing these things that do not rely on censorship. My point is that focusing on those methods is the best alternative. Privacy screens, sections with no children seated (which is adjacent to bathroom so their path never crosses no children zones), but to make a jump to censorship first instead of these other (probably cheaper) alternatives is very telling of the mentality of people.

Instead of going through the effort of having a reasonable preventative system, y

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[0100010001010011 (652467)]

That's ok. That's how I usually spot them everywhere in Illinois.

I would, however, suggest reading "How to Lie with Statistics." If I sent out an anonymous survey to all readers of "Popular Mechanics" asking about which types of makeup they prefer to use, I might get a weighted result.

In the same manner, there is only a certain subset of our country that can afford to take X days off, fly to Europe and have holiday. Most of them probably got there one of two ways: They were born rich with a sense of self en

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[encoderer (1060616)]

That was the dumbest post in this whole thread. And that, my friend, is really saying something.

The "Common Courtesy" argument IS used to suggest to other people how they could act.

But it only has validity when the issue in question REALLY IS "common courtesy."

Whether you (and the other 25% of the people here arguing on your side) care for it or not, we, as a society, have established a set of customs and rules on how one should act. You may have heard of this before, it's called "ethics."

Now, your personal

Re:OMG censorship!!!

[egomaniac (105476)]

Atheists are ipso facto stupid. Like anti-gay fundamentalists, atheists have the ludicrous belief that they can make pronouncements about an emotional phenomenon which they do not experience. All people who even glimpse the complexity of the universe experience awe and wondrous exhilaration with such profundity that it cannot be described as anything other than a religious experience. Einstein understood this. You do not.

Do you believe in Odin? Zeus? Ra? Queztalcoatl? The Great Spirit?

No?

Based on the fact that you're a self-righteous prick, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're Christian. Mankind has dreamed up ten thousand different gods. You don't believe in 9,999 of them. I don't believe in the same 9,999 you don't believe in, plus I also don't believe in the God of Abraham. Evidently not believing in 9,999 gods doesn't make you stupid, but not believing in 10,000 gods makes me stupid.

I'd like to believe that there's some logic or reason behind this, but there's no logic behind religious delusions. Sad that so much time and energy is spent defending fairy tales.

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[eggnoglatte (1047660)]

Thank you for describing religion as an "emotional phenomenon". That just made my day. Now if all you fellow believers understood that that's what it is, the world would be a better place.

"Think of the Children" eh?

[FatSean (18753)]

Sorry, your invocation of the over-protective parent does not inspire me to accept your censorship. Rather, it makes me think "Wow, that piece of shit parent needs to get a reality check and stop trying to reduce my liberties because they can't raise their child to be as repressed as they would like due to freedom of speech."

You kid, your problem. You don't like that Americans like porn and boobies? Move to fucking Saudi Arabia to get your theocracy fix.

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[DirePickle (796986)]

stop trying to reduce my liberties

It's a freaking airplane ride. You are knee-deep in the crush of humanity. You already had to take off your shoes and belt to get on, and the TSA already reads and records the names of your books. What liberties do you think you have on an airplane?

Re:OMG censorship!!!

[1u3hr (530656)]

. I'm not sure that I, while I have no problem with porn and have even *gasp* watched it, would want to see a giant gangbang going on right next to me, while my rowmate eyes it longingly.

As may be. But who, would watch hard core porn in public, a coffeeshop, or such, now? I'm sure it does happen, but this is something that most of us do in privacy, or perhaps with friends. Someone who openly watches hard core porn on a plane should be stopped by the hostesses, the same as if he started masturbating in his seat.

Anyone likely to use their laptop to watch porn could much more easily load it up with a few GB of videos before they leave the ground, rather than see -- buffering -- at inconvenient moments, let alone probably paying a small fortune for the privilege.

So I'm not saying that watching porn is appropriate on a plane, but trying to filter it out of the net is not going to stop it, and we all know the silly side effects of overbroad filters.

It's a private airplane

[The Analog Kid (565327)]

It's their own service their providing, they can do whatever they want as far as filtering. I should have the same ability to sleep on an airplane like I did before they introduced internet access. I don't need to be sitting on a plane hearing a bunch of priests telling the passenger ahead of them how immoral pornography is, or hearing a people yell and scream if someone bring up goatse.

Is this really that big of a deal?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I mean, really, you geeks can't go without porn for 3 or 4 whole hours?

Here's a thought: close Firefox, shut the lid on the laptop, and *gasp* actually talk to the girl sitting next to you. You just might find that you'll be enjoying the real thing, rather than rubbing one out to pictures of it.

Re:Is this really that big of a deal?

[creysoft (856713)]

Maybe the flights you always fly on Hooker Airlines are filled with hot, friendly chicks, but here's a list of the people I've sat next to on airline flights:

A fat man
Another fat man
A surprisingly fat man
An old woman who needed oxygen and smelled like cheese
Two fat men
A little brat (boy) who kept kicking the seat in front of him and throwing things across the aisle at his mother (on the other side of me) who in turn kept screaming at him for the whole flight
An exhausted mom and her toddler who banged on his musical sesame street toy and screamed the whole flight.

I would have given anything for porn!

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[EvilSS (557649)]

It's not the geeks, it's the business wonks. I remember a flight I took from Chicago to St Louis a few years ago. It was a 90 minute flight (minus the 2 hour ground delay), about 30-40 minutes of that was actually at "cruising" where you can have electronic devices on. As soon as they announced that electronic devices could be used, at least half the plane (packed MD80) pulled out laptops. From what I could tell, most were business users. They couldn't go 30 minutes without working on their spreadsheet

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[pla (258480)]

As soon as they announced that electronic devices could be used, at least half the plane (packed MD80) pulled out laptops. From what I could tell, most were business users. They couldn't go 30 minutes without working on their spreadsheets and powerpoints.

I don't think you should necessarily presume they wanted to "work". I too have flown as a business traveller, and also pull out my laptop as soon as they let me.

I then fired up an SNES emulator and passed the next two hours playing Super Metroid.

I a

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[Unoti (731964)]

*gasp* actually talk to the girl sitting next to you

Haha, you don't fly much.

Re:Is this really that big of a deal?

[Moraelin (679338)]

I mean, really, you geeks can't go without porn for 3 or 4 whole hours?

Oh please, sometimes I even go without it for a whole 8 hours or more. Damn that filtering proxy at work ;)

Here's a thought: close Firefox, shut the lid on the laptop, and *gasp* actually talk to the girl sitting next to you. You just might find that you'll be enjoying the real thing, rather than rubbing one out to pictures of it.

Right. On a plane.

I guess there's always the off chance that the fat guy on the right is really a beautiful woman in disguise. Or that the lady with the screaming baby behind me is really available and is carrying someone else's kid. Or maybe the fat, loud yakking couple in front of me aren't really married, and I could pick the woman up. If I didn't have any taste, that is. (And I'm not even talking about the "fat" part, as about what she's yakking loudly about.)

But ok, let's say that I pulled the proverbial jackpot, my guardian angel used the miracle quota for a small nation and a century, or the karma accountants in the Heavens decide to give me a sorta tax return for what my ancestors suffered during the black plague and a few wars. So I'm seated next to a woman who's gorgeous, smart, horny, available, etc, etc, etc.

On a plane.

Have you been on one of those lately? The seating for a start has been clearly designed for halflings, and anyone over 3 ft tall will have to fold in unnatural ways just to fit their legs in there. I've been occasionally wishing for a modified Folding@home client just to figure out how I'm supposed to fold in there. Doubly so if the guy in front decides to lean his seat back on top of you, and/or hasn't understood under which seat his bag should go.

Then we're both after the airport experience, which is designed to inconvenience you the most, so you'll know you're safe up there. And I don't mean just the coming one hour early and standing in the line for the security circus. That's just the ante. You know, the foreplay for the real shafting experience. Then you've had to put up with loud and chaotic crowds, had to find your terminal (presumably named so because by the time you're there, death doesn't look that bad an alternative) with clues that would make old adventure games look tame, had a jolly good wait because your flight is delayed, then got packed on the plane and waited another 40 minutes because some retard forgot to load the luggage too. (I swear to the elder gods, it actually happened.)

Right. Do you figure at this point either of you is in a jolly and relaxed mood, conducive to making friends and maybe a little flirt?

Well, if you are, I suggest you hurry up, because soon you might get your in-flight meal. Which isn't exactly candle-lit dinner material, to put it mildly. On the last flight I've been on, for example, they gave us some... chopped up weeds, with one thin slic of tomato and one thinner slice of Mozarella. It was slightly larger than a 2 Euro coin, btw. It was called "Insalata Caprese", apparently because "capra" in Italian means goat and you'd have to be one to actually enjoy it or get any nourishment out of it. (Hint: herbivores can extract protein from leaves and stalks by letting it ferment in their compartmented stomachs. Humans can't.)

Again, forget any ideas you might have about what Insalata Caprese is _normally_ supposed to mean. The picture on Wikipedia tends to suggest something completely different than the airline version of it. I'd say that they had gone for the minimal meeting the definition (technically it had sliced tomatoes and mozarella, because they had one slice of each), but even that would be false. I don't remember it having any oil, for example.

I don't know about you, but if you're put in a romantic mood by it, and find a woman to match... well, then may I suggest a romantic honeymoon in an authentic Spanish Inquisition dungeon, complete with top-of-the-line torture chamber? ;)

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[stewbacca (1033764)]

And I don't mean just the coming one hour early

See, there's your problem right there!

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[Brickwall (985910)]

More to the point, does anyone seriously think the woman wants to be chatted up? I have been lucky enough to sit next to some very pretty women over the years, and while they're polite, they make it pretty clear that they want to read, work, or whatever. (Of course, this being /., the female persepective is solely lacking.)

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[Tom (822)]

Here's a thought: close Firefox, shut the lid on the laptop, and *gasp* actually talk to the girl sitting next to you. You just might find that you'll be enjoying the real thing, rather than rubbing one out to pictures of it.

This assumes that there is a girl sitting next to you. The only times I'll give that more of a 10% chance is when I'm bringing my own, so to speak (i.e. holidays).

I fly regularily on business trips. There are very few girls travelling at those times of day and those routes. Those that are will usually be seated next to their husband/boyfriend or boss. In the off-chance that there's actually one sitting next to you, more likely than not she'll be busy with her laptop the entire flight.

The thing about planes

Common courtesy.

[ari{Dal} (68669)]

If you can't last more than a few hours with porn, you may have a problem.

Having said that, since when does someone need internet access to view porn? I have porn on my macbook pro right now, but when I flew out yesterday and pulled it out for a bit of in-flight entertainment, I watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Basic common courtesy kept people from watching porn while they travelled without internet access; the same thing will keep them from watching porn with internet access. Those few asshats who can't restrain themselves, well, they're asshats regardless of internet access.

I've also spent a fair bit of time travelling by train, which already come with free wi-fi. I've yet to see anyone browsing hotbabesxxx.com during the trip.

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[ScottCooperDotNet (929575)]

If you can't last more than a few hours with porn, you may have a problem.

On the other hand, you may last more than a minute with an analog girl.

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[ari{Dal} (68669)]

Er yeah. That should have read "without" :)

Thank you, SSH tunnels...

[pla (258480)]

Seat 17D is yapping endlessly on an Internet phone call. Seat 16F is flaming Seat 16D with expletive-laden chats. Seat 16E is too busy surfing porn sites to care. Seat 17C just wants to sleep.

...And seat 14C has established and maintained a single encrypted tunnel to a non-resolving IP, over which he appears to have routed a high volume of bidirectional traffic.


Seriously, using airline-provided internet access doesn't magically take away the standard rules for the use of any public-access short-term ISP, whether libraries or coffee shops or just someone's open WAP - Encrypt everything!

Of course, in the current political climate, that would probably have the gestapo waiting to "ask" me a few questions on landing, but I refuse to give up best-practices out of fear of boogey-men.

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[404 Clue Not Found (763556)]

Of course, in the current political climate, that would probably have the gestapo waiting to "ask" me a few questions on landing, but I refuse to give up best-practices out of fear of boogey-men.

You're just encouraging the creation of scarier boogey-men.

tough task

[Tom (822)]

They've got a tough task ahead of them. The thing is that in a plane you don't have privacy when surfing the web on a screen that at least two people next and two people behind you can see clearly without turning their heads much. Which, yes, gives the airlines some responsibility to make sure that there's nothing on that screen that could cause trouble. You don't want to deal with upset and angry parents and a slightly drunk porn-watcher at 30,000 feet.

Goggles seems to be the obvious answer, but they never

No problem.

[supabeast! (84658)]

There's a reason I keep Heavy Metal on my iPod.

How does the net access make this different?

[internic (453511)]

Already someone could watch porn, movies or games with extreme violence, or other adult (and possibly offensive) material on their laptop. For that matter, someone could just bring a Playboy magazine on the plane to pass the time. With the possible exception of people trying to use VOIP (I wonder if the latency would be low and consistent enough), I really don't see how this brings up many etiquette questions that aren't already present on a plane. This just sounds like a lame excuse for filtering to me.

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[Tom (822)]

There's an important legal difference there, and that is the airline as provider of the questionable content. If someone brings his notebook and watches porn, the stewardess will certainly ask him to stop. If he gets it via the built-in airline system, his answer just might be "but you're providing this, and I've paid for it as part of the ticket price".

And in a court of law, he just might win.

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[QCompson (675963)]

There's an important legal difference there, and that is the airline as provider of the questionable content. If someone brings his notebook and watches porn, the stewardess will certainly ask him to stop. If he gets it via the built-in airline system, his answer just might be "but you're providing this, and I've paid for it as part of the ticket price". And in a court of law, he just might win.

Nah. Use the poster's example. If I bring "Big Hooters" magazine on board with me, and the stewardess asks me

finally

[Martian_Kyo (1161137)]

I can upload on you tube, the panic on the airplane as we crash. Or IM my closes friends

Martian_Kyo:Hi!
Friend:Hey, what's up?
Martian_Kyo: Well, me...but not for long ;)
Friend: Heheh What do you mean?
Martian_Kyo:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Ar3A11G01n9+oD1e
Friend:?
Martian_Kyo has signed out

Oh forget about pr0n

[laejoh (648921)]

I wonder what would happen if I'd open this [aljazeera.net] on an American airliner? Would people care? Probably, they'd all go nuts!

Sick of Censorship Tag

[stewbacca (1033764)]

I'm sick of the censorship tag. 300 passengers sitting elbow-to-elbow for hours on end REQUIRES "censorship". What makes everyone think you have the right to do whatever you like on a plane and should be free from censorship in the first place? Better yet, I'll let you access whatever you like, and as soon as you expose a small child to some porn, I'll have your ass thrown in jail as soon as we land.

You people are forgetting that we can't even bring a pair of nail clippers on board an airplane, and yo

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[pauljlucas (529435)]

I'm sick of the censorship tag. 300 passengers sitting elbow-to-elbow for hours on end REQUIRES "censorship".

The sad thing is that the /. crowd doesn't understand that it's not even censorship. Censorship, by definition, can be done only by the government. So unless filtering is imposed by the FAA, it's not censorship.

SSL VPN's

[Ececheira (86172)]

If they allow access to SSL sites, then how would they stop you from using an SSL VPN to your office/home to get to any site/service you want? If they block Skype, then use your SSL VPN and go through that...

Filtering Porn (oblig)

[ravenspear (756059)]

I'm sick of all this motherfucking fucking on this motherfucking plane!!!

Rather than filter the content...

[jessecurry (820286)]

Airlines should be dealing with etiquette violations as they happen, not by filtering content. If someone is talking too loudly, ask them to stop. If someone is looking at porn(and another passenger can see it) ask them to stop. Porn is available everywhere, but rarely do you see someone looking at porn while at a coffee shop. I think that these stories are a little sensationalist.

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[PopeRatzo (965947)]

From the article:

"We think decency and good sense and normal behavior" will prevail, said Jack Blumenstein,

I've got a feeling this time next year Mr. Blumenstein will be looking for a job.

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[nurb432 (527695)]

Sure they can, you agreed to the practice when you bought your ticket, which is a legal contract here in the US at least. Besides, even when you are in another country, regardless of their less restrictive laws, you still must abide by the laws of where you claim citizenship, or risk be arrested on your return to home soil. ( not that i agree with that 2nd issue, but legally its true ).

Tho technically a private company cant *censor* anyway, but that concept will be beat to death in other threads.

Laws of own country?

[SerpentMage (13390)]

>Besides, even when you are in another country, regardless of their less restrictive laws, you still must abide by the laws of where you claim citizenship, or risk be arrested on your return to home soil.

ehh... No... Otherwise there would be oodles of people getting arrested for smoking pot legally in Holland. When abroad you are actually subject to the laws of that country, not your country of citizenship.

Yes there are situations where a country will act even if the act is not carried out on in the country of citizenship (eg child prostitution) but that is relatively rare.

A citizen is nothing more than the right to vote and not be persecuted by your own government. With respect to the law everybody in the country regardless if they are a citizen or not has to respect them.

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[nurb432 (527695)]

I didnt say you *would* be arrested, but you *can* be. Look closer at the law, and you might be surprised. I was.

Simple Example...

[SerpentMage (13390)]

>Besides, even when you are in another country, regardless of their less restrictive laws, you still must abide by the laws of where you claim citizenship, or risk be arrested on your return to home soil.

To add on my previous comment. One very simple example of where this shows to be false is Windsor and Detroit.

http://www.answers.com/topic/underage-drinking-in-america [answers.com]

Underage persons in the US who live in areas that border Canada and Mexico, both of which have lower drinking ages, sometimes cross the bo