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This roll out / change could have been done much better and it leaves the door open to possible security issues. You see for years now, when you connect to Gogo on Delta jets (as well as the regional partners painted to look like Delta jets) you accessed the internet via “gogoinflight”. We can see this on the WaybackMachine as recently as this past Monday April 23rd.
When I first reached out to Delta on the 22nd via Twitter they had no idea about the change on “some jets” as they simply pointed me to Delta.com that had the outdated wording. Now to be fair, Delta does not run Gogo – Gogo does. But perhaps someone should have done a better job communicating this SSID change with Delta before implementation of this change?
I have reached out to Gogo Corp with a number of questions but nearly a week later no response was provided for this post. Why should any of this matter to you and me? While it is a quick fix to make a change on the Delta .com web site, there is a huge amount of printed literature on Delta jets (and other places) stating you connect to the old SSID i.e. gogoinflight. Also, you have tons of Delta people who for years are accustomed to telling folks you connect via gogoinflight
So what, you ask? Well I am sure you have seen on TV or read about nefarious people spoofing the SSID of some hotel by just adding something like “whateverhotelname-poolwifi” and then watching folks connect. In this situation it is even worse because notice what I can simply do using my wifi sharing software Connectify to create what was the old Delta SSID (or the other way around on jets still using gogoinflight). Yikes right?
Now in my test case I had a password set so no one could connect to my spoof account, but I bet if I used some software with no password required I would get a ton of users connecting to me on the flight and just think of the information I could collect if I were not an honest person! In our modern digital age this is not good.
Bottom line from all of this is we must all be alert to tech changes even if we are not properly alerted by the companies we rely on. – René
Update: From Gogo representative Meredith Payette I am told: “Delta is shifting the SSID as of May 1 and will be rolling out collateral onboard to educate guests on the change”
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Depending on “knowing” the wifi SSID for security is an invitation to be hacked. You can set up man in the middle routers that use the legitimate SSID that would then forward the data onto the legitimate AP without you knowing.
The only way to be secure is to ensure you are viewing HTTPS sites or using encrypted email. Anything else and you can assume what you are sending is in the public domain.
Isn’t “DeltaWifi” the free in-plane wifi for entertainment only, but no internet connectivity? It’s not new, that’s for sure.
Noticed this over 2 weeks ago when flying SEA-MSP. Althought I still connected using my Gogo login details and I had to enter a numeric code that changes every time you login to get connected.
Just flew 4 DL legs this week. I found the GoGoInFlight SSID on some 737 aircraft but the A321’s had DeltaWiFi as the SSID.
So looks like this is might also be related to the rollout of the newer Satellite connectivity.
I had a Delta DEN-DTW flight two weeks ago where I searched the Gogo WiFi and it connected to DeltaWifi with no Gogo to be found. Even on board they read from the old script of ‘connect to Gogo inflight wifi’. I wasn’t sure what was happening and tried it 2 or 3 times before I just gave in and connected to DeltaWifi.
Once you have you identity stolen all of this stuff gets serious. As omatravel mentions above it’s fairly easy to spoof and or use other nefarious actions that can prey upon the unknowing. Thankfully my identity theft was a much more common way (stolen scans provided to a “trusted” source LOL) and not via SSID spoofing but this renaming caught my attention on a flight earlier this week and was enough to make me back out and shut my laptop done for the flight.
This is confusing and irritating and both Gogo and Delta owe us an explanation and need to be clearer that changes are coming and that the rollout will be slow like everything else they seem to do. The early roll out with no info is in my opinion crap operations.