How? Unless I'm misunderstanding the word, "tampering" implies "making alterations to", and no aircraft systems are altered in any way - they are exactly as they were, doing exactly as they're programmed. (Ab)using the difference between implied programming and de-facto programming could be unauthorized access, but I don't see how that could possibly constitute tampering.
Not that I disagree with your overall point, just the tampering bit strikes me as particularly odd.
You may be right but it’s not up to you to determine if you are in violation of a federal law. If there’s a non-zero chance you can compromise the safety of the flight that’s all a prosecutor would need to charge you. Yes the possibilities of that happening are remote but also non-zero. So all I’m saying is make sure you calculate the risk and decide if saving $30 it’s worth a tiny possibility of a legal mess or even being banned from ever flying in that airline again. I’m risk averse for this kind of stuff so I would pay for internet access.
One surely can be charged with anything. What I'm trying to say is that tampering or compromising safety of the flight are IMHO highly improbable charges that are very unlikely to appear, and even less likely to stick. Hell, I strongly suspect airline is going to defend the hacker in this scenario, because they absolutely wouldn't want anyone (especially FAA) to ever think their firewall bug can affect flight safety.
I think it's well-known that entertainment systems have to be isolated from main systems of the aircraft. I'm not an expert, but I know that it was the case that IFEs weren't safe, plane(s) went down because of that, so we no longer do that.
All this said, I totally agree with you that there is a non-negligible chance that abusing the network policies could lead to some charges, possibly even criminal charges. Or, at the very least, lead to some unpleasantness that surely isn't worth 30 bucks. Just not the charges you're mentioning.
Unless I'm misunderstanding the word, "tampering" implies "making alterations to"
Every thread on this topic has some hackers making bad assumptions about how law works based on naive definitions. You've got to understand that law doesn't operate on binary distinctions and that interpretation is an extremely moveable feast.
What binary distinctions and naive definitions are you possibly talking about?
To give you some context:
Before writing that comment, I looked up a dictionary entry for "tampering", to be sure my knowledge of the ordinary meaning of the word is correct.
Then I looked up and did a quick cursory check on a bunch of laws that included the word, focusing on (but not limiting to) those that mentioned tampering with an aircraft or machinery, or tampering with communications technology of some sort.
During that check I found that everything I found either explicitly mentioned or implied making changes of some sort: alteration, removal, damage, concealment, obstruction, etc.. So while I haven't found an explicit legal definition I hoped for, I think it's fairly reasonable to assume that legal concept of tampering would generally conform to the dictionary definition in this regard.
And thus down the thread I made a suggestion that it's unlikely (no binary here) to apply to the situation. So I asked "how?", to see if I'm missing something, explaining that I personally don't see how "tampering" is applicable.
Yet, your comment suggests me that I wrote something wrong. While I recognize the "vehicle" example (that I happen to know about) is not entirely dissimilar to the "tampering" here, I'm still missing your point.
I think we can get the gist of what they're trying to say without nitpicking on the particular word they used. However, I've no doubt a court could argue it is considered tampering with enough creative legalese, where it not just implies but is to make alterations to or even touch something you shouldn't.
How? Unless I'm misunderstanding the word, "tampering" implies "making alterations to", and no aircraft systems are altered in any way - they are exactly as they were, doing exactly as they're programmed. (Ab)using the difference between implied programming and de-facto programming could be unauthorized access, but I don't see how that could possibly constitute tampering.
Not that I disagree with your overall point, just the tampering bit strikes me as particularly odd.