That’s the suspicion of security expert Roland Alford, managing director of explosives consultancy firm Alford Technologies, who believes the cargo bomb plot last week may prompt authorities to reexamine the use of in-flight Wi-Fi. The bombs, hidden inside printer cartridges, included cell phone components that authorities believe may have been used as timers for detonation.

Alford believes phones can also used for remote detonation if they connect over VoIP. His colleague also suggested it could provide a suicide bomber on board an easy way to detonate a bomb in the cargo hold. “In-flight Wi-Fi “gives a bomber lots of options for contacting a device on an aircraft,” Alford told New Scientist.

But don’t get too worried, says Ken Biba, general manager and CTO of Novarum, a wireless consultancy. He said there are already plenty of ways to construct point-to-point networks within a plane though that it’s still far more difficult than utilizing a timer. Someone could try to connect over Bluetooth or bring on their own radio transmitter to trigger a bomb, though it would be sophisticated and would still not guarantee success, Biba said.

On-board Wi-Fi systems also have firewalls that prevent in-bound calls, which should prevent the threat of remote detonations, he said. In-flight Wi-Fi also requires a credit card payment, another hurdle.

Biba said the best line of defense is to monitor explosives, rather than crack down on wireless connectivity, which is likely too complicated an avenue for terrorists to exploit. “The greater the difficulty to implement something, the less likely it is to happen,” Biba said. “A timer is more reliable and simpler doesn’t require a network to operate.”

As long as we’re living with terrorists, there’s always a threat of something happening. For now though, I’m going to listen to Biba and pray that in-flight Wi-Fi remains a force for good in the world.

Wow, time does really fly. It’s the first birthday of Gogo Inflight Internet, a service that is bringing broadband access to air travelers across the country. Gogo is offered by AirCell, an Itasca, Ill-based company. Anecdotally, many people I know enjoy this convenience and have chosen to fly cross-country on Virgin America just because it has broadband.

Gogo launched last year with American Airlines, and today the airline announced that the service is now available on 100 MD-80 and 15 Boeing 767 planes. AirTran and Delta Air Lines are two other airlines that are providing WiFi-based broadband. In total, nearly 66 percent of all flights between New York (JFK) and San Francisco (SFO) and Los Angeles (LAX) have in-flight broadband.

In addition to answering their emails and surfing the web, folks are tweeting and checking Facebook from 35,000 feet in the sky. Facebook and Twitter claimed spots on Gogo’s list of the top five most accessed sites.

In-Stat, a market research firm, predicts there will be 800 planes with in-flight broadband by the end of 2009 vs. just 25 in 2008, generating $47 million in global revenue. By 2012, In-Stat expects in-flight broadband will be a billion-dollar-a-year business, with demand for in-flight Internet equipment nearly doubling between 2009 and 2013.

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