I would bet a little bit of money that this is still illegal because you cheated yourself access to a service that is clearly meant to be paid and usually requires agreement (as indicated by the captive portal). Sounds like fraud to me.
As far as I know courts in most jurisdictions are allowed to look at a case in its entirety and that won't look good for you.
A defense like "I thought it was just an config error and couldn't possible imagine that someone would want payment" doesn't sound very plausible to me in particular if it comes from an IT expert who just used sophisticated means to surgically circumvent the block.
In this particular cases of course they confessed the "crime" while bragging about it in their post.
Now what if a random person downloaded an app called "Internet anywhere" from their store and it justed worked? Much muddier because they wouldn't even know it was circumventing anything. For all they know it could be a deal between Air Canada and the app vendor.
As far as I know courts in most jurisdictions are allowed to look at a case in its entirety and that won't look good for you.
A defense like "I thought it was just an config error and couldn't possible imagine that someone would want payment" doesn't sound very plausible to me in particular if it comes from an IT expert who just used sophisticated means to surgically circumvent the block.
In this particular cases of course they confessed the "crime" while bragging about it in their post.
Now what if a random person downloaded an app called "Internet anywhere" from their store and it justed worked? Much muddier because they wouldn't even know it was circumventing anything. For all they know it could be a deal between Air Canada and the app vendor.