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.
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.