I did something similar once when something broke while I was on a plane. The plane wifi was blocking ssh (I HATE when they do this) so I opened up an existing digital ocean instance, sshed into my home computer from it via the web interface, then uploaded some large files from the home computer and did a kubectl apply. The latency was insane but luckily the file upload was fast since my home connection is fast.
It was fun to think about the path each packet was taking - from my laptop to the plane router, to a satellite, back to a digital ocean computer in the UK, to my home computer in NJ, and back. It wasn’t as bad when you think about the magic there.
Smart, and not something someone would realize if they'd been too insulated from how things work.
Regarding planes/cafes/guest/etc. WiFi, I now usually put any "emergency remote plumbing access" on port 443 (though usually not HTTPS), to reduce the likelihood of some random non-SPI ruleset blocking us in an emergency.
I think that by 2050, 443 will be the only port used by applications that require a non local connection, because the chance that some participant in the network has blocked any other port is simply too high.
It was fun to think about the path each packet was taking - from my laptop to the plane router, to a satellite, back to a digital ocean computer in the UK, to my home computer in NJ, and back. It wasn’t as bad when you think about the magic there.