Nice! Never heard that stuff. I stand corrected.

It's a perfect example for "science, it works." They managed to conclude quite a lot from a miniscule amount of data with the information that was never planned to be used for such purposes.

Sadly, people will attempt to overthink that. E.g. jeffwise.net was cited earlier as a forum discussing AF447. But read this from Jeff concerning the Inmarsat data:

   case 3. The plane did not go south at all.
   If this is the case, then the satellite
   communications system must have been compromised
   by hijackers who either flew the plane north to
   Kazakhstan or China (if only the BFO values were
   spoofed) or somewhere else within a huge circle
   encompassed by the 7th ping ring (if both BTO
   and BFO values were spoofed).

Yes, it's possible that occurred. But even Inmarsat itself didn't have a good understanding of this data. It's very very farfetched to think that some sinister elements, as part of a nefarious scheme, spoofed the data being sent to the satellite. IMO the probability is less than 1 in a million. So many other scenarios make more sense.

It appears to me not like overthinking, but like completely failing to understand the way the analysis I've quoted was done (if he wrote the details I've quoted were published). Nobody knew, before the analysis was done, that it would be even possible to use the Doppler effects of the communication recording.

This is what happens when you assume the conclusion first, then try to support it.

Normal inference: the plane may have gone north, satellite signals indicate it went south, therefore the plane didn't go north.

Crazy inference: the plane went north, satellite signals indicate it went south, therefore the signals were tampered with.