xgjunkie
"The point I'm making is it is entirely possible that this ping is from other Malaysian airlines aircraft at Kuala Lumpur where the arc from the satellite cuts through nearby?"
While I lack specific knowledge of the system in question it is very likely that the system functions in a similar way as any modern network.
For example devices that are hooked up to the internet have a unique number assigned to them called a "MAC address". No other device on the entire network has the same address. This way information can be routed though the network to an individual end user. IP addresses are similar except they function at a different OSI layer.
Same goes for 11 digit postal codes for your street address (USA). No one else has the same address in the entire country.
I'm almost certain that the plane would have a unique identifying code of some kind.
OSI model - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia