So much for my blocked tailnumber

James331

James331

Ejection Handle Pulled
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James331
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Though as a US citizen who is concerned with our overloards behavior lately, not a bad tool to have.

Anyone else ever play around on this site?

It's like flight aware, but uncensored, and you can run some very detailed reports and implement some interesting filters.

http://global.adsbexchange.com/VirtualRadar/
 
Gee, if we had a tracking system for every automobile and motorcycle what fun we could have as hobbyists!
 
If people put webcams w/ automated license plate readers on their own property, that would technically be perfectly legal.
 
dans2992 said:
If people put webcams w/ automated license plate readers on their own property, that would technically be perfectly legal.
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How is that the same as tracking random cars from origination to destination and keeping that record forever, for anyone to see?
 
If it's in plain sight in public (or unencrypted over public airwaves) it's essentially free game. Enjoy your freedom.
 
Not any different than the "tail number police" who go around yo air shows and airports recording numbers and taking pictures to post on the Internet for whatever conspiracy reason they feel they are obliged to uphold.
I do think it is pretty darn cool to sit and watch flightaware!
 
paflyer said:
How is that the same as tracking random cars from origination to destination and keeping that record forever, for anyone to see?
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Feed the data from those readers into a database, and it's basically the same.
 
dans2992 said:
Feed the data from those readers into a database, and it's basically the same.
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Nonsense. You have mandatory trackers built into a vehicle and you allow literally ANYONE with an internet connection to follow you (or know where you are not) and keep a log of your travels indefinitely? For "entertainment", and this is "OK" in America? I weep for my country...
 
The FAA has mandated that the data be broadcast on public airwaves, unencrypted. (Actually, this is worldwide, not just the FAA)

And you don't even need ADS-B, a Mode S transponder creates the same data.

I'd blame the FAA, not the website if you have an issue with it.
 
ifly4fun said:
Wait until he finds out what Google has on him... been tracking every website you ever visited or searched for.
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As well as tracking your phone's location while you're driving. That's how Google is able to display traffic information on Google maps.
 
If you're concerned, just shut your transponder off and don't talk on the radio if you're not in an area that requires it. Problem solved. :)
 
paflyer said:
Nonsense. You have mandatory trackers built into a vehicle and you allow literally ANYONE with an internet connection to follow you (or know where you are not) and keep a log of your travels indefinitely? For "entertainment", and this is "OK" in America? I weep for my country...
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There are a large number of "you's" in your rant that are unrelated entities. No one "you" is responsible for putting all this together.
 
Lindberg said:
There are a large number of "you's" in your rant that are unrelated entities. No one "you" is responsible for putting all this together.
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"You" scare me. The fact that "you" don't see anything wrong with the concept of being tracked and having "your" travels logged and recorded for all time is disturbing. And the fact that "you" think that anyone who believes that to be a major concern for the future is some kind of ranting nut.

I thought Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union...

dans2992 said:
Same thing.
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No it's not. Want to disclose your vested interest in flight tracking to be openly available?
 
mondtster said:
If you're concerned, just shut your transponder off and don't talk on the radio if you're not in an area that requires it. Problem solved. :)
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67455545.jpg
 
Oh we get it but you are putting the blame on the wrong place and not looking at the big picture. As others have stated do you keep your phone off? How about search anything or go to any websites (we know the answer here)? What you are exactly doing is very well known. It is just a matter of time before it gets out.
 
dans2992 said:
The FAA has mandated that the data be broadcast on public airwaves, unencrypted. (Actually, this is worldwide, not just the FAA)
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Which is seen as inept, unprofessional, and dangerous by anyone with even a passing knowledge of RF data systems.

Anyone with real knowledge of network security thinks it's a sign of incredible idiocy.

Anyone that isn't making money off of it, that is.
 
paflyer said:
No it's not. Want to disclose your vested interest in flight tracking to be openly available?
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Sure! I run the website you mentioned.

It's publically available data and perfectly legal.

I realize it's controversial, but there are good uses for this data. Plenty of other websites collect this data also, you just have to pay for it.
 
paflyer said:
No I don't think you do.


When I was a kid we called this "stalking" if done by a private citizen, and "police state" when done by the government.
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Trust us we get it and to an extent probably agree. We are just saying that this is only of 8 billion things that are known about you without you knowing.
 
Believe me, I'm not getting rich off this site either, just paying expenses.
 
My Foreflight shows the N number of traffic that's got ADS-B out. It would be interesting if it also showed the aircraft's registration info, the way that FlightAware does. At least if it showed the type of aircraft -- that would be useful.
 
denverpilot said:
Anyone with real knowledge of network security thinks it's a sign of incredible idiocy.
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Yeah, never mind the tracking ability, it's also trivially spoof-able. Pretty easy to simulate an airliner output and "recalibrate sea level... minus 200 feet".

So the stated intended use of this, which is for reduced spacing, can't actually be safely done without a backup such as radar, which won't give you that resolution anyway. All it will take is one malicious ground-induced near-miss to completely kill the Nextgen program.

Not quite sure what they were thinking - even when GPS came around in the 70s the first thing they did was to put anti-spoofing on it.
 
ifly4fun said:
Wait until he finds out what Google has on him... been tracking every website you ever visited or searched for.
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Or Starbucks. If you've ever connected to one of their free Wifis, likely your phone tries to connect to every one you drive past, and they are everywhere. So Starbucks knows where you live, where you go, where you eat, what time you leave for work, and who you're sleeping with. If they care.
 
deonb said:
As well as tracking your phone's location while you're driving. That's how Google is able to display traffic information on Google maps.
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DuckDuckGo search engine; disable location services, and/or root your phone. . .GodMode on Windows 10, local admin account instead of the MS acoount, or an altrnate OS. It's a one time PITA, but you can avoid most of the "oversight". Except the transponder exposure. Maybe PBOR II.
 
denverpilot said:
Anyone with real knowledge of network security thinks it's a sign of incredible idiocy.
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The sad thing is, it would have just taken a $15 device to secure ADS-B.

e.g. Smart Card Reader and an individual Smart Card issued to each airplane containing a bunch of revokable private & public keys, depending on the direction of communication. Then each broadcast is signed with the key and the other side can validate. If keys are compromised - issue new cards. This is 20 year old technology.
 
dans2992 said:
Sure! I run the website you mentioned.

It's publically available data and perfectly legal.

I realize it's controversial, but there are good uses for this data. Plenty of other websites collect this data also, you just have to pay for it.
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"Perfectly legal" - see that quote a lot in concert with sleazy, parasitical activity. Also the preface "Plenty of other. . .".

Look, I realize you probably don't think of yourself as an enabler of stalkers, cretins, low-lifes, and a monetizer of data provided by an inept and non-accountable Agency. . .or, maybe you do? Just gonna exercise my 1st amendment right to say it sucks. . .
 
Sundancer said:
DuckDuckGo search engine; disable location services, and/or root your phone. . .GodMode on Windows 10, local admin account instead of the MS acoount, or an altrnate OS. It's a one time PITA, but you can avoid most of the "oversight". Except the transponder exposure. Maybe PBOR II.
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You can also not legally remove your tail number, nor can you drive a car without a license plate. The fact that RF is easier to parse than a license plate is a coincidental point-in-time we have with the technology. Once autonomous cars become commonplace - enough cars will have cameras that someone can build a map of all other vehicle locations throughout the US at all times.

Police vehicles can already build a limited map - it's just not crowd-sourced information yet. But it will be. Soon. You can bet on it.
 
Sundancer said:
Look, I realize you probably don't think of yourself as an enabler of stalkers, cretins, low-lifes, and a monetizer of data provided by an inept and non-accountable Agency. . .or, maybe you do? Just gonna exercise my 1st amendment right to say it sucks. . .
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Do you have the same comment about FlightAware?

It's the same datasource - in fact to contribute to adsbexchange.com, you use a FlightAware setup (PiAware).
 
deonb said:
Do you have the same comment about FlightAware?

It's the same datasource - in fact to contribute to adsbexchange.com, you use a FlightAware setup (PiAware).
Click to expand...

Flightaware is a bit different, it censored out data for blocked tail numbers as well as government stuff.

Frankly, as someone with a blocked tailnumber, I'll sacrifice some of my privacy in order to be able to keep a eye on government, as they pose more of a threat nowadays to the common law abiding man then the common criminal.
 
James331 said:
Flightaware is a bit different, it censored out data for blocked tail numbers as well as government stuff.

Frankly, as someone with a blocked tailnumber, I'll sacrifice some of my privacy in order to be able to keep a eye on government, as they pose more of a threat nowadays to the common law abiding man then the common criminal.
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The full Flightaware data can be subpoenaed, and even ignoring that, do you have an intrinsic trust of Flightaware employees?

But I do agree with liking to be able to keep an eye on things. I would rather know publically everywhere that I'm being tracked and what information I give off, rather than getting tracked by a select few, and not knowing about it. I care less about the government than I do about SiriusXM harassing me 5 times a week about a trial account I had with them 3 years ago for 2 days, but same principle applies.
 
Nah, there just isn't a legitimate reason not to encrypt the data, and no reason to make not-for-hire aircraft detailed data publicly available. Good news is, enough dollars to the right pols, and problem solved - "de-legalize" tracking personal aircraft (and autos) except for opt-ins; nice hefty civil penalties, maybe some criminal ones as well. Like the retail breeches - $200-300 million penalty, pretty soon Target finds the money to implement some basic IT security. Heck, maybe even OPM and Blue Cross begin to behave like responsible adults.

Be interesting to see how the pendulum swings - perhaps some trigger event, or events, focuses public attention on the sleazier aspects of unfettered collection. Or, maybe the herd just goes along for convenience. Wait and see.
 
Sundancer said:
DuckDuckGo search engine; disable location services, and/or root your phone. . .GodMode on Windows 10, local admin account instead of the MS acoount, or an altrnate OS. It's a one time PITA, but you can avoid most of the "oversight". Except the transponder exposure. Maybe PBOR II.
Click to expand...

Good luck. In case you missed it, the carrier's were splitting fiber the the central offices and feeding it to secured rooms on-site in the late 90s. Not long after that came out, Congress quietly voted them criminal and civil immunity for their role in surveillance.

Well, it wasn't that quiet amongst tech circles but it never made it to the media sources most people pay attention to.

It really doesn't matter what you do to a browser or a client machine. You can encrypt everything but that only makes your traffic look more suspicious to the metadata watchers.

And a few years back it was noted that the math RSA based some of the critical popular crypto tech on, came from NSA.

You're not really getting away from any of the real oversight by any of the things mentioned.
 
denverpilot said:
Good luck. In case you missed it, the carrier's were splitting fiber the the central offices and feeding it to secured rooms on-site in the late 90s. Not long after that came out, Congress quietly voted them criminal and civil immunity for their role in surveillance.

Well, it wasn't that quiet amongst tech circles but it never made it to the media sources most people pay attention to.

It really doesn't matter what you do to a browser or a client machine. You can encrypt everything but that only makes your traffic look more suspicious to the metadata watchers.

And a few years back it was noted that the math RSA based some of the critical popular crypto tech on, came from NSA.

You're not really getting away from any of the real oversight by any of the things mentioned.
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It was never a secret amongst tech circles that CALEA requires carriers to give law enforcement easy access to everything.
 
Lindberg said:
It was never a secret amongst tech circles that CALEA requires carriers to give law enforcement easy access to everything.
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It was way bigger than CALEA even before I left the carriers. Realistically carriers at first paid lip service to the need to have a warrant, but hardly ever questioned any warrants. They automated the process because having a staff of people sitting around processing warrants was overhead they never wanted nor needed.

Confirmation from folks who worked at the carriers got tighter and tighter as it became more well known after I had moved to being a vendor to all but one U.S. backbone carrier.

Interestingly one of the worst run RBOCs was the only one who even tried to say no. Our local one: US West/Qwest, now CenturyLink.

They probably just wanted more money, though. Or some other favor. I'm sure they play along like all the other good kids by now.
 
denverpilot said:
And a few years back it was noted that the math RSA based some of the critical popular crypto tech on, came from NSA.
Click to expand...

I don't have a problem with a highly publicized, pretty simple algorithm that has a multi-billion dollar bounty on its head.

I do have a big problem when the FAA says they have a "secret way" of validating whether ADS-B signals are legit. Mmm. Security through obscurity much?
 
deonb said:
I don't have a problem with a highly publicized, pretty simple, algorithm that has a multi-trillion dollar bounty on its head.

I do have a big problem when the FAA says they have a "secret way" of validating whether ADS-B signals are legit.
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They're just correlating tower locations and probably also doing some transmitter fingerprinting.

An input that suddenly says my airplane is in another State without having flown there first, is probably filtered away for a while.

Also going to be able to do the equivalent of wide-area multilateralization for a nearly immediate "pretty close" reverse DF on any interloping transmitters.

Of course, that means that the real attacks against it will be distributed denial of service attacks, just like in every other real network discipline. A bunch of cheap Raspberry Pi or similar controller and a cheap 978 transmitter scattered somewhere making thousands of thousands of false position reports -- will freak out all that stuff.
 
Sundancer said:
Like the retail breeches - $200-300 million penalty, pretty soon Target finds the money to implement some basic IT security.
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Very different. That's private information that got leaked. This is public. Blame the FAA for it being public, just like you can blame the DMV for giving you a publicly visible license plate. But it's public nonetheless. You'd first have to get the FAA to make it private before you can sue people for broadcasting it.
 
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