A major independent flight tracking platform, which has made enemies of the Saudi royal family and Elon Musk, has been sold to a subsidiary of a private equity firm. And its users are furious.
ADS-B Exchange has made headlines in recent months for, as AFP put it, irking "billionaires and baddies." But in a Wednesday morning press release, aviation intelligence firm Jetnet announced it had acquired the scrappy open source operation for an undisclosed sum.
[...]
ADS-B Exchange may have seen its revenue shoot up, but Stanford says recouping a significant investment—he says Jetnet's opening offers was seven figures, but that he estimates the final deal went down for around $20 million—could take a decade. A quicker route to profit would be to raise prices, make some data available only to paying subscribers, and to charge plane owners to hide information about their aircraft. These are all tactics that have made FlightAware and FlightRadar24 successful."FlightRadar, FlightAware win. Elon wins," Stanford says. "All these guys who were out to get us win."
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Big Twitter Roll-up: Blue Checkmarks, Banning Critics, and the Mysterious John Mastodon
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A lot of Twitter-related stories recently submitted, so here's a rollup to put them all in one place for your convenience, or so that you can easily bypass it.
Twitter Will Require Phone Number Verification to Purchase a Twitter Blue Subscription
Twitter will require phone number verification to purchase a Twitter Blue subscription:
After announcing the relaunch of Twitter Blue over the weekend, Twitter updated its terms to require phone number verification for users who want to purchase the subscription. The company said that if you haven't verified your phone number, you will be prompted to do so while buying the subscription plan.
What's more, the company may also prevent users who have changed their handle (username), display name or profile picture within the last seven days from purchasing the Twitter Blue subscription.
[...] Last month, Musk mentioned that all accounts undergoing verification will be manually verified — which was exactly the process Twitter followed with legacy verification.
All these steps are aimed at preventing impersonation and spam. When Elon Musk's version of Twitter Blue with a verification mark first launched in November, a ton of accounts began to ape brands, celebrities and athletes. The mayhem caused by that forced Musk to pause the program until there were steps in place to prevent that from happening again.
(Score: 4, Funny) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 01, @05:06AM (1 child)
He spent 44 billion and failed to do what these private equity people managed in 20 million.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mhajicek on Wednesday February 01, @05:37AM
Only temporarily. Most of the data is crowdsourced, according to comments and articles I've read elsewhere, and they're already working on another site to handle it.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01, @05:55AM
That’ll teach them to instead use collaborative crowd-sourced non-profit foundation-run websites.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday February 01, @06:02AM
Anybody else reminded of when AdBlock Plus started charging people to put them on their whitelist? Thus basically defeating the point of the extension?
Although I'm somewhat more unclear on what the innocuous use of this product was in the first place...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Wednesday February 01, @06:03AM (5 children)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by janrinok on Wednesday February 01, @07:55AM (4 children)
The benefits to me were quite obvious. My data feeds (2 independent feeds) to FR24 earned me a business account which allows me to be able to be alerted whenever my son is flying (he is a pilot with a specialist company operating in the UK and Europe), and it also enables me to observe what is happening elsewhere in the world. It has even tipped me off to developing stories that might be of interest to this site.
My feeds to ADSB-E were different. I knew (or was reasonably assured) that they were not withholding data simply because some rich person didn't want to be 'seen'. His aircraft is transmitting data to air traffic control and other aircraft on a public part of the RF spectrum which is partly there to provide a safety to, and separation from, those other aircraft. Most military aircraft cooperate and comply unless doing so impacts their primary mission - which surprisingly appears to be relatively few. Yesterday I watched some very unusual military activity in the area of the Baltic Sea around Kaliningrad and along the border of Belarus, Ukraine and all the way down to the Black Sea. This was all easily observable using ADSB sites such as the 2 that I have supported.
Some will say that there is a security or privacy implication, but I disagree. If you think that a potential enemy has to rely on ADSB sites to gain their intelligence then you are mistaken. Having an idea where Elon's aircraft is does not tell me what he is doing, or why he is doing it. If his aircraft is going to be attacked it will most likely be close to an airfield where it presents a much easier target during take-off and landing - something that does not rely on ADSB transmissions. Political leaders fly around the world - just as they have always done - and there is no increased risk to them as a result of ADSB being introduced. In fact, it provides them with additional security as it provides a much better safety picture of the airspace than was available in the past. There has always been some risk to such people but ADSB has probably provided more security to them rather than taken any away.
But if that is going to change - and I will admit that at the moment nobody knows which way the company will jump - then they can do so without my help. I will look for whatever site pops up to replace it and gladly provide my feeds to them. And my remaining feed to ADSB-E (which currently is there to keep my account active) will be cut at the same time.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday February 01, @11:40AM
If military aircraft feel their mission or safety are at all compromised by transmitting ADSB or any signals whatsoever, they just switch them off.
Even with enemy action potentials, most military flights are net safer with their ADSB on most of the time.
>Having an idea where Elon's aircraft is does not tell me what he is doing, or why he is doing it.
No, it doesn't, but neither does it stop the press from publishing stories about "trips to pedo island" and similar, even years after the flight.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday February 01, @01:35PM (2 children)
So, it would be ok to track your car and make updates to where you frequently drive because you'll only get attacked when you stop to get gas?
Seems like we shouldn't be putting people in a position for an attacker to find them. Maybe privacy has value.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by janrinok on Wednesday February 01, @04:14PM
The information is already out there. Flight plans have to be issued. Air ground radio communications are also free to listen to. The aircraft cannot maintain radio silence.
Of course it would be OK, there isn't a law to prevent this. If I am out in public I have no privacy. Is there a law against it in your country? The law to protect you makes it a crime for someone to attack you, it is not to make you invisible or to demand that nobody should look at you.
It is exactly the same for aircraft. Search the internet - you will find aircraft take-off and landing forecasts for any airline you care to mention. The vast majority of aircraft movements are not protected. Caterers, refuelling staff, air traffic controllers, ramp staff and many others all get told in advance of aircraft movements. They are not holders of some super secret clearance where I am. They have access control to their place of work but nothing more. And for people such as caterers they do not even have that - very often the company is off-site.
It is true that when I was flying nuclear bombers during the Cold War we could get airborne and on our way in complete radio silence - but that is something of an exceptional case.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dalek on Thursday February 02, @03:06AM
Let's more generally consider the safety implications of ADS-B. If I'm understanding correctly, your argument is that ADS-B might enable an attacker to harm someone when they land at an airport. This seems impractical considering the data that is actually transmitted by ADS-B, but I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility.
The tradeoff is that ADS-B reduces aviation accidents [aopa.org]. It seems intuitive that if all aircraft in a region are broadcasting their locations to the other aircraft, they're more likely to operate safely because everyone has better situation awareness. This is supported by data, as the linked article discusses. The article is focusing on ADS-B in, meaning that an aircraft is receiving ADS-B data from other aircraft, not that the aircraft is transmitting (ADS-B out). However, ADS-B in will provide the best situational awareness if everyone is broadcasting their position with ADS-B out.
It's perhaps a crude and poor analogy, but compare it to headlights on cars at night. Sure, it's easier for people to spot cars driving by on the street if they have their headlights on. I can see the position of the cars, their speed, and their direction at a particular moment. But it doesn't tell me where the driver's car was previously parked or where their eventual destination is. I just see them driving by. It might increase privacy a bit if the drivers turn off their headlights, but it also dramatically increases the chances of collisions with other cars, people, and any other obstacles in the road. Overall, the boost to safety greatly outweighs any privacy concerns.
It's easy for anyone to receive ADS-B broadcasts for aircraft in their vicinity. Get a cheap RTL-SDR, then install the free dump1090 software. You will see information about the current position (latitude, longitude, altitude) of aircraft, their bearing and speed, the call sign for the aircraft, and perhaps a bit more details about the type of aircraft. However, I don't see information about where the aircraft took off from or its eventual destination. Even if you're in a rural part of the US, there are enough airfields around that unless you receive ADS-B broadcasts during takeoff and landing, you won't know where the aircraft took off from or where it's going. You just see information about what it's doing right now. ADS-B does provide a demonstrable safety benefit, and I think that greatly outweighs any potential concerns about privacy and security.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest just whinge about SN.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Wednesday February 01, @06:46AM (6 children)
So a site started as a hobby gets way bigger than its creators expected, they struggle along for awhile and then sell it in order to allow it to keep running, and a bunch of whiners immediately disconnect their feeds because... what? It's not longer the right shade of blue?
I feed ADSBx and will continue to feed it until there's obvious signs of problems. I feed sites like this to provide information to others, not to make ideological statements about whatever it is that the ones who quit are so butthurt about.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Wednesday February 01, @07:08AM (4 children)
Out of curiosity, what does one need in order to listen for ADS-B?
(Score: 5, Informative) by driverless on Wednesday February 01, @07:35AM (3 children)
Easiest way to do it is with the PiAware setup [flightaware.com], so you'll need a Pi, an SDR like a NooElec off Amazon, and a 1090MHz antenna which you can buy off eBay and other places, or make yourself if you're up to that sort of thing. Follow the instructions at the link, which will feed FlightAware, then sideload FlightRadar onto it which will also feed that off the same device. Finally, sideload ADSBx, which is your third feed from the same device.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Wednesday February 01, @11:44AM (2 children)
Interesting, thanks!
(Score: 4, Informative) by driverless on Wednesday February 01, @11:54AM (1 child)
If you do that and you're somewhere coastal, also consider setting up an AIS feed, which you can also do with a Pi-based setup. For the hardware, this is the NooElec store [amazon.com], just get a generic RTL-SDR but preferably a metal-case one since it can run quite hot, and it looks like you can get proper outdoors ADSB antennas on there as well, e.g. this one [amazon.com]. You may also need a USB power injector to power the SDR since, at least for the Pi 2s and 3s, they're way too gutless to run it directly, and be careful about backpowering it. There's lots of notes online about things to watch out for.
Beyond that there's feeders for weather, lightning strikes, seismic data, zombies, dogs and cats living together, ...
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Wednesday February 01, @12:19PM
Hmm, for $30 I might actually want to play with this at some point!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday February 01, @12:03PM
It is nothing to do with 'shades of blue' or any other colour.
I provide my data to ADSB-Exchange so that others can have it for free - all of it, not just selected items. I have benefited from having the data from their feeds in return. If the new owners decide that they are now going to use my goodwill to make a profit for themselves, and maybe to charge those who want their 'privacy' from having their flights displayed, then they can do it without my feeds.
If they decide that they wish to pay me for my data then that is another matter but for the moment it appears that the intention might be use freely-given data to make somebody else richer. I will wait and see what the new owners decide to do. My feeds went active in 2016 and 2018 respectively. I have maintained them, built and mounted new antennae, powered them up 24 hrs/day etc. However, I'd be a mug to keep doing that to make a profit for somebody else if I don't get to benefit from the other feeds - all of the data, not just chosen elements.