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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.
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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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(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.
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