Comment on *ACTION ROLL*
Dempf@lemmy.zip 4 months agoThe other bit of this is that Taylor Swift sent a C&D letter to Jack Sweeney who is the guy who has been publishing flight paths of various celebrities. Sweeney obtains this data publicly because since 2020 all aircraft (with few exceptions) are required to use ADS-B transponders. The ADS-B system has numerous safety benefits compared to previous systems, but a side effect is that every aircraft now constantly broadcasts its position, velocity, and altitude information, and anybody who wants to can build a ground station capable of receiving this information.
Generally, threatening legal action against somebody who isn’t doing anything wrong or illegal is considered a dick move, and puts Taylor Swift in the same category as Elon Musk (who has also previously threatened legal action against Jack Sweeney). So we are proceeding to make fun of her without remorse, as it was her decision in the first place to fly privately, which is very bad for the environment.
Instead of threatening to sue the guy who’s breaking no laws and publishing information that is already public, she could just consider another mode of transit if privacy is that important to her. But in the meantime we will enjoy the memes
every aircraft now constantly broadcasts its position, velocity, and altitude information, and anybody who wants to can build a ground station capable of receiving this information.
Isn’t this a pretty serious security concern? What if some armed group gets their hands on these real-time aircraft flight paths?
Ignoring the fact that everyone has their hands on these flight paths because it’s publicly available data, what if they did? Genuinely, what do you think is the worst that can happen?
You know militaries don’t need publicly available flight tracking to shoot down planes, right? Like, they have machines that tell them exactly where everything in the air near them is all the time.
Plus, airlines literally post departure and arrival times on the internet as part of their business model. Even if you didn’t know exactly where the plane was and when, you could make a pretty educated guess based on that information.
I mean everyone can already get their hands on it: www.adsbexchange.com
The exceptions to ADS-B requirements include military aircraft. Awhile back a friend and I were in the Nevada desert and some F-35s buzzed past us at only a few hundred feet. I was curious about the flight so I checked ADS-B exchange, and sure enough there was no trace of it. Friend got a cool picture though.
Generally speaking we rely on a culture of trustworthiness more than we rely on a culture of security in the US.
It’s why you can buy things with a credit card without showing ID. You can sign with a slightly squiggled line and it never gets looked at.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Every motorized form of transportation requires publicly-visible identifying information on the vehicle.
If she were traveling by car, anyone who had cameras watching roads could report everywhere she went.
I hope you can see how that would be the same process of collecting and then publishing public information, and how it might still be worthy of a lawsuit given how a record of everywhere someone’s car has driven to is creepy.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
This take is hot off the press and I haven’t really thought it through, and you can call me an extremist if you want, but billionaires don’t deserve privacy