> He is probably trying to take down the flight-tracking bot

Anything is possible, but this doesn't make a whole lot of sense given that it would have cost him just $50K to do it rather than the price to purchase 9.2% of Twitter.

> Funny how he talks about Free speech on twitter while actively trying to take down a twitter account.

"Actively trying to take down a twitter account" is a hallucination at this time.

Either way he has consistently used heavy-handed tactics to silence the speech of those he disagrees with. From attempting to destroy the life of a whistle-blower [0] (seriously, take time to read this article) to cancelling the order of a blogger who made negative remarks about him [1] to firing anyone who disagrees with him [2], Musk is a man that repeatedly abuses his power to silence anyone's speech he dislikes.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/03/elon-musk-personally-cancels...

[2] https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/news/elon-musk-ruthle...

buying a seat at the court of public opinion would certainly allow one to press for rosier dispositions, albeit 9% is far from the standing of grand arbiter.

He's Twitter's largest shareholder, holding 4x the number of shares held by Jack: https://www.ft.com/content/29b9c884-02d7-4d1c-a4ab-c862242fa...

Anyone who thinks he is doing it to remove the flight tracker is dumb. It is literally based on open-source data and anyone who can be a threat to Elon can likely access it without following that Twitter account.

Indeed, there is no stopping this in the current global aviation regime.

This might be a good opportunity to advertise ADS-B data collection: websites like flightradar24, flightaware, adsbexchange are powered by thousands of volunteers that collect and upload ADS-B radio transmissions broadcasted by aircraft. Most of the collection goes through an RTL-SDR dongle, so if you have a raspberry pi or some other machine that's up 24/7 - consider contributing! Minimal radio kit for signal reception (RTL-SDR+simple antenna) costs somewhere around USD50. It's also a good entry point for learning SDR and radio in general.

There is the new Privacy ICAO Address (PIA) program [1] from the FAA that somewhat adds a layer of privacy. It's not perfect by any means, and you can piece together the data to figure out the actual identity if you're so inclined. However, it does provide a little bit of a buffer.

[1]: https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/equipadsb/privacy/

How do you join in? Is there a way to see if "your area" isn't well covered?

From adsbexchange FAQ (https://www.adsbexchange.com/faq/)

> Q: I live in XYZ, can you use another feeder there? Where can I see if you need more coverage in my area? Etc.

> A: The answer is simple. If you live on planet earth, yes, ADSBexchange.com could use a feeder at your location. The map may look like you see aircraft in your area, but the truth is you can’t see what you can’t see. To detect aircraft with MLAT, we need a minimum of 4 feeders to receive data and the more receivers see it the better the MLAT accuracy. If an aircraft is low altitude, feeders may have to be within a few miles.

I would also add what each individual site will not say explicitly: with a little bit of Linux configuration skills it's easy to upload to multiple aggregators at once.

You need a radio that can receive the ACARS frequencies, VHF around 130 MHz in the aviation band. It's a simple FSK over AM, like an old-school modem, so you just pipe your radio's audio into a software decoder. There are direct SDR approaches these days too. e.g. ADSB Exchange has a ready-to-go SD card image for Raspberry Pi if you have an SDR which can receive the relevant frequencies. https://www.adsbexchange.com/how-to-feed/

ACARS is something else, it's like SMS for aircraft. Also interesting data.

But this thread is about location: ADS-B (dependent broadcast) and to a lesser degree MLAT (secondary radar interrogation response), both of which primarily operate on 1090MHz.

With an unmodified RTL-SDR you can receive both, not at the same time and you'll want to swap antennas since the ranges are so different, but still :).

PS. The RTL-SDRs used for ADS-B often feature a modification: an analog filter centered at 1090MHz, which removes all other data but makes the 1090MHz reception better. You shouldn't have the filter if you want to play around on other frequencies with the same device.

Even if your area has coverage, adding radios increases resilience and may help triangulate the position of aircraft in other radio modes. You can also check the data yourself instead of depending on commercial sites, e.g. with tar1090.

If he didn't want to be tracked, he would hire a different jet each time he wanted to fly.

That way nobody would know he was aboard.

Or he could just fly on scheduled commercial flights like everyone else. Business Class is pretty nice.

Going through airport security, on the other hand, sucks. When you fly on a private jet you just walk up and toss your bag to the pilot. If you're a billionaire, you likely don't even do that. No tickets, no security theater, no waiting to board, etc.

And you get to set your own schedule. Even business class, you can't do that. Even the most popular routes rarely have more than a flight once every 2 hours. So you might waste 1 hour 58 at the airport waiting for the next one.

When you’re a very fancy person, you have a separate area of the airport and a different way on board. You can still fly commercial and not have the usual airport experience.

Not surprised. Though we've seen senators going through security so I'm not sure what the lower threshold for 'fancy' is. Still can't escape the schedule or having to fly with commoners of course.

Fun anecdote: friend of mine's dad is a ~billionaire, and not only does he still fly commercial, he flies coach. And has family come pick him up from the airport. Epic tightwad. Never spends money unnecessarily. To his credit, he also works at the local soup kitchen once every week like clockwork. How he does that while maintaining a 90 hour a week schedule, I have no idea.

Senators probably don’t cross the threshold. You gotta have a lot of money and a lot of status with the airlines. Also likely not all airports will have/do this.

I also have a billionaire friend who only flies coach. Personally I think he’s a moron for doing so, but respect that he’s so cheap. You generally keep your wealth by being cheap, but realistically business versus coach won’t fundamentally change anything. It’s more the principal.

> like everyone else

We're talking about the richest guy on the planet. Of course he's not like everyone else.

Ive often wondered if air force 1 is always full of president.

To catch you in a bit of pedantry, "Air Force 1" is the designation of any aircraft the president is on, so technically, yes? If the vice-president is flying I think it's called "Air Force 2".

A modern take on an old classic: is the plane Air Force One because the president is onboard, or is the president onboard because it's Air Force One?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma

Every aircraft carrying the President is Air Force One, every helicopter carrying him is Marine One. Even if it would be a US Airways flight from Baltimore to Chicago.

In practice, yes. Pedantically, any Air Force aircraft carrying the president is Air Force One, no matter how it flies. Any Marine Corps aircraft will be Marine One. And as you might expect, there would be an Army One and Navy One as well.

I do not believe you are correct on the designation for a commercial flight if the president were on board. There is 'Executive One' if he flies on a US civil aircraft, but that is still federally owned.

No, if the President was on a US Airways flight, he would be on Executive One [1], not Air Force One.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_One

Very interesting... from the article, in case others were also wondering:

> On December 26, 1973, to "set an example for the rest of the nation during the current energy crisis" and to "demonstrate his confidence in the airlines", then-President Richard Nixon became the only sitting president to travel on a regularly scheduled commercial airline flight when he flew on a United Airlines DC-10 from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport.[2] A Nixon aide carried a suitcase-sized secure communication device on board the plane, so that the President could remain in contact with Washington in the event of an emergency.

I stand corrected.

It's also military and they don't broadcast ADS-B unless they want to. They have their own encrypted transponder for other stuff.

It is. It has a different call sign when it flies without the President.

That guy asked for $50K to take it down. If that's what he wanted, he would have paid $50K, not billions.

And then pay again the next guy. And the next guy. And the next guy.

What? Why would he care about that?

I don't think he would try to take it down like OP, but he did offer the owner of the account $5K to take it down, citing security issues. See: https://www.protocol.com/elon-musk-flight-tracker.

Free speech does not mean that private and personal data can be made public.

Posting your bank account statement on Twitter is not free speech.

If your bank account statement was publicly available would it be though? Because that's where they are getting the flight records they are rebroadcasting.

Elon’s flight records are public, but the account aggregated them and made them available to the public in a different form.

A better example would be: a Twitter account reports your position when you are in a public space every five minutes, including pictures of you at the bar, jogging, on a date at a restaurant, etc…

All of these are public informations, but the way they are aggregated amounts to stalking in my opinion.

I admit this is very borderline, tough!

No, free speech just means that the government does not restrict your speech, it has nothing to do with what a private corporation does. Twitter can censor anything it wants and it does not impede free speech at all.

Your are mixing up the first amendment with the broader idea of free speech.

The 1A (roughly speaking) limits the scope of the Government as not too limit free speech.

Twitter, as a private company, is not restricted by the first amendment. However, one can note that Twitter does not allow free speech.

This is quite important from a legal standpoint, because since Twitter practices censorship of ideas they don’t like, they are no longer considered a common carrier.

There are huge legal ramifications of this!

No, I am not mixing up anything. The broader idea of free speech is just an idea, it has no legal basis. The only legal basis is the first amendment. The only Justice that seems to think common carrier applies to twitter at all is Thomas and his neutrality appears to be very suspect at best. Twitter was never a common carrier, the Trumps Right wing simply wants to paint it as one. I think it appears you are misunderstanding what a common carrier is, if they are not a common carrier, they have no requirement to enforce free speech. Twitter is not and has never been one.

Yes, you are mixing up two different ideas.

Free speech is a very well defined concept, as done by literally hundreds of political science scholars. The fact that the US Constitution applies it only to the Government does not mean it cannot be discussed in a different context. For instance I would like new regulations to extend free speech outside the scope of the First Amendment. This is an extremely well defined politica stance.

You seem to agree that Twitter is NOT a common carrier, and then it must be treated as an editor. This would imply that they are responsible for the tweet they decide to publish.

These are exactly the far-reaching legal ramifications of free speech (outside Government) that I was mentioning.

What you are discussing in regards to free speech is again, by your admission, just a concept, not a law. All that matters is the law. Until its made law it has no bearing on the actions of a company. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act means that whether you want to call them an editor or whatever, legally they are not responsible. The law is the law until it is changed, everything else is just an opinion.

I sincerely hope you are joking.

People can discuss things that are not law.

One can point out, for instance, that Twitter is not a free speech platform, and this is bad for many reasons.

One can comment on laws, proposing to extend legal protections to different sectors.

I hope your conversations are not solely based on current law, that must be pretty boring.

(You interpretation of Section 230 is shaky at least)

I think we may have a failure to communicate. This entire thread is predicated on you stating that "This is quite important from a legal standpoint, because since Twitter practices censorship of ideas they don’t like, they are no longer considered a common carrier. There are huge legal ramifications of this!" That's the entire central premise of the discussion. You are the one that brought up the legal aspect of it. Anyone can discuss anything in a conversation, it still does not change that its only a conversation, it does not affect the laws that govern how a company can be run.

Edit: Note - I am not blaming you for the communication breakdown, it seems that perhaps we were both coming at this from different sides and may have missed each others points. Either way, wish you all the best.

Publishing distasteful things or things we don't agree with is free speech.

If saying anything wasn't a problem we wouldn't even think of the concept of free speech.

Twitter is not free speech platform and that is okay.

No, it's not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

That was my philosophical take. Wikipedia simply describes how speech is treated today.

I think the tracking bot goes quite a bit further than simply being free speech.

Can you elaborate? The bot is collecting and publishing public information.

Yet clearly targeting a single aircraft with a single high profile user.

The fact that the information is public is not a perfect defense, by combining public information, clearly associating it to an individual, and publishing this to a large audience, you can create a sizable threat.

This idea that things break down at scale is an ongoing issue in society. People get up in arms over things like red light cameras and speed cameras, for instance, which I think points to serious systemic issues. If we as a society can't tolerate the uniform application of a law for example, maybe the law should be changed. If there are issues with this data being public, the rationale for the data being public in the first place should be challenged, not the downstream providers who utilize that data.

Yep, pretty much.

I'm really disappointed in the way the HN crowd seems utterly unable to see beyond "it's free speech!" when it comes to situations like this.

I generally agree, but this is really not the horse I’d hitch my wagon to. They’re publishing public information about the richest person in the world! He absolutely deserves far more scrutiny than you or me.

Scrutiny yes, stalking no and this is getting uncomfortably close to the latter.

I understand the argument that this could be used to show potentially dubious behaviour, but that could already be shown from the flight records if it occurred without publishing live details of every single flight. That's simply not necessary.

I disagree. The issue with stalking is that it’s threatening. I don’t think Elon is in any way threatened by this.

The flight tracking data is also partially a public good. Didn't it show him asking workers to come in against California sherrif's office order and then fleeing in plane so he couldn't be arrested in California (from early pandemic, might be remembering some details wrong), essentially asking his employees to face jail while dodging any chance of it for himself?

That may still not outweigh the privacy concerns.

He's still a person. Don't publicly track the whereabouts of people, it's creepy, intimidating and threatening.

Conversely, don't become a public figure if you can't handle the costs. This kind of stuff comes with the territory. I don't advocate stalking public figures, but I have more sympathy for random private individuals being stalked than I do people who willingly choose the spotlight.

Public figures are human beings too believe it or not

Yes, of course. And they made a choice willingly, knowing that there is a price. Can't have the upsides of being famous without the downsides, they are a package deal.

They are not publicly tracking any person, though, just a plane I thought.

Would it be any different if they were tracking his car? Does tracking an object owned by a person somehow make it any better? What's next, Musk's TV viewing habits? Browsing history? These are just things and not the person, so it's ok, right? No, of course not.

The comment I responded to was about tracking the person. A person's viewing history is different from their automobile being reported in a public place. Steve Jobs disliked it so much that he would regularly lease cars to avoid having a permanent license plate that could be associated with him. [0] TV viewing habits and browsing history are not public activities occuring in plain view of everyone else.

[0]: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/steve-jobs-car-apple-ceo-l...

Musk claims to believe in absolute unlimited free speech so he shouldn't have a problem with such tracking.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of horrifying massacres done by Russian troops in Ukraine, Twitter is a sea of Russian accounts, showing alternative stories. How the killing and rape of 10 year old children discovered today, were done by Azov regiments and not by the retreating Russian troops.

If he is the majority shareholder, and still has apparently free time for another venture, maybe he probably should start there, instead of his own peeves with Twitter.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/

It sounds as if you’re complaining about Russian troops being massacred in Ukraine themselves. It should be ‘massacres by Russian troops’ (I assume)

Dumb me...corrected. Thanks.

Honestly, was a bit disturbed by some of the photographic evidence I have seen today.