College Kid's Twitter Bot That Stalks Musk's Jet Now Tracking Russian Oligarchs (arstechnica.com) 36
A Twitter bot created by a college student is tracking the movements of 46 jets owned or leased by more than 20 Russian oligarchs and sending updates to ADS-B Exchange, "a sit that collects data from aviation enthusiasts who run their own equipment to monitor airplane movements," reports Ars Technica. "Many of the oligarchs have been hit with sanctions and travel bans." From the report: This isn't the first time that a bot created by Jack Sweeney, the 19-year-old University of Central Florida student, has made the news. Sweeney also runs @ElonJet, which tracks the movements of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's private jet. Musk grew annoyed with the attention and sent Sweeney a DM on Twitter, offering him $5,000 to shut the account down. Sweeney countered by asking for a Model 3, then $50,000, then an internship. He even explained to Musk where his bot sourced its data, which is all publicly available. So far, Musk hasn't taken him up on any of the counter-offers.
Sweeney's bot is made possible by the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system, which is required for many aircraft flying in the US and the EU. With ADS-B, aircraft use GPS and their onboard sensors to calculate and periodically transmit their position, altitude, and velocity, and anyone with the appropriate receiver can listen for the broadcasts. The system has revolutionized air traffic control, providing accurate position and velocity data every second, far more frequently than the typical five seconds that ground-based radar offers. [...] It's possible that Sweeney's @RUOligarchJets bot could serve as a form of open source intelligence in Russia's war in Ukraine. Just as investors and Musk fans use @ElonJet to hypothesize about what the billionaire is doing, oligarch jet movements may reveal real-time details about what's happening inside Russia.
Sweeney's bot is made possible by the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system, which is required for many aircraft flying in the US and the EU. With ADS-B, aircraft use GPS and their onboard sensors to calculate and periodically transmit their position, altitude, and velocity, and anyone with the appropriate receiver can listen for the broadcasts. The system has revolutionized air traffic control, providing accurate position and velocity data every second, far more frequently than the typical five seconds that ground-based radar offers. [...] It's possible that Sweeney's @RUOligarchJets bot could serve as a form of open source intelligence in Russia's war in Ukraine. Just as investors and Musk fans use @ElonJet to hypothesize about what the billionaire is doing, oligarch jet movements may reveal real-time details about what's happening inside Russia.
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I sincerely hope he's not a tea drinker.
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They are not Musk. They play dirty.
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Let's not pretend that Russian oligarchs who are literally on international sanction lists have any serious ability to do ANYTHING to an American college kid.
Because they really, really don't. Sure, they can play big bad mafia at home, but in America every contact they have is being watched by the FBI, NSA, and CIA. They're literally enemy agents at this point, and they're being tracked.
This kid knows who he's messing with. And he knows they can't touch him.
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Possibly interesting (Score:2)
On Friday, for example, a Gulfstream G650ER linked to Roman Abramovich took off from Ben Gurion Airport in Israel and landed at Vnukovo Airport outside Moscow before heading to Azerbaijan a couple of days later. This morning, it returned to Moscow and took off three hours later. Abramovich is reportedly trying to negotiate an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
We are now waiting to see what Russia's next move is.
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We are now waiting to see what Russia's next move is.
Poke Putin with a Bulgarian umbrella [wikipedia.org]?
[Obviously, it'll need a long, long handle, given how far Putin has been sitting away from people recently. I wonder why?]
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We are now waiting to see what Russia's next move is.
Poke Putin with a Bulgarian umbrella [wikipedia.org]?
[Obviously, it'll need a long, long handle, given how far Putin has been sitting away from people recently. I wonder why?]
Putin has been taking pandemic social distancing very very seriously, which is why he's never seen sitting near anyone, such as his photo with Macron on the opposite sides of an absurdly long table.
This also means he's been talking to relatively few people in person. And because something serious like a war requires talking in person, because of security concerns, he probably has been discussing the Ukraine invasion with a tiny number of officials. Basically, he's isolated.
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Putin has been taking pandemic social distancing very very seriously, ... This also means he's been talking to relatively few people in person. ... Basically, he's isolated.
Ya, I heard a report about that on NPR/PBS this afternoon. Apparently, up until a little while ago, anyone wanting a face-to-face meeting with Putin had to quarantine for two weeks prior. Now, Putin's pretty much down to interacting up close with only his body guards at this point. Not really a good way to keep in touch with things...
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That would make a great premise for a movie, either a political thriller or a comedy/farce.
"Good Bye Lenin!" did this on a smaller scale for woman in East Germany who falls into a coma before the fall of the wall, but comes back after the fall and her son tries to hide the fact that East Germany is kind of over.
I think it would be tough long-term, though. I mean if you're theoretically able to order things that dramatically alter world news, some of it would be tough to make. Especially if you're expected
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We are now waiting to see what Russia's next move is.
They've shot Commander Henderson.
They've shot the First Officer York.
They're now pointing their guns at me. I wonder what they'll do next?
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They tried to shoot Henderson. Then this happened [twimg.com].
Secure ADS-B? (Score:2)
Some day, maybe we'll have a secure version of ADS-B that's implemented with something like PKI. (With certificates issued by national air bodies like the FAA for the US.) It's almost as if, everyone who implements systems should ask computer scientists the best way, not just create some dumb standard using dreams and hopes. Anyone can spoof ADS-B because the protocol is open. Anyone can listen in to ADS-B because the data isn't encrypted. Some day, maybe we'll have something better. (But even when we do, i
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Why do we even want privacy for aircraft?
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Because it would make it a bit annoying for the people who do this because they'd have to look up the publicly available flight plan, or listen to the publicly available ATC radio calls. At the cost of a much more expensive and complex system.
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There isn't loads you can do by spoofing these systems except for creating some amusing drawings on flightradar24/marinetraffic. Air traffic control would be using radar to determine the position of aircraft anyway
Re: Secure ADS-B? (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone can listen in to ADS-B because the data isn't encrypted Yeah because sending heading, altitude and speed in an encrypted format would be so safe and useful. Sheets.
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True - but at least you'd know you were getting the data from the one and only aircraft that was supposed to be sending it.
A signature might be a more sensible option, but either way, some sort of cryptography would seem to be a sensible addition (which was the crux of OP's point, if somewhat wrapped up in encryption specifically).
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ADS-B should be more like a signed package. You should be able to verify that the transmitting aircraft is what it claims to be. But the protocol should be open and unencrypted for reception by all parties. For an example of this in practice, I give you PGP signing of messages.
Sick burn (Score:2)
It's possible that Sweeney's @RUOligarchJets bot could serve as a form of open source intelligence in Russia's war in Ukraine
A kid cobbled together some public info, something anyone with basic knowledge could do in a few hours tops, and it somehow is the backbone of Russian surveillance?!?? Oh how the mighty have fallen, with spoiled rations, kid conscripts that were tricked into thinking it’s a training exercise, and old failing equipment. That someone would consider this kids code at the level of a nation state is insane. The rot of the kleptocracy is on full display.
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I think you’re missing the whole point if this article. I guess you’re not a coder. Sometimes the beauty of something lies in its genius of simplicity and compactness. Who ever said it was the backbone of Russian surveillance? And what’s your contribution? Maybe a simple “ok, that’s pretty cool. It’s a lot more than I came up with” might be appropriate.
It’s in the summary. I’m not saying that nation state surveillance doesn’t scrape public info, that’s public knowledge. It’s the notion that they would turn to a teenagers pet project that’s so insane. Ukraine doesn’t need to keep track of Russian oligarchs, Putin does as he is reigning them in and bending them to his will. Besides getting surveillance from the west they are using off the shelf drones, the idea that Ukraine would find the website useful in war is
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This is the basis of open source intelligence. Some reporter will take this info. plus other sources and then may make some interesting guesses about where cash and other assets are being hidden.
Lots of little pieces of information. Some very simply obtained.
Boats as well (Score:3)
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The disgruntled employees will be willing to talk. Hope the spooks are ready to talk to them.
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All the oligarchs are going to fire all Ukranians they employ.
The disgruntled employees will be willing to talk. Hope the spooks are ready to talk to them.
I don't think they employ Ukrainians.
They'll either be employing Russians (Ukrainians aren't much cheaper and have hated Russians long before the invasion, thanks to the Soviet Union). Apart from that they're either rich enough to employ westerners or go to S.E. Asia like all the other rich people and employ Filipinos.
Dilligent to be on the right side of history (Score:1)
Aren't we all envying Sweeney's attempt to be part of being on the right side of history?
To be neutral, could he maybe also follow the jets of all European politicians and NATO generals?
Or doesn't that fix the narrative that the Western media would like to indoctrinate us with?
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Aren't we all envying Sweeney's attempt to be part of being on the right side of history? To be neutral, could he maybe also follow the jets of all European politicians and NATO generals? Or doesn't that fix the narrative that the Western media would like to indoctrinate us with?
Why would he want to be neutral? Thankfully the entire free world is not being neutral.
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Should start tracking their yachts too (Score:2)
Ships have identifying numbers as well. Not sure if the database is open to the public tho.
Still..