Many people with technical ability will develop various software to express their unique and superb technology, but some boundaries in the middle still need to be controlled. A 19-year-old college student in the United States developed software designed to track Tesla CEO Musk’s flight path and posted instant updates on Twitter. Ask them to delete the Twitter account.
19-year-old college student developed software to track Musk, Musk offered $5,000 to be taken off the shelf
The 19-year-old college student named Jack Sweeney created a @ElonJet’s Twitter account, which is specially used to track the flight of Musk’s private jet around the world. Since it was put on the shelves, the account has become very popular, with more than 85,000 fans alone. And this account is not the only account for Jack Sweeney flight tracking. He has established a total of 15 flight tracking accounts, each of which focuses on tracking a famous person, almost all technology tycoons, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, etc.
https://t.co/RxFIfswZEL
— Roger Holt (@RogerLewisHolt) January 25, 2022
At around 12:00 pm one day in the fall of 2021, Sweeney received a private message from Musk, saying that because such flight tracking would bring security risks, he hoped that the other party could delete the account. The exchange between the two did not stop because of this, and Musk later asked Sweeney how much he made from the @ElonJet account, the latter said it was no more than $20 per month, and then Musk offered to pay $5,000 to delete the account to prevent lunatics from tracking him. location, but Sweeney replied that he wanted to add a 0, saying that it would be very helpful for his college life, and it would also allow him to buy a car, even a Model 3. Musk later said he would consider it, but so far he has not paid the other half a dime.
While these celebrity-tracking Twitter accounts haven’t led to anything dangerous so far, at least according to Sweeney’s information and what’s available online, Musk has a point. Many celebrities are surrounded by fans at the airport, taking photos, signing autographs, and even being surrounded by paparazzi and stalkers. But Twitter bots aren’t going to be followed by crazy fans, they just keep parsing the data Sweeney provides. The 15 robots use information from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), including tracking when and where planes take off and land, as well as the intended route of the flight. However, Musk’s private jet and many others were on the list, meaning identifiable information was removed from the data.
This account has every right to post jet whereabouts, ADS-B data is public, every aircraft in the world is required to have a transponder, Even AF1 (@AirForceTrack) Twitter policy states data found on other sites is allowed to be shared here as well. pic.twitter.com/Wol8O1DRiq
— Elon Musk’s Jet (@ElonJet) January 18, 2022
In this case, Sweeney used data from ADS-B transponders on most aircraft, which instantly showed where the aircraft was in the air via the ADS-B switch. Parsing this information is like solving a logic puzzle, and Sweeney’s robot can use the altitude of the plane, plus the time it takes to receive the data, to determine when the plane will take off or land. They can then cross-reference latitude and longitude with airport databases to determine where planes are leaving or heading. While Sweeney’s bots can’t figure out where the planes are flying from the hidden FAA data, they can cross-reference real-time ADS-B data with another website that publishes anonymized versions of FAA flight plans. This allows the robot to instantly compare the planes it tracks with an anonymous FAA flight plan and determine the intended destination of each plane. This information is completely public and can be used to track most private jets.
Landed in Austin, Texas, US. pic.twitter.com/4l7tKiUspp
— Elon Musk’s Jet (@ElonJet) January 26, 2022
It’s a well-publicized security breach that just hasn’t gotten much attention because people have to have a lot of industry-specific knowledge to understand this data, and the ability to parse it, Sweeney’s father worked in the airline industry, so he grew up as a kid. Just immersed in this information. The most recent exchange between Musk and Sweeney was last Wednesday, when Sweeney said he would prefer an internship rather than payment in exchange for his account being deleted.
