Jetnet Acquires ADS-B Exchange, a community-fed ADSB aggregator(jetnet.com)
jetnet.com
Jetnet Acquires ADS-B Exchange, a community-fed ADSB aggregator
https://www.jetnet.com/news/jetnet-acquires-ads-b-exchange.html
192 comments
Did their acquisition price factor in the % of people who will stop feeding because of this? It's one thing to feed a free open source project it's another to give free labor to Silversmith Capital.
I mean, if I were providing one of these feeds, I'd probably shut it down and look for (or create) a new community-driven alternative.
I chose to contribute my collected ADS-B data to ADS-B Exchange rather than Flightradar24 just because ADS-B Exchange was community driven and not owned by a company.
I just turned off my sharing and looking for alternatives. If anyone know of any, please share them :)
I just turned off my sharing and looking for alternatives. If anyone know of any, please share them :)
I just heard about https://opensky-network.org/
"The OpenSky Network is a non-profit community-based receiver network which has been continuously collecting air traffic surveillance data since 2013. Unlike other networks, OpenSky keeps the complete unfiltered raw data and makes it accessible to academic and institutional researchers."
"The OpenSky Network is a non-profit community-based receiver network which has been continuously collecting air traffic surveillance data since 2013. Unlike other networks, OpenSky keeps the complete unfiltered raw data and makes it accessible to academic and institutional researchers."
nerpderp82(1)
I helped out a bit with ADSBExchange. The all volunteer staff were completely blindsided by this. The founder just took a payday and ran.
For what it is worth, I don't actually know what the PE company bought. I guess the historical data and a rack full of servers - but the staff, community, and service are moving elsewhere.
For what it is worth, I don't actually know what the PE company bought. I guess the historical data and a rack full of servers - but the staff, community, and service are moving elsewhere.
One would think there would be recent lessons to be learned on how to vaporize value in connection with an asset-light acquisition… Actually, the guy who sold probably did learn those lessons. Best of luck to the buyer, I suppose.
Sounds just like freenode 2.0. Some investor buying the domain, and everyone else just moving on to a new project.
I think the Freenode takeover could have worked without loosing the majority of the channels if rasengan hadn't tried so hard to kill the network. After all, Freenode was a free service people were making use of and as long as it was run somewhat competently most wouldn't have cared too much about operator drama.
Here it feels more like people are providing unpaid work (by running receivers) and who in their right mind would continue doing that for a commercial entity.
Here it feels more like people are providing unpaid work (by running receivers) and who in their right mind would continue doing that for a commercial entity.
>> "Here it feels more like people are providing unpaid work (by running receivers) and who in their right mind would continue doing that for a commercial entity."
Most people with a smartphone. I do enjoy more precise GPS even if it means Apple and Google are soaking up Wi-fi hotspot info to improve triangulation. I think the difference is most people don't realize they're feeding this info to companies.
Most people with a smartphone. I do enjoy more precise GPS even if it means Apple and Google are soaking up Wi-fi hotspot info to improve triangulation. I think the difference is most people don't realize they're feeding this info to companies.
You can run Tower Collector and feed that data to Mozilla and OpenCellID instead.
The founder is Dan Streufert. (From the linked press release.)
Can't blame the founder, though. I would have done the same.
Really good to know!! I'll join them.
Where to?
This would be a great use for nostr.
Instead of everybody uploading their data to one dude who can sell out, instead flood-fill it. We're not talking about a lot of data here.
Instead of everybody uploading their data to one dude who can sell out, instead flood-fill it. We're not talking about a lot of data here.
> We're not talking about a lot of data here
It is actually a massive amount of data. Gigabits per second that need to be aggregated, sorted by geographic region, fed into multilateration systems, and cleaning the output before it can be shown on a map.
It is actually a massive amount of data. Gigabits per second that need to be aggregated, sorted by geographic region, fed into multilateration systems, and cleaning the output before it can be shown on a map.
Some are likely to, but remember that feeding is a mutual exchange - sites that you feed to generally give you a free, no ads account. I feed both ADS-B exchange and flightaware for this reason. Although I will admit that the flight aware app is more useful unless you're interested in unfiltered data. Contributing to an unfiltered source is one motivation, but it's one of several.
ADS-B Exchange used to have another incentive to feed in the form of free API access, subject to certain limits and for noncommercial use only. They stopped that a year or two ago, I believe because various commercial operations kept abusing it.
Not true -- I currently access the API to obtain an aggregated feed in exchange for my feeding ADSB-X with my receivers (1090 and 978 MHz). You have to ask for access and it's poorly documented but it works and feeds my own local tracking site running 24.7.
They specifically removed the text on the website saying you can get API access from feeding, replaced this with a link to their paid RapidAPI (under "Enthusiast Usage Terms") and no longer automatically give you API access with an active feeder key. That seems like a pretty clear message even if they made an exception for you. Besides, how long do you think your free access will last under the new ownership?
EDIT: In their FAQ it currently states: "In very limited situations ADSBexchange.com may choose to allow non-profit, research, or educational entities access to the historical data or API at reduced fee, in these situations such entities must meet all other requirements including hosting a feeder. ADSBexchange.com API pricing is a fraction of the cost of ADS-B data available anywhere else." To me that is quite different than their previous policy of providing automatic noncommercial API access to anyone hosting a feeder. It removes an incentive to feed and discourages use of the API.
EDIT: In their FAQ it currently states: "In very limited situations ADSBexchange.com may choose to allow non-profit, research, or educational entities access to the historical data or API at reduced fee, in these situations such entities must meet all other requirements including hosting a feeder. ADSBexchange.com API pricing is a fraction of the cost of ADS-B data available anywhere else." To me that is quite different than their previous policy of providing automatic noncommercial API access to anyone hosting a feeder. It removes an incentive to feed and discourages use of the API.
This is my situation as well. If you travel a lot, having something light Flightaware giving you more detailed information about what is really happening with your flight or airport is wonderful and starting a feed was a fun way to get more features.
I have a basic (free) Flightaware account. I can't imagine anything relevant to commercial airliner travel that I'd need that I don't get from that free account. Is there something I'm missing?
(I totally get the fun aspect and it's fairly cheap to put a receiver up.)
(I totally get the fun aspect and it's fairly cheap to put a receiver up.)
Lots of interesting stuff outside of commercial airliners.
Flightaware (and FR24) censors (for a fee).
I remember emailing a journo covering a protest to look up and observe the plane circling around.
But ultimately they’re different services: Adsb is vessel focussed, while FA/FR24 are flight# focussed.
Want to find out what routes your aircraft typically flies? Adsb will be the place to check.
Want to see if your flight is typically on-time? FA/FR24.
Flightaware (and FR24) censors (for a fee).
I remember emailing a journo covering a protest to look up and observe the plane circling around.
But ultimately they’re different services: Adsb is vessel focussed, while FA/FR24 are flight# focussed.
Want to find out what routes your aircraft typically flies? Adsb will be the place to check.
Want to see if your flight is typically on-time? FA/FR24.
> Flightaware (and FR24) censors (for a fee).
Are there any services you're aware of that don't censor?
Are there any services you're aware of that don't censor?
ADSBExchange ... that is why I contributed.
From FR24, you get two years of historical data for starters.
the only value for me is having no ads. which is, in fact, something i value, but not at the $80/month it would take to subscribe for. But it's worth sending my feed.
Need a list of all private jet tail numbers from DAVOS/WEF and have a tracking system for those... like the Elon tracker
That's part of why an unfiltered ADS-B exchange is valuable. You can track senior executives and try to get ahead of the news. Flying in to Davos is pretty uninteresting compared with travel to factories, competitors' offices, mining operations, international travel, etc. It gives you an idea what executives are thinking about doing.
I might feel similarly, especially given my distaste for private equity. But in the AIS (ship tracking) space, commercial versions seem to do ok. MarineTraffic runs its own blatantly commercial effort. And AIShub.net is not commercial itself, but it is run by Astra Paging, which definitely is.
I run a receiver that feeds into both networks, and in both cases I look at it as a value-for-value exchange.
I run a receiver that feeds into both networks, and in both cases I look at it as a value-for-value exchange.
Probably to eliminate the open source competition if anything.
afaik JetNet hasn't offered a competing service before: their focus is on business jet fleet and transaction related data (I worked for what could loosely be described as a competitor)
The data has some value in supporting that core product (as an additional data feed to sell a handful of enterprise clients, to support their fleet data research and possibly to enhance their FBO/charter products). I guess part of the appeal of ADS-B Exchange is that working in business aviation, an unfiltered dataset is a lot more useful to them than a filtered one like most of the commercial providers.
Still seems like a slightly odd acquisition, since they could have got the data beforehand relatively inexpensively and they'd probably get better feed coverage leaving it as an OS project and I do wonder how they'll manage privacy requests from some of their clients...
The data has some value in supporting that core product (as an additional data feed to sell a handful of enterprise clients, to support their fleet data research and possibly to enhance their FBO/charter products). I guess part of the appeal of ADS-B Exchange is that working in business aviation, an unfiltered dataset is a lot more useful to them than a filtered one like most of the commercial providers.
Still seems like a slightly odd acquisition, since they could have got the data beforehand relatively inexpensively and they'd probably get better feed coverage leaving it as an OS project and I do wonder how they'll manage privacy requests from some of their clients...
Perhaps enabling them to censor the feed is one of the primary reasons for the acquisition. I can't imagine it was that expensive, considering the likes of whom might take issue with the data being public.
Perhaps, but it would be like buying a newsstand to censor a newspaper.
The data is still freely available and will be distributed via another channel.
The data is still freely available and will be distributed via another channel.
That sort of irrational behavior makes me wonder if das muskrat has his paws in this. If he was willing to drop $44 billion on Twitter, this is pocket change by comparison. And he's been desperately trying to get that guy to stop tracking his jet.
The data is still freely available and will be distributed via another channel.
There’s most definitely a coordination problem to be solve to recreate that network, and I don’t mean to understate the difficulty of that at all, but I’m wondering if a (reconstituted) network of a small-ish number of volunteers could scale up to, say, 80% of the current ADSB Exchange coverage surprisingly quickly?
My feeder, which cost maybe $100 all-in (pi + sdr + antenna; though the pi was much cheaper then than it is now) has full coverage of two major airports. Normal range is 200 miles (obviously dependent on altitude) and sometimes picks up plans ~250 miles away, I assume depending on relatively rare atmospheric conditions.
With reasonably optimal distribution of what, a few hundred receivers, my mental math is suggesting you could cover a majority of the continental U.S. landmass and a large majority of its population and air traffic?
Again, not to understand the magnitude of this. But if someone’s objective is generally to redistribute public data, or track Gulfstreams on their way to Omaha during times of financial upheaval, or poke a finger in the eye of the private jet lobby, but not to create a 99% comprehensive, monetizable data source for a sale to private equity - maybe it’s not crazy infeasible?
My feeder, which cost maybe $100 all-in (pi + sdr + antenna; though the pi was much cheaper then than it is now) has full coverage of two major airports. Normal range is 200 miles (obviously dependent on altitude) and sometimes picks up plans ~250 miles away, I assume depending on relatively rare atmospheric conditions.
With reasonably optimal distribution of what, a few hundred receivers, my mental math is suggesting you could cover a majority of the continental U.S. landmass and a large majority of its population and air traffic?
Again, not to understand the magnitude of this. But if someone’s objective is generally to redistribute public data, or track Gulfstreams on their way to Omaha during times of financial upheaval, or poke a finger in the eye of the private jet lobby, but not to create a 99% comprehensive, monetizable data source for a sale to private equity - maybe it’s not crazy infeasible?
It's not impossible or even infeasible really, but it is unlikely and it is a lot of effort. How many open source software projects even have 100 people working on them full time?
I hope something fills the shoes left by ADS-B Exchange, but I won't hold my breath. I already had the Pi so I probably spent around $40 getting the SDR + cheapo antenna. I got bored with it quickly though as there's already decent coverage of the Bay Area – and the SDR has since been repurposed to monitor my fridge.
I hope something fills the shoes left by ADS-B Exchange, but I won't hold my breath. I already had the Pi so I probably spent around $40 getting the SDR + cheapo antenna. I got bored with it quickly though as there's already decent coverage of the Bay Area – and the SDR has since been repurposed to monitor my fridge.
I agree that 20M isn't much for Musk but I really doubt he'd hide his involvement behind another company like this.. It's not his style, he'd trumpet it all over Twitter and claim it as a win for free speech or something :P
Considering the new owner is a jet charter they do probably have a similar motive, I just don't think Elon is behind it here.
Considering the new owner is a jet charter they do probably have a similar motive, I just don't think Elon is behind it here.
But will it really become available again? Or, more likely, like RSS, will this snuff it out.
It's amazing how someone with a bit of capital and time can control almost anything that offends them.
It's amazing how someone with a bit of capital and time can control almost anything that offends them.
The information is already publicly broadcast; nobody's paying one particular feed company big bucks to remove it from their records when most others do it simply because they ask nicely or because they don't want to upset the government. And even without the feeds, if a guy with a device somewhere near an airport decides to tweet that Elon has landed, everybody knows anyway.
Well I for one will stop feeding them.
I wonder if this was done to stop trackers like @ElonJet since ADS-B Exchange doesn't seem to support the "privacy" requests of the rich & famous as FlightAware / FlightRadar24 et al do.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-private-jet-no-lon...
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-private-jet-no-lon...
Let's not forget that thanks to adsb-exchange, authorities were also able to track Jeffrey Epstein's private jets.
https://www.insider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-private-jet-flight-...
https://github.com/adsbxchange/Jeffrey_Epstein_Lolita_Expres...
All of this information is public and known to the government. ADBS Exchange didn't provide anything that wasn't already available.
Yes and no.. "The government" doesn't have RTL-SDRs deployed in thousands of homes across many dozens of countries in the world, yet...
In some cases, having several thousands of geographically distributed volunteers submitting open source data can result in a more accurate picture than what a handful of government funded agencies could provide.
In some cases, having several thousands of geographically distributed volunteers submitting open source data can result in a more accurate picture than what a handful of government funded agencies could provide.
> "The government" doesn't have RTL-SDRs deployed in thousands of homes across many dozens of countries in the world, yet...
In the case of tracking things like Epstein's jet does that really make a difference? The flights are going to start and end at airports, which I would guess would have ADS-B monitors.
The thousands of RTL-SDRs could be good for find the particular route taken between airports but that's usually not going to be relevant for an investigation, except for crimes that take place in the air.
In the case of tracking things like Epstein's jet does that really make a difference? The flights are going to start and end at airports, which I would guess would have ADS-B monitors.
The thousands of RTL-SDRs could be good for find the particular route taken between airports but that's usually not going to be relevant for an investigation, except for crimes that take place in the air.
Some government does however and governments can get such information from other governments.
Interestingly, ADS-B Exchange's twitter is suspended when I looked to see if there was any news updates there
That's because they pissed off Elon by supplying the source data for ElonJet. He's been on a banning spree for weeks. Anyone who so much as mentioned the account would get the banhammer.
You can still post the link with TinyURL or another URL shortener.
They're not requests, they're mandated by US law. Also it's not limited to rich and famous. Anyone can do it. Only the rich and famous seem to have passionate enough haters that they actively try to subvert the privacy protections.
AIUI it's mandated by US law if you use data from the FAA's system, and ADS-B Exchange didn't use the FAA's data so wasn't required to hide things on the privacy list
What’s the saying? The law, in its majestic equality, prohibits both the rich and the poor from sleeping on the streets?
Something like that.
Something like that.
One of the first projects I created with the Raspberry Pi Model A was setup a SDR listening station. Then I wrote some software and downloaded software to listen and stream ADS-B data to a few aggregators. One of them was ADS-B Exchange. The other was ADS-B Hub[0]. The later is still free and still open source.
[0] https://www.adsbhub.org/
[0] https://www.adsbhub.org/
Yardie, I am a feeder and share data with RadarBox. For me, it is the best flight tracking website and I also get 10% off on hardware products.
Thanks, I'm switching my feeds from the shitty people behind ADSBExchange.
Just to be clear it’s the owner/founder that’s being shitty. The people behind running the infrastructure are against the acquisition. It’s also unclear whether they’re getting paid (enough) to transition the servers to the new company.
Well, dang. I have been maintaining a Twitter bot that uses the ADS-B Exchange API, but paused development after Musk started going after ElonJet aggressively and Twitter began to ban aircraft tracking accounts. I just restarted work this week to implement Mastodon support, but looks like I need to pause again to reassess what ADS-B data source(s) to support.
I would really like to know the story behind this acquisition as my previous interactions with the ADS-B Exchange owner (edit: after checking back in on the discord maybe this person was not the owner, but one of the main team members) on discord were positive and they seemed like a very passionate and principled person. This was like more than 1 year ago now, though. My suspicion is that the loud, polarized public discourse around the ElonJet controversy, which led to ADS-B Exchange getting banned from Twitter, may have caused them to reassess their priorities. I hope they are not under any kind of legal threat from Musk.
I would really like to know the story behind this acquisition as my previous interactions with the ADS-B Exchange owner (edit: after checking back in on the discord maybe this person was not the owner, but one of the main team members) on discord were positive and they seemed like a very passionate and principled person. This was like more than 1 year ago now, though. My suspicion is that the loud, polarized public discourse around the ElonJet controversy, which led to ADS-B Exchange getting banned from Twitter, may have caused them to reassess their priorities. I hope they are not under any kind of legal threat from Musk.
The Discord link on ADSBExchange points to a server called "Airframes.io Enthusiasts" - going to the website shows:
> Airframes is an aircraft-related aggregation service that receives ACARS, VDL, HFDL, and SATCOM data from volunteers around the world.
> It is under very active development and you will notice changes from day to day. Also, issues are expected.
> Contributing your feed allows us to make ground developing new decoders and make important statistical observations. It also benefits users of the service so that they can see more about flights as they traverse covered territories.
Perhaps the original founders' work will continue here?
EDIT: It does not seem like the original founders has collaborated with the community on this, and the people there are just as lost as anyone else.
> Airframes is an aircraft-related aggregation service that receives ACARS, VDL, HFDL, and SATCOM data from volunteers around the world.
> It is under very active development and you will notice changes from day to day. Also, issues are expected.
> Contributing your feed allows us to make ground developing new decoders and make important statistical observations. It also benefits users of the service so that they can see more about flights as they traverse covered territories.
Perhaps the original founders' work will continue here?
EDIT: It does not seem like the original founders has collaborated with the community on this, and the people there are just as lost as anyone else.
The discord was originally the ADSBExchange discord, but, I believe a mod has taken control, banned the person who owned/sold ADSBExchange (Dan Streufert) and made a bunch of announcements. The mod used to have Outlook email access on the original domain, so it seems like there's kind of a shakeup going on as well
It's kind of chaos currently. I only joined this Discord in December and it was very different then. It seemed to be pretty community oriented, with images for RaspPi and scripts to help setup feeding and the developers of these tools were in there chatting. Not company employed people to my knowledge.
It's kind of chaos currently. I only joined this Discord in December and it was very different then. It seemed to be pretty community oriented, with images for RaspPi and scripts to help setup feeding and the developers of these tools were in there chatting. Not company employed people to my knowledge.
I don’t mind feeding FlightAware and Flightradar24 - they’re for-profit companies, and are clear about the terms of exchange something of (dubious) value for the data they receive.
This feels a lot more skeezy. Oh well, fool me once, and all that. I do look forward to shutting down my feed once I’m back in front of a computer.
Something something, why we can’t have nice things.
This feels a lot more skeezy. Oh well, fool me once, and all that. I do look forward to shutting down my feed once I’m back in front of a computer.
Something something, why we can’t have nice things.
Same. I get value back from FR24 in the form of a Business subscription which gives me a TON of data and access I wouldn't be able to afford. I fed ADS-B Exchange for nothing because it seemed like a nice thing to do to benefit the wider tracking community. To have the founder cash out and sell OUR data without even talking to the community first? That really rubbed me the wrong way. I stopped feeding about an hour ago.
Also doing same re FR24 and biz sub. Curious what data you use from it though? I haven't had much use for it frankly
I'm interested in a lot of different forms of transportation as a hobby. Photography, tracking, etc. Being able to see the flight history of a specific airframe is interesting to me or going back and looking at past flights. Fleets is another feature I use. For example, I've been interested in trying to get photos of the new E915-E2 jets that Porter Airlines is adding so I've created a "fleet" and can easily track the whereabouts in the hopes of being able to catch one in flight to photograph.
Got it. Thanks
FlightAware was less skeezy before they were bought by L3 Harris. I'm not in this hobby to help out defense contractors.
ADSBx are still far worse, since they built the site as an "open community".
ADSBx are still far worse, since they built the site as an "open community".
Your remark about FlightAware being owned by L3 Harris piqued my interest since I was not aware of this. I took a look at their About section and it seems they are actually owned by Collins Aerospace a subsidiary of Raytheon. Does not change your point but just a small correction and I also learned something new.
Aha, thanks for the correction
I prefer RadarBox. They are an independent company. And we have a community of feeders on WhatsApps and Telegram.
These were already very skeezy guys if you interacted with them on Discord.
I think I’m on their server, but I don’t think I ever really interacted with them. In retrospect, I suppose I should have and gotten a better sense of their character (which is why I’m being a bit more careful in evaluating whether I start feeding anyone new).
Too bad that every TOS out there basically boils down to “we own your data to the maximum extent that doesn’t create any liability for us (but if it does, you’ll indemnify us) and we can change these terms at any time.” Makes it hard to do a proper assessment of what exactly you’re stepping into.
Too bad that every TOS out there basically boils down to “we own your data to the maximum extent that doesn’t create any liability for us (but if it does, you’ll indemnify us) and we can change these terms at any time.” Makes it hard to do a proper assessment of what exactly you’re stepping into.
In my experience they were weirdly hostile about a question about supporting live WebSocket feeds of incoming data. SoylentADSB had developed one of those trivial chat applications you do when learning about WebSockets and flamed me for even asking.
When I questioned him about it he got very defensive and started resorting to personal attacks. By the end the the discussion he had deleted all of the pertaining chat messages from Discord, which I found childish. If you read past logs of his conversations, he's notorious for acting like that with people asking legitimate questions.
In my opinion, that's the exact opposite type of person that you want running this sort of thing that is essentially propped up by the community. It's a skeevy model today because they actually profit off of what the community provides. Ideally, this would all be open sourced and run by some governance board just like any successful open sourced venture.
When I questioned him about it he got very defensive and started resorting to personal attacks. By the end the the discussion he had deleted all of the pertaining chat messages from Discord, which I found childish. If you read past logs of his conversations, he's notorious for acting like that with people asking legitimate questions.
In my opinion, that's the exact opposite type of person that you want running this sort of thing that is essentially propped up by the community. It's a skeevy model today because they actually profit off of what the community provides. Ideally, this would all be open sourced and run by some governance board just like any successful open sourced venture.
Years ago compact disc metadata was really important. There was an open library for this called CDDB. At some point the owners of that started silently inserting an agreement by the user to assign ownership of the submissions to the company.
That “open” database got sold off and became Gracenote [1].
I’m not sure how many times we need to learn this lesson.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracenote
That “open” database got sold off and became Gracenote [1].
I’m not sure how many times we need to learn this lesson.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracenote
I’m still not sure how Amazon pulled off that same move with IMDb. I remember it WAY back when (I think it had several mirrors, one of which was hosted at a URL like msstate.edu/~imdb, which gives you an idea of how long ago that would have been) and I can’t imagine they had a valid assignment of copyright from all their contributors…
They might not have cared about getting necessary permission from every contributor. They only needed to get permission from anyone likely to sue and win in court. It's the standard play for companies the size of Amazon: why follow the law when it is cheaper to fight or pay the fine?
I guess the interesting and significant difference here is that value of the previous location of aircraft fades fairly quickly. So just setting up a different server and switching to that is an effective solution. The value here is not retained in the data but instead the network that collects the data.
Not to be cynical, but I doubt the lesson will ever get learned. These things start with big ideas, hope, and an ignorance of the practical details. Over time, practical realities, like paying for goods and services, crop up. In a capitalist society, most of the ready-made solutions to that look like businesses. And our current culture of capitalism then shifts toward short-term revenue-maximization, putting things in the hands of predators and sociopaths.
I know people have made attempts to solve this, like B Corps and groups like the Apache Foundation. But I don't think we're there yet. One could try to create a foundation that specifically incubates projects that go beyond open source to open/collective services. But even if one solves funding for that, there's still the problem of finding the naive starters of things and crushing their dreams just enough to get them on a better course, but not so much that they quit.
I know people have made attempts to solve this, like B Corps and groups like the Apache Foundation. But I don't think we're there yet. One could try to create a foundation that specifically incubates projects that go beyond open source to open/collective services. But even if one solves funding for that, there's still the problem of finding the naive starters of things and crushing their dreams just enough to get them on a better course, but not so much that they quit.
Because profit motive is the usual problem, you can deliberately design that out if you're careful.
England (where I live) had a lot of Building Societies - mutual institutions where some members are saving money, and those savings are lent to other members (borrowers) to buy homes to live in, the interest from which of course makes this a good deal for the savers done at scale (so as to smooth out inevitable losses when some borrowers default). This can be a very lucrative line of business during a housing boom, and many of these societies found themselves with a considerable cash positive position in the 1980s. Since the members own the society, they can just change the rules of the society and "demutualize", extracting the cash for themselves. Of course this destroys the society, an important institution which has helped so many people to own somewhere to live - but hey, you've got some money and isn't that what's really important?
My parents voted "Yes" to demutualize the society where they'd saved money and from which they had borrowed to buy the house I grew up in, I (as an idealistic teenager who had my own modest savings) voted "No", the "Yes" votes won and the resulting entity, now a bank, eventually was mired in scandal and no longer serves the purpose the proud building society had served before. But hey, they got their money. People like them were nicknamed "Carpetbaggers" in the UK as a result, by analogy to the US concept.
Now, I mention this because as several larger societies were demutualised this way, the remainder realised that the same fate could be theirs, and many swallowed a "poison pill" to prevent it. They changed their rules so that all future members (savers, borrowers, whichever) signed away rights to the proceeds of any demutualisation (e.g. giving it to a charity). So you could vote to tear the society to pieces, but you would no longer make a penny from doing so, and suddenly that's not very attractive.
It worked.
England (where I live) had a lot of Building Societies - mutual institutions where some members are saving money, and those savings are lent to other members (borrowers) to buy homes to live in, the interest from which of course makes this a good deal for the savers done at scale (so as to smooth out inevitable losses when some borrowers default). This can be a very lucrative line of business during a housing boom, and many of these societies found themselves with a considerable cash positive position in the 1980s. Since the members own the society, they can just change the rules of the society and "demutualize", extracting the cash for themselves. Of course this destroys the society, an important institution which has helped so many people to own somewhere to live - but hey, you've got some money and isn't that what's really important?
My parents voted "Yes" to demutualize the society where they'd saved money and from which they had borrowed to buy the house I grew up in, I (as an idealistic teenager who had my own modest savings) voted "No", the "Yes" votes won and the resulting entity, now a bank, eventually was mired in scandal and no longer serves the purpose the proud building society had served before. But hey, they got their money. People like them were nicknamed "Carpetbaggers" in the UK as a result, by analogy to the US concept.
Now, I mention this because as several larger societies were demutualised this way, the remainder realised that the same fate could be theirs, and many swallowed a "poison pill" to prevent it. They changed their rules so that all future members (savers, borrowers, whichever) signed away rights to the proceeds of any demutualisation (e.g. giving it to a charity). So you could vote to tear the society to pieces, but you would no longer make a penny from doing so, and suddenly that's not very attractive.
It worked.
Most if not all big investment banks are now corporations, usually listed on the stock exchange. It wasn't always this way.
Prior to the 1970s investment banks couldn't be listed on the NYSE. Goldman Sachs (etc) weren't corporations. They were partnerships, basically like a law firm. This is a key difference because a partnership has unlimited liability. This tends to make such organizations very conservative with risk management, for obvious reasons.
But when this changed, all these partnerships incorporated instead and listed on the stock exchange. Incorporation shields the leaddership from the downside of their bad decisions. As we've seen, the governmen thas stepped in to assume that risk for really no good reason at all ("too big to fail").
Interestingly, I'm not sure there's a legal barrier preventing law firms from listing on the stock exchange but they don't, which is interesting.
So in your case these mutual societies and community banks existed for the benefit of their members and they (including the members) took the (one time) bag and was shielded from accountability. I see investment banks as falling into this same trap.
Prior to the 1970s investment banks couldn't be listed on the NYSE. Goldman Sachs (etc) weren't corporations. They were partnerships, basically like a law firm. This is a key difference because a partnership has unlimited liability. This tends to make such organizations very conservative with risk management, for obvious reasons.
But when this changed, all these partnerships incorporated instead and listed on the stock exchange. Incorporation shields the leaddership from the downside of their bad decisions. As we've seen, the governmen thas stepped in to assume that risk for really no good reason at all ("too big to fail").
Interestingly, I'm not sure there's a legal barrier preventing law firms from listing on the stock exchange but they don't, which is interesting.
So in your case these mutual societies and community banks existed for the benefit of their members and they (including the members) took the (one time) bag and was shielded from accountability. I see investment banks as falling into this same trap.
For law firms, there is a barrier (in the United States, at least): law firms must be owned by lawyers. Other common law jurisdictions, such as Australia, have eliminated this requirement and have publicly traded law firms. I assume soon, you’ll start seeing what’s happening here with medical and other professional service practices that have similar ownership restrictions where ownership, services and revenues are theoretically decoupled through creative contracting arrangements, but I don’t know of that having happened yet with a law firm.
Most law firms in the United States are now organized as LLPs (a limited liability partnership, which segregates liability among the partners), but notably the most profitable law firm measured in a per capita basis, Wachtell, is still organized as a general partnership with unlimited partner liability. They deliver their clients one-line invoices, containing numbers with many, many more zeroes, for “services rendered.”
Most law firms in the United States are now organized as LLPs (a limited liability partnership, which segregates liability among the partners), but notably the most profitable law firm measured in a per capita basis, Wachtell, is still organized as a general partnership with unlimited partner liability. They deliver their clients one-line invoices, containing numbers with many, many more zeroes, for “services rendered.”
That was an absolutely fascinating story, thank you for sharing. Very redolent of “there’s no such thing as society.”
Although my politics aren’t theirs, I don’t hate the Reagan and Thatcher types. I don’t think they were bad people per se (or at least not any worse than anyone else who is capable of ascending to the apex of political power). But I do think they changed some things in their respective cultures for the worse, and those are things that we’re still grappling with today.
Although my politics aren’t theirs, I don’t hate the Reagan and Thatcher types. I don’t think they were bad people per se (or at least not any worse than anyone else who is capable of ascending to the apex of political power). But I do think they changed some things in their respective cultures for the worse, and those are things that we’re still grappling with today.
Already seeing a lot of people in ADS-B Discords saying they are cutting off their feeds because they feel sold out.
Everyone is moving to airframes.io
Also this from SoylentADSB:
> CEO of JETNET ( Greg Fell, now fired from JETNET by Silversmith) called and asked for a meeting. We thought was sales call. Turns out he offered to buy ADSBx from Dan for $8M, they wined dined and toured him around. Flew him to Boston, Dan cut us out when we ALL OBJECTED to a sale. We think they gave him $20M ish and a $200 a year job at JETNET. They'll fire him in a year, that's what PE does.
Also this from SoylentADSB:
> CEO of JETNET ( Greg Fell, now fired from JETNET by Silversmith) called and asked for a meeting. We thought was sales call. Turns out he offered to buy ADSBx from Dan for $8M, they wined dined and toured him around. Flew him to Boston, Dan cut us out when we ALL OBJECTED to a sale. We think they gave him $20M ish and a $200 a year job at JETNET. They'll fire him in a year, that's what PE does.
I can understand the community upset, but honestly? I wouldn’t be able to say no to that amount of money. I could retire tomorrow on that much.
Perhaps it's legal but it's not ethical for a founder to sell something that's provided by thousands of volunteers (I'm sure a lot of the code was as well as the data)
Usually I'd agree completely, but in this case I'm not sure I mind. Happy to be wrong, but as I see it there's three things of value in ADSBx. The brand/reputation, the server/feeder software and the amount of real time data provided by the community. Without the latter the brand becomes worthless, and the software in the middle is predominantly open source software.
£20M for the name in the knowledge that the software isn't secret, the infrastructure isn't that complicated and that the community will rebrand and be back up with a couple of months of disruption (ala freenode->liberachat) seems like guilt free retirement money in the bank. You could even make an anonymous donation to whoever takes the place.
The value comes from the current data, and the data is reliant on the community which is something you can't purchase. Most people liked ADSBx because it supported MLAT and was happy to report aircraft that from that data that usually wouldn't show on pf, fr24 and most others. If that functionality is removed then the community would likely die away naturally anyway.
£20M for the name in the knowledge that the software isn't secret, the infrastructure isn't that complicated and that the community will rebrand and be back up with a couple of months of disruption (ala freenode->liberachat) seems like guilt free retirement money in the bank. You could even make an anonymous donation to whoever takes the place.
The value comes from the current data, and the data is reliant on the community which is something you can't purchase. Most people liked ADSBx because it supported MLAT and was happy to report aircraft that from that data that usually wouldn't show on pf, fr24 and most others. If that functionality is removed then the community would likely die away naturally anyway.
What is the value of all the historical data?
Because if the historical data isn't all that valuable, I feel like Jetnet bought a turd. Building and operating a service like ADS-B Exchange doesn't sound particularly technically challenging or expensive.
Building a community of people who send you data for free is the hard and time-consuming part; IMO that's where ADSBx's value is. Did Jetnet not anticipate that the acquisition would likely drive away a good number of those people? Seems pretty naive if they didn't.
Because if the historical data isn't all that valuable, I feel like Jetnet bought a turd. Building and operating a service like ADS-B Exchange doesn't sound particularly technically challenging or expensive.
Building a community of people who send you data for free is the hard and time-consuming part; IMO that's where ADSBx's value is. Did Jetnet not anticipate that the acquisition would likely drive away a good number of those people? Seems pretty naive if they didn't.
It seems like a really weird PE acquisition to me. Did they have iron-clad, shockingly lucrative data distribution contracts? The site still has a donate button on it as of this moment, and somewhere says something along the lines of “in the very unlikely event our revenues ever exceed our opex, all excess will be reinvested in the project.”
One of the technical leads on the project said the site was generating between $500-3000 a day in revenue. It wasn’t clear if that was just ad revenue (which is a cash flow PE is definitely NOT buying) or ads + data subscriptions, but I just can’t imagine they bought much of substance here, when it sounds like the entire technical team has moved on. If the feeder network declines, what’s left? Stale flight data?
Super weird investment.
One of the technical leads on the project said the site was generating between $500-3000 a day in revenue. It wasn’t clear if that was just ad revenue (which is a cash flow PE is definitely NOT buying) or ads + data subscriptions, but I just can’t imagine they bought much of substance here, when it sounds like the entire technical team has moved on. If the feeder network declines, what’s left? Stale flight data?
Super weird investment.
Also questionable that they were even selling this content provided by volunteers to begin with. I'm personally excited for the future and hoping for more honest and open practices in this space.
I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far. That would be like complaining Twitter sold to Facebook.
Indeed. There must be safeguards to prevent something like this, the incentive is too strong. Kinda like what GPL does to the code.
For the Freenode -> Libera.Chat move the operators seem to have learned this lesson and set up a nonprofit with shared governance to prevent a takeover/sellout by a single person. Perhaps the community that will move out after this takeover will be smart enough to do the same.
Like decentralization? That's the main reason I am now on the Fediverse (via Elk + self hosting), because a billionaire cannot just scoop it up and change the rules of the game.
Yeah, unless I was still unreasonably passionate about running an open and free service like that, I'd be hard-pressed to turn down that offer.
I'd feel bad about it, definitely, as I do agree it'd be a slap in the face to the community, and I'd know that I'd probably never get people to trust me in the role of running that sort of a service again. Not to mention burning bridges with the community members who helped run the service.
But $20M? I'm lucky that I've already built up a nice nest egg through the whole FIRE thing, but $20M (even after taxes) would take me from "can live a pretty comfortable life without working as long as I watch my finances" to "can live an amazing life without working, and will never have to worry about money ever again".
I'm not sure what terms ADS-B Exchange licensed out the collected data, but maybe it's even possible for someone to build a new service, and keep the historical data intact. Even if not, it seems like there is at least one other community-run service for people who are upset by this to switch to. And frankly this doesn't seem like a particularly difficult or expensive service to build or maintain.
I'd feel bad about it, definitely, as I do agree it'd be a slap in the face to the community, and I'd know that I'd probably never get people to trust me in the role of running that sort of a service again. Not to mention burning bridges with the community members who helped run the service.
But $20M? I'm lucky that I've already built up a nice nest egg through the whole FIRE thing, but $20M (even after taxes) would take me from "can live a pretty comfortable life without working as long as I watch my finances" to "can live an amazing life without working, and will never have to worry about money ever again".
I'm not sure what terms ADS-B Exchange licensed out the collected data, but maybe it's even possible for someone to build a new service, and keep the historical data intact. Even if not, it seems like there is at least one other community-run service for people who are upset by this to switch to. And frankly this doesn't seem like a particularly difficult or expensive service to build or maintain.
I assume you mean $200k?
Is it normal for a company like that to more than double their initial offer? I know 20m is probably pocket change to them, but it still seems like they were rather desperate to buy it.
Is it normal for a company like that to more than double their initial offer? I know 20m is probably pocket change to them, but it still seems like they were rather desperate to buy it.
Unless they’d decided to pay up to $50m. Then starting at 10 and ending at 20 doesn’t seem so bad.
Is the codebase open / is anyone spinning up an alternative yet?
Not sure how it matches feature for feature, but https://opensky-network.org has been crowdsourcing unfiltered ADSB data for longer, provides tools to view the data and supplies full API access to the raw data to academics and non-profits at no charge.
There's room for another provider, and at the same time lots of enthusiasts with the boxes will carry on sending it, like they do to other closed source, profit-making ventures like FlightAware and Flightradar24...
There's room for another provider, and at the same time lots of enthusiasts with the boxes will carry on sending it, like they do to other closed source, profit-making ventures like FlightAware and Flightradar24...
Alright, so OpenSky and ADSB Hub are the two I've learned about so far in this thread. Very cool.
Airframes.io is where everyone is moving to.
If you go to https://github.com/airframesio/ , it talks about how they want to eventually open source stuff, but mercy, like 90% of their stuff is private right now.
I would absolutely not go to airframes.io in it's current state.
I would absolutely not go to airframes.io in it's current state.
Note that at the moment aiframes is for a completely different type of aviation-produced data (messages: acars, hfdl, vdl, ...). I am assuming that airframes.io will create an ADS-B feed too, now that the best open system (adsbexchange) is gone.
Anyone want to work together on spinning up a non profit replacement with governance that prohibits a transfer of ownership to a for profit entity?
I run an AIS receiver and have previously run a technical co-op. I am happy to chat, although I don't have time to do much direct labor right now. But the first questions I'd want to answer:
1) What will participants get out of it?
2) How will you pay for the central services used?
3) Where there isn't enough volunteer labor, how will you pay for needed labor?
I don't want to discourage anybody, but there are some hard sustainability problems there.
1) What will participants get out of it?
2) How will you pay for the central services used?
3) Where there isn't enough volunteer labor, how will you pay for needed labor?
I don't want to discourage anybody, but there are some hard sustainability problems there.
Great questions. I have never run a non profit myself (but run several small business ventures, real estate investments, have previously owned and sold a small technology company), but view it as an optimal structure to support technology services like this that are intended as a public good or utility versus something that is going to get flipped to someone that is going to extract the value out of it (investors like PE and similar). I want to build where there can be no rug pull for stakeholders.
1. The same they got out of ADS-B Exchange: open aviation data. I would work with the Internet Archive to archive batches of the data stream on a cadence. We should never be able to take historical data away. It is yours, forever.
2. I would pay for a dedicated server out of my pocket to bootstrap, with the eventual goal of accumulating enough donations to have a very small non profit investment account that would throw off just enough returns to pay for the server(s) or a rack of equipment at a colo indefinitely (I’m partial to Hurricane Electric but any reasonable priced vendor will do). Again, strong governance around this as a US non profit to demonstrate transparency and efficiency. I would also accept equipment, colo, and bandwidth donations from folks who could ensure consistency, quality, and continuity of the resource.
3. We would rely primarily on volunteers, similar to OpenStreetMap, who runs lean fiscally speaking [1]. The Internet Archive runs their servers for 5-7 years (per u/jonah-archive's ops talk), so I would shoot for a long bare metal depreciation schedule, a time series database stored in Backblaze B2, high level just an efficient use of capital for the technology components. I suppose I'm going back into an on call rotation. C'est la vie. Automate All The Things.
Poke holes in my thoughts, that's how they improve. I would also be interested in expanding into the AIS space; it's all UDP packets from SDRs coming into a software router and logger (with a visualization and admin frontend).
[1] https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Finances
1. The same they got out of ADS-B Exchange: open aviation data. I would work with the Internet Archive to archive batches of the data stream on a cadence. We should never be able to take historical data away. It is yours, forever.
2. I would pay for a dedicated server out of my pocket to bootstrap, with the eventual goal of accumulating enough donations to have a very small non profit investment account that would throw off just enough returns to pay for the server(s) or a rack of equipment at a colo indefinitely (I’m partial to Hurricane Electric but any reasonable priced vendor will do). Again, strong governance around this as a US non profit to demonstrate transparency and efficiency. I would also accept equipment, colo, and bandwidth donations from folks who could ensure consistency, quality, and continuity of the resource.
3. We would rely primarily on volunteers, similar to OpenStreetMap, who runs lean fiscally speaking [1]. The Internet Archive runs their servers for 5-7 years (per u/jonah-archive's ops talk), so I would shoot for a long bare metal depreciation schedule, a time series database stored in Backblaze B2, high level just an efficient use of capital for the technology components. I suppose I'm going back into an on call rotation. C'est la vie. Automate All The Things.
Poke holes in my thoughts, that's how they improve. I would also be interested in expanding into the AIS space; it's all UDP packets from SDRs coming into a software router and logger (with a visualization and admin frontend).
[1] https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Finances
I have infrastructure (my own fully private small colo) and a vested permanent commercial interest in an open exchange/aggregator or whatever this is called.
[email protected] for anyone who is serious about this.
My commercial interest is a free software / hardware (with itar exception) high altitude balloon startup that I’m the CTO/founder of .
[email protected] for anyone who is serious about this.
My commercial interest is a free software / hardware (with itar exception) high altitude balloon startup that I’m the CTO/founder of .
Great starter thoughts! Thanks for contributing them.
I'd be interested to see if the Internet Archive wants large globs of this kind of data. I actually have something like 5 years of AIS data that I've been collecting and I'd be happy to contribute it.
I totally agree with you on transparency and efficiency.
Taking donations is a chancy model. People get excited up front, but ongoing expenses requires ongoing begging unless you get really lucky with the amount of money raised up front. And even then, as Wikipedia shows, people tend to get ideas about using the money to do more stuff. As someone else suggested, a revenue-driven model might be more sustainable.
The co-op I helped run was Bandwagon. We rented a cabinet and then shared it out among a bunch of sysadmins who wanted their own boxes on the internet. This started circa 2001, when single-box hosting was rare and virtual hosting was nonexistent. We wound it up a few years ago as most of the people moved to the cloud.
My experience is that people's motivations change over time, and so actually owning hardware is risky if you want to avoid the one-person-in-Nebraska problem. [1]
[1] https://xkcd.com/2347/
I'd be interested to see if the Internet Archive wants large globs of this kind of data. I actually have something like 5 years of AIS data that I've been collecting and I'd be happy to contribute it.
I totally agree with you on transparency and efficiency.
Taking donations is a chancy model. People get excited up front, but ongoing expenses requires ongoing begging unless you get really lucky with the amount of money raised up front. And even then, as Wikipedia shows, people tend to get ideas about using the money to do more stuff. As someone else suggested, a revenue-driven model might be more sustainable.
The co-op I helped run was Bandwagon. We rented a cabinet and then shared it out among a bunch of sysadmins who wanted their own boxes on the internet. This started circa 2001, when single-box hosting was rare and virtual hosting was nonexistent. We wound it up a few years ago as most of the people moved to the cloud.
My experience is that people's motivations change over time, and so actually owning hardware is risky if you want to avoid the one-person-in-Nebraska problem. [1]
[1] https://xkcd.com/2347/
I'm interested in helping as well (software engineer). This is such a loss for the community. Like other's have stated, ADS-B exchange didn't have to follow the privacy requests as they didn't aggregate FAA data so it remained open. I'm wondering what the future will hold with the new ownership.
Depending on what sort of commercial arrangements participants were happy with, the obvious fundraising options are selling value added services or derived data on top or classic FOSS 'sponsorship' with corporate partners (hard to get for a new project in this space). That doesn't guarantee sustainability of course, particularly with there being a lot of competition in this sector with good coverage already.
(FWIW I'm happy to chat: have sold non-ADSB aviation data and consulting before and been involved with buying ADSB and AIS from a commercial provider)
(FWIW I'm happy to chat: have sold non-ADSB aviation data and consulting before and been involved with buying ADSB and AIS from a commercial provider)
Having been both on the buy and sell side is a very valuable perspective to include.
Do you have a sense of where some good dividing lines are between what to give to the general public, what contributors get, and what is marketable?
As an example, AISHub data contributors get a free real-time stream of global data in the same format that comes out of an AIS receiver. They also get limited API access: https://www.aishub.net/api
On top of that, the company that runs AISHub sells both software and data services: http://www.astrapaging.com/data-services
Do you have a sense of where some good dividing lines are between what to give to the general public, what contributors get, and what is marketable?
As an example, AISHub data contributors get a free real-time stream of global data in the same format that comes out of an AIS receiver. They also get limited API access: https://www.aishub.net/api
On top of that, the company that runs AISHub sells both software and data services: http://www.astrapaging.com/data-services
Dividing lines would depend to a large extent on what contributors want, particularly if it's set to be a nonprofit with a FOSS ethos.
Potentially a lot of the value comes from providing specific cuts of the data for specific purposes to companies (statistics on aircraft hours and cycles for companies supplying parts and maintenance, trend analysis). There are of course already authoritative sources that specialise in that, but they're relatively expensive, and a lot of the commercial customers want Excel files with prepared data tables for their commercial use, not API access to a stream that probably needs some cleaning up. Selling that value add stuff is compatible with making the core data streams open. The rest obviously comes from API access (which you'd likely want to limit to some extent so consumer web and mobile apps aren't hammering them for data)
Marketability is going to depend a huge amount on whether it's possible to get enough people on board to get good coverage, bearing in mind there are plenty of ADS-B data aggregation services out there (and they tend to have historical data going back several years, with the more commercially oriented ones having sales teams and full service customer support)
Potentially a lot of the value comes from providing specific cuts of the data for specific purposes to companies (statistics on aircraft hours and cycles for companies supplying parts and maintenance, trend analysis). There are of course already authoritative sources that specialise in that, but they're relatively expensive, and a lot of the commercial customers want Excel files with prepared data tables for their commercial use, not API access to a stream that probably needs some cleaning up. Selling that value add stuff is compatible with making the core data streams open. The rest obviously comes from API access (which you'd likely want to limit to some extent so consumer web and mobile apps aren't hammering them for data)
Marketability is going to depend a huge amount on whether it's possible to get enough people on board to get good coverage, bearing in mind there are plenty of ADS-B data aggregation services out there (and they tend to have historical data going back several years, with the more commercially oriented ones having sales teams and full service customer support)
Thanks! That's a useful portrait of the landscape.
I own adsb-router.com (currently unused) and would be glad to donate the domain and leadership expertise in governance and managing crowdsourced type sites (i own and manage radioreference.com and broadcastify.com). you can contact me through my profile
radioreference.com is a great site, thank you for running it!
I’d be interested in helping out. I have experience with corporate governance and setting up transfer-restricted entities, though unfortunately not so much experience with setting up non-profits (though I have served on non-profit boards).
That said, I can also think of a few ways you might be able to structure a successor that can’t exit like this, without having to deal with the headache of qualification and compliance as a non-profit. Interesting thought exercise.
That said, I can also think of a few ways you might be able to structure a successor that can’t exit like this, without having to deal with the headache of qualification and compliance as a non-profit. Interesting thought exercise.
Well, fuck.
Companies eat things to kill them because it works. Only some fraction of users will jump to the alternative, and indeed the alternative never ends up as strong as the original.
Are there examples of where the alternative turned out stronger?
Companies eat things to kill them because it works. Only some fraction of users will jump to the alternative, and indeed the alternative never ends up as strong as the original.
Are there examples of where the alternative turned out stronger?
I run this site : https://ducis.net/
It is a hobby that got out of hand. The idea was/is to see what this data reveals. What can be learned just by observing 'traffic'.
The answer is : a lot and I know various agencies and governments freaked out when they realized how visible some things are. Basically, with enough 'training' and domain-knowledge it's all pretty much out there : military transports, private military contractors, refugee flights, mercenaries, embargo busters, the spooks etc.
Obviously there was a reaction. Over the years they've tried to tidy things up with some success by putting pressure on the tracker-sites (or simply attacking the small players' servers).
Anyway, the point is : it is complex and fascinating.
I'm not interested in shouting "SECRET flight..." for clicks but if someone wants to try and set up a new 'ADS-B Exchange' : basically free, responsible, open source etc and wants to take on board a couple of years of deep domain-knowledge and decades of coding skills, contact details are on the site.
I know this is like a shameless (well) plug but...it's complicated ;)
>maintaining our enthusiast roots and unfiltered data
Interesting to see if a certain someone's jet(s) remain trackable
Interesting to see if a certain someone's jet(s) remain trackable
I suggest that folks that want to feed open ADSB aggregators consider feeding https://opensky-network.org
Interesting possibilities here:
> You can now feed VHF/voice data to OpenSky and help researchers around the world. Check out the interface and set up a feeder at https://ui.atc.opensky-network.org/
> You can now feed VHF/voice data to OpenSky and help researchers around the world. Check out the interface and set up a feeder at https://ui.atc.opensky-network.org/
if this news has gotten anyone interested in running an ADSB antenna/feeder, the SDR Enthusiasts book [0] is an excellent resource.
their github [1] has a bunch of very nice, modular Docker images that make it easy to feed one or more ADSB aggregators. (by comparison, a lot of the other software ecosystem around amateur SDR / ADSB relies on `curl | sudo bash` type install scripts)
0: https://sdr-enthusiasts.gitbook.io/ads-b/
1: https://github.com/sdr-enthusiasts
their github [1] has a bunch of very nice, modular Docker images that make it easy to feed one or more ADSB aggregators. (by comparison, a lot of the other software ecosystem around amateur SDR / ADSB relies on `curl | sudo bash` type install scripts)
0: https://sdr-enthusiasts.gitbook.io/ads-b/
1: https://github.com/sdr-enthusiasts
Looks like I am going to stop feeding then. Donating electricity and bandwidth to an open source project and donating to a massive corporation just aren't the same thing. Pay me and I will turn it back on, but until then I guess it is going to sit idle.
I cynically wonder how much they'll start charging billionaires to hide their private jet info.
Cynic in me thinks the was arranged by billionaires that don't want to be tracked. Chump change for them.
or at the very least, the partners at Silversmith will have a long list of billionaires who owe them favors.
Out of curiosity, how does this community effort do quality control (ie preventing someone rich from paying some people to flood the system with conflicting information)
There's a protocol for multilateration of the detected jets using all of the receivers that are in range of its signal. Whil I'm sure there are ways you could attack it, it's pretty robust to the more obvious things.
The mlat is more for receiving aircraft that use traditional transponders which don't include gps coordinates but just a squawk code and altitude. Hence it needs multiple receivers to triangulate their location. I don't think it uses this for real adsb feeds.
Would switching to a federated / distributed protocol fix things? Or is there some additional critical role that ADS-B was providing?
We have a community in RadarBox and that we have direct contact with the developers: RadarBox.com/addcoverage
The dullest non-announce ever:
https://twitter.com/ADSBex/status/1618306706861338625
Hasn't said anything in the forum or the site news section, and hasn't posted that tweet until after the official announce by Jetnet.
Looks like a case of "take the money and run". Doesn't smell good for the ads-b community.
https://twitter.com/ADSBex/status/1618306706861338625
Hasn't said anything in the forum or the site news section, and hasn't posted that tweet until after the official announce by Jetnet.
Looks like a case of "take the money and run". Doesn't smell good for the ads-b community.
This isn't going to go over well. I hope everyone shuts down their feed.
Most likely the goal.
I don't know, now that they own it they can just start censoring it like the others.
And I'm sure at least one alternative will pop up
And I'm sure at least one alternative will pop up
Just unplugged my receiver.
Replacement site from the people behind the original (except for the sellout) already up:
https://globe.adsb.fi/tar1090/
The dude who owned it was kind of a douche to start with, as I recall. That being said, I think I'd be hard-pressed not to sell something I started as a hobby that grew and grew.
Speaking of which, I created my own site[1] within the past couple of years...have a few friends feeding data. I set them up with Pi's, antennas, cords and the proper software. Would be super stoked if anyone else wanted to feed me!
[1]https://radar.airport-frequencies.com
Hit me up if you want to join!
Speaking of which, I created my own site[1] within the past couple of years...have a few friends feeding data. I set them up with Pi's, antennas, cords and the proper software. Would be super stoked if anyone else wanted to feed me!
[1]https://radar.airport-frequencies.com
Hit me up if you want to join!
Well that sucks. I had just gotten into using ADS-B over Flightradar24.
That shouldn't be affected by the matter at hand. ADS-B is the coms standard, ADS-B Exchange is a specific aggregation effort.
Well that sucks. I had just gotten into using ADS-B Exchange over Flightradar24.
Oh nooo.. Now there's no volunteer driven tracking network left. And they'll probably start blocking military and private flights just like the other commercial trackers. Too bad, it was great while it lasted. Hopefully someone starts up a new one that will stay independent.
750,000 messages per second! Imagine if each node knew where it was and all of its nearest neighbors. The receivers could filter and not send messages that are coming from planes closer to their neighbors! Distributed filtering of redundant messages FTW!
You need messages from multiple receivers for MLAT, I think they use messages with known plane positions to calibrate the MLAT solver since the receivers doesn't have a high quality common time source.
Plus proximity doesn't mean you can see airplanes that are behind buildings, at low altitude, etc.
Plus proximity doesn't mean you can see airplanes that are behind buildings, at low altitude, etc.
What is MLAT in this case? The planes transmit their location in the ADS-B message. They are filtering a lot of redundant message receptions from multiple receivers. I would assume the messages also include altitude and heading information, so locations can be predicted between message receptions.
MLAT is multilateration, where they use the difference in time of arrival to multiple receivers with known locations to estimate the positions of planes that doesn't transmit their location using ADS-B but only use older Mode S. This is mostly small or military planes.
https://flightaware.com/adsb/mlat/
https://flightaware.com/adsb/mlat/
> 750,000 messages per second!
ZOMG, that's like... a 1990s DSL connection!
ZOMG, that's like... a 1990s DSL connection!
Only if your messages are 1 byte long or something.
Does anyone want to fund an open ADSB data gathering platform for a nonprofit to run?
Looks like the official discord community (now formerly official I guess) is pushing airframes.io
GDPR compliance is a big problem in this space, there's no GDPR exception which would allow you to legally collect this data in the EU. (Unless you limited your collection to whitelisted A/C)
Right now every single player in this space is operating illegally, but it'll probably take years before data protection authorities will start to crack down.
Right now every single player in this space is operating illegally, but it'll probably take years before data protection authorities will start to crack down.
Yes, and FR24 is investigated in the EU:
https://se.linkedin.com/pulse/en-digitalsektor-ger-imy-m%C3%...
Is SDR accessible through the internet a violation of GDPR? Hard for me to understand why relaying ADS-B would be different (considering the sdr data is inclusive of the ADS-B data)
I'm going to guess that collecting / organising the data is a problem.
Data Protection laws, and I believe the GDPR is the same, aren't interested in just stuff you've got, for example if you write a blog, and you mention that you saw Jim at the weekend and his sister is apparently pregnant, these laws do not consider that you've got a database there with a single row ("Jim's sister" "Pregnant") which needs to be treated as PII and have Subject access requirements etc. You're not really collecting pregnancy status data about women, you just have a blog post.
Whereas if I build a scraper, and I search thousands of blogs and correlate stuff to build a Postgres DB with "Jim's sister" "Pregnant" as one of dozens of rows, that is the sort of thing these laws care about.
So I can imagine that likewise "Here are radio signals I am receiving" looks like public information, no big deal, whereas "Here is a database of records I gathered by studying the past 24 hours of radio signals" is different.
Data Protection laws, and I believe the GDPR is the same, aren't interested in just stuff you've got, for example if you write a blog, and you mention that you saw Jim at the weekend and his sister is apparently pregnant, these laws do not consider that you've got a database there with a single row ("Jim's sister" "Pregnant") which needs to be treated as PII and have Subject access requirements etc. You're not really collecting pregnancy status data about women, you just have a blog post.
Whereas if I build a scraper, and I search thousands of blogs and correlate stuff to build a Postgres DB with "Jim's sister" "Pregnant" as one of dozens of rows, that is the sort of thing these laws care about.
So I can imagine that likewise "Here are radio signals I am receiving" looks like public information, no big deal, whereas "Here is a database of records I gathered by studying the past 24 hours of radio signals" is different.
Why? GDPR is about personal data. This data is about airplanes, not people.
Because the data can often easily be tied to specific people.
You also can't set up a camera on the side of the road and store peoples registration plates and times when they drove past.
You could also easily track cellphone IMEIs and locations in the same way these services track aircraft, that's not gonna fly either.
Obviously you'll be completely fine if you only store data on commercial aviation, general aviation will pretty much immediately veer into GDPR territory.
You also can't set up a camera on the side of the road and store peoples registration plates and times when they drove past.
You could also easily track cellphone IMEIs and locations in the same way these services track aircraft, that's not gonna fly either.
Obviously you'll be completely fine if you only store data on commercial aviation, general aviation will pretty much immediately veer into GDPR territory.
It's not a direct link though. The owner of the airplane doesn't actually have to be in it. And very often it's a company anyway.
> You also can't set up a camera on the side of the road and store peoples registration plates and times when they drove past.
That's just because setting up cameras on public roads isn't allowed as you can capture people as well. Writing down license plates would be fine.
> You also can't set up a camera on the side of the road and store peoples registration plates and times when they drove past.
That's just because setting up cameras on public roads isn't allowed as you can capture people as well. Writing down license plates would be fine.
> That's just because setting up cameras on public roads isn't allowed as you can capture people as well. Writing down license plates would be fine.
Nonsense. https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ETid-851
https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ETid-829
Nonsense. https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ETid-851
https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ETid-829
Time to move the ADSB sharing network over p2p? Assuming it's doable, that way whoever buys an aggregator site would own just the interface, not the data sharing network.
Good. ADS-B Exchange's API is horribly broken and they never even replied to my support/refund requests so I had to chargeback. A shakeup might help.
I am a RadarBox feeder and can use the API. I use it for some of my applications.
[deleted]
Billionaires are going dark and buying out all the flashlights.