Slashdot Mirror
US Says Plane Finder App Threatens Security
ProgramErgoSum writes "The Plane Finder AR application, developed by a British firm for the Apple iPhone and Google's Android, allows users to point their phone at the sky and see the position, height and speed of nearby aircraft. It also shows the airline, flight number, departure point, destination and even the likely course-the features which could be used to target an aircraft with a surface-to-air missile, or to direct another plane on to a collision course, the 'Daily Mail' reported. The program, sold for just 1.79 pounds in the online Apple store, has now been labelled an 'aid to terrorists' by security experts and the US Department of Homeland Security is also examining how to protect airliners. The new application works by intercepting the so-called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcasts (ADS-B) transmitted by most passenger aircraft to a new satellite tracking system that supplements or, in some countries, replaces radar."
Be afraid! Everything is a threat!
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and we can't take away all your freedoms unless you are afraid...
How is this any different from a website like flightstats.com, and I'm sure there are plenty of other sites like that too. It isn't difficult to figure out where the planes are. The app probably only makes it marginally easier to view this data on a phone. Sounds like much ado about nothing
If something could potentially be used in a bad way, even if most people aren't going to abuse it, it must immediately be banned! So, basically, anything that can be used as a weapon, too. Which is... pretty much everything.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
... instead of, say, the surface-to-air missiles
This news story is an aid to terrorists, since it lets them know that this app could be an aid to them. Bottled water is an aid to terrorists, since it keeps terrorists mentally alert by avoiding dehydration. Shoes are an aid to terrorists, since they allow terrorists to avoid stepping on tacks. The sun is an aid to terrorists, since it illuminates the area so terrorists can see what they're doing. Calculators are aids to terrorists, since they allow them to calculate various aspects of their attacks. Paper is an aid to terrorists, since it allows terrorists to write their plans down. This post is an aid to terrorists, since it tells terrorists what things aid them.
Isn't this a bit like closing the barn doors after the horses have bolted? It sounds like the protocol was designed to be easily intercepted.
"Anything that makes it easier for our enemies to find targets is madness. The Government must look at outlawing the marketing of such equipment."
Perhaps they should consider banning the ADS-B transmitters, then?
In any case, banning the app would do nothing to anyone with the funds for a SAM. See this document to make your own reciever.
Because terrorists would never, ever be able to find out this information by themselves, or crash their plane into an airliner by, uh, looking for it in the sky while they're flying.
Have we now moved on from security theater to security standup comedy? At best this seems to be a DHSvertisment telling terrorists where to get useful apps for their iPhone. which they might otherwise never have heard of.
If it can be done with a phone app, then obviously it can be done in other ways by terrorists.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck ... dont vote for it
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
What conceivable use is this to a terrorist? I've been considering this for a few minutes now. My kneejerk reaction was that the government is being fucking stupid. Then I pondered on exactly how knowing which plane is which is at all helpful. Any ideas anyone? Perhaps I'm focusing too much on the hijacking scenario, and someone could use it to select a target for a SAM. But that just doesn't seem likely, since I would think you would already know your target if you go through the trouble of bringing a SAM to an airport.
We have a roomful of senior DHS and other government officials. The head of the group stands up and says, "Gentlemen, the results are now in ... everything is an aid to terrorism."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Anyone with a SAM can see if a plane is right there! They don't need an iPhone app to tell them what they are looking at is a plane. Have they had issues with terrorists accidentally targeting endangered condors with missiles by mistake?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I expected these typical responses from people didn't even bother reading the article. Of course slashdot got the headline wrong, but that's to be expected as well.
The fact is that nobody in the US government has said this app is an aid to terrorists. Its just something that is supposed by a couple of random people. I don't know how slashdot comes to the conclusion that the "US" (government I presume) exclaimed this.
In short, this entire article and summary is just flamebait and you suckers just got trolled hook, line and sinker. The editors should be ashamed of themselves.
I hope those terrorists don't know about the locations of any airports. Rumour has it that lots of planes fly near them...
I get this argument from idiot alarmists all the time:
"We can't allow for the last link of dissemination of information to the public at large to exist, but it's okay for the information to be available. We just need to make it *less* available."
This sort of argument appears to stem from one or many of a few beliefs:
1) Terrorists are too stupid to get this sort of information from less casual sources.
2) Of all of the speedbumps to becoming a terrorist, figuring out where the flights are was the thing that was holding people back.
3) They had no idea that we had this information available (this is a variant of 1),
4) It's okay to leave information we consider dangerous out in the open, as long as you can't get it without knowing the right URL (or, in this case, the right frequencies). This isn't quite what crypto nerds mean when they say "security through obscurity isn't security at all," but it's pretty relatable.
And to think, US Cyber command is under the impression that they don't need geeks. If this is what passes for an understanding of safety and security in our government, we're just doomed.
This is a stupid argument because it is so extremely simple to figure out when to shoot down an aircraft with a SAM anyway.
You already know the approximate time when it will takeoff since that is public knowledge since the passengers needs to know.
Most airports has only one or two runways. You can easily figure out in which direction the plane is going to start (it will start at the same direction as the ones before it, probably into the wind).
Now you can simply put ourself outside the airport at the point where the plane will fly right over you at a low altitude off perhaps a couple off hundred yards. The guys that photos planes position them self correct every time with this knowledge.
The reality is that aircrafts is extremely exposed and easy to shoot down with SAMs since it is easy to get them during landing and takeoff and you can't fence off an area big enough to protect them.
tower: AC310 heavy drop to 30 thousand and proceed to outer marker on heading 31 you are clear for runway
Hm, I wonder where AC310 heavy is ?
I live sixty miles from the Mexican border. We have a bunch of undocumented/illegal aliens here. They are not terrorist threats; only very few are criminals. Most of them are ordinary people who just want a chance to live like anybody else.
DHS might be able to stop corporations, but they can't stop me from publishing the source code:
PA LAW: "The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man, and every citizen may freely speak, write and print on any subject." ----- MD LAW: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution thereof, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people thereof..... the liberty of the press ought to be inviolably preserved; that every citizen of the State ought to be allowed to speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege."
And so on across all 50 Member States. Nobody at the US level has the right to block publishing or sharing source code of programs I or thers create
Aside -
I found this bit of the Bill of Rights interesting: "Monopolies are odious, contrary to the spirit of a free government and the principles of commerce, and ought not to be suffered." And yet the BGE and Comcast monopolies exist. Perhaps the Maryland government should buy-out the wires and lease the lines to any company that wished to use them (BGE, PPL, comcast, cox, appletv, etc). i.e. Consumer choice is a right.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
That's what ADS-B is supposed to do - give anyone who wants it a picture of what's in nearby airspace. It may have been a mistake to implement that capability and mandate that the transmitters be installed on aircraft. But, with that done, bitching about people using the data is pointless.
An attacker could buy a general aviation ADS-B receiver for $1495 and get the same data on an HP iPAQ. So this only protects against terrorists with very low budgets.
Seriously, people already don't want to fly, and who can blame them? China has the right idea with their new record-breaking high-speed trains. And for trans-ocean voyages, a slow cruise is more pleasant anyway - or just teleconference. It's not like we don't have the technology.
In a backwards way, the terrorists are actually helping to make the planet a bit greener, except that the US military is the world's single largest user of fossil fuels. And no, this is in no way a criticism of the military - they're under civilian leadership and have to suck it up even when the boss is an idjit, just like the rest of us.
-- Barbie
1. Write sourceless article about interesting software labeled by unnamed 'security experts' as 'a serious security threat'
2. Mention that the Department of Homeland Security also thinks about security threats
3. Get article mentioned on Slashdot where people still don't RTFM in any detail, but do like to shit bricks that mention DHS in any context
4. Get traffic to ad-driven site
But how is that fair to those that actually followed the law and came here legally? And you are also ignoring the hidden costs, for example we too have many illegals and if you get into an accident with one? NO insurance! I hope you enjoy those higher insurance premiums thanks to your friends that "are ordinary people who just want a chance to live". Then figure in the taxes they don't pay, the depression of wages, and the extra demands on services without the extra taxes to pay for them and I'm sorry, but if you want to get into this country you should have to get in line like everybody else. Oh and talk to someone who immigrated here legally and ask them how they like having spent years jumping through hoops just to have talk of amnesty for illegals brought up. Not a subject to bring up if you want happy talk.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
They aren't stealing from you. Most of them pay taxes and few of them actually get any government services. The jobs that they take are ones that even now in this economy are going unfilled in terms of legal workers.
The UFW has been trying to get people to come take those jobs, and it's been tough going, few people are desperate enough to take the jobs. I'm not sure what the current number is, but as of when Colbert was covering on his show, the number was under 20, and definitely way under a hundred.
The linked article and the summary says that "he programme, sold for just 1.79 pounds in the online Apple store, has now been labelled an 'aid to terrorists' by security experts and the US Department of Homeland Security is also examining how to protect airliners." The Daily Mail article says "The US Department of Homeland Security is also examining how to protect airliners."
Nowhere does it say the "US" or any US official has said the application "threatens security". In fact, the only official to say anything in the article was a UK official, a British MP, who said, 'Anything that makes it easier for our enemies to find targets is madness. The Government must look at outlawing the marketing of such equipment.'
So basically, the only thing that comes close to any "government" entity calling this application a threat is a British politician, and the "US" has actually made no statement about this application whatsoever, other than a reference in one sentence of the article that DHS is "examining how to protect airliners", and is not, as the headline implies, calling for the app to be pulled or censored, or indeed, even talking about the app at all.
Great sensationalism, guys. The best part of this is that the comments are howling with the typical anti-US-government complaints, when the "US" hasn't said anything about the app at all. What I come to expect from slashdot.
I don't want to fly commercial any more, and it's not due to fear of ter'rists. It's out of anger that my government is not approaching this scientifically. They are ignoring forensic science and not profiling, out of fear of offending foreign nationals. Because they refuse to profile, I have to check luggage rather than carry it on (I usually bring tools with me), I can't bring bottle water or soup on the aircraft with me, and am stuck eating airplane food - which invariably makes me sick due to allergies. (They prohibit peanuts due to political correctness now, but every damn airplane snack and meal has soy in it. Go figure.)
Sooo, I drive whenever possible instead, and I will continue to drive long trips until I can earn a flight certificate and buy (or build) my own airplane. :)
Of course Homeland Security wants GA dead as well so in a few years even that may not be an option.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Loving the fact that you're showing up as a "Score: 0, Insightful"!
You're absolutely right, and it's all rather sad. We're talking about data at the end of the day, and as we're all aware it can work all ways. American Airlines' website is custom designed to produce data of use to "terrorists". As is the UK government website, Slashdot, CNN and Google.
All of them intentionally produce useful data from a huge set. This data can be used for terrorism. And booking flights, reading the news or finding things incidentally.
For those who don't know the Daily Mail, they're technically a UK newspaper but are frequently closer to Stewart/Colbert satire, if unintentionally. They basically use conservative outrage to push the paper, and usually promote "the enemy" in the process. There was an unofficial competition between various alcoholic drink manufacturers a few years back to see who could get the most publicity from the Daily Mail by producing a 40% ABV drink and subtly suggesting it was worse than .
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
>>>BGE does not have a monopoly
Yeah Maryland has choice for the supplier, but who owns the electric wires and natural gas pipes? BGE.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Thanks to the Streisand Effect, Plane Finder AR will doubtless skyrocket to the top of the charts by the end of the day.
If this were a legitimate security risk, they just did about a thousand times the damage that it would have been had they ignored it. Pathetic. This is why efforts like the Cyber Command is such an obvious failure to anyone with a lick of Internet-savvy before it was ever launched.
I think it was Russell Howard who said - "The Daily Mail, racist in public so you don't have to be". That about sums it up really.
Listen to my latest album here
As many here have pointed out, it's absurd to think that this app would be useful for a terrorist who has the resources to obtain a surface to air missile. If you're going to shoot down a civilian plane, do you really need to know the flight number? Or do you just pick the one you see above you?
A more likely concern is that the device can be used to reveal government misconduct. It was hobbyist plane-spotters who, through their observations of civilian air traffic, exposed the CIA's Torture Jet flights or "extraordinary renditions", wherein they kidnapped people abroad and transferred them to third countries like Egypt, Jordan and Uzbekistan for interrogation using tortures that even the CIA wouldn't use (I guess there still are some).
If the choice is between ceasing their crimes against humanity, or trying to cover them up better: they prefer the latter strategy.
Here's another idea: how about preventing the crimes that are already happening in this country!
Wait--was the original story about, again?
No. From TFA (anyone here even read this shit anymore?): "The firm behind the app, Pinkfroot, uses a network of aircraft enthusiasts in Britain and abroad, who are equipped with ADS-B receivers costing around 200 pounds to intercept the information from aircraft and send it to a central database."
Places like FlightAware and others actually have a direct feed from the FAA which provides, among other things, radar data of aircraft all around the US. FAA feeds are required to be delayed, with the only exception being that if you have a flight dispatch operation (i.e. airline, big corporate aviation, etc) you can get it realtime - however are under strict guidelines not to release it to anyone else. Even the delayed providers generally can't just replay the data by itself.
Also the thought of encrypting the data is stupid. You have probably dozens of manufacturers of receivers and transceivers, it is foolish to think the keys wouldn't be compromised. In addition it's one more layer of potential issues, and when you are relying on that system to maintain spacing in zero visibility, you just want it to work period.
Not to mention, like others have said, there are easier ways to target an aircraft (like when they are lower and slower).
I live in a flight path to LGA, planes go over every five or ten minutes and often *blink* the apartment with their shadows. Which is kinda neat. But I think there's a misapprehension about this app. I t doesn't receive ADS transmissions, it relies on (some group of users other than app users) to submit the data to a db. Planes fly over my apartment every five or ten minutes. I've had this app open for an hour and none of the overflying planes were reflected in the UI.
Of course, if they were, I'da downed them with a SAM, which I never felt the need to do when they are flying over til now.
grammar-lesson free since 1999. (rescinded - 2005)
Undocumented workers pay income tax and payroll taxes, too. They're the ones who should be having tea parties - they get taxed, but they don't get the vote.
The solution is to remove the cheap labor from the equation completely
Here's a better solution: Make it easy for the cheap labor to come into the country legally. The farmer would then have to comply with all of the labor laws to employ them, including minimum wages. No more $2 per hour melon pickers.
Most of the problems with illegal immigration (the actual problems, not the imaginary problems) boil down to having this class of people in the country who don't dare interact with the US legal system. Make them legal, and all of those problems disappear.
Make it a crime to employ an undocumented worker.
It is a crime. It needs to be a bigger crime, though, and we need a good way to catch such employers.
I suggest turning the people who absolutely can't be fooled about the employee status against the employers. Who absolutely knows the legal status of the employees? The illegal employees themselves. Offer a green card to any illegal who rats out their boss, throw the boss in jail, and very quickly you'll find that no one is willing to employ anyone who can't prove they're legal.
Make it a crime to pay someone less than minimum wage
Again, it is a crime. And because it's a crime, it doesn't happen -- except when the employees are afraid to use the legal system.
or better yet, a crime to pay someone less than fair market wages
What's a fair market wage? And how can the market set a fair wage if no one is allowed to pay one penny under whatever that wage is? Markets require a range of prices offered to settle on a price that is fair. This suggestion makes no sense.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
No US passenger airline has equipped with ADS-B yet. In fact, most of them are fighting tooth and nail *not* to, because they don't want to spend the money.
The only thing the bogeyman of "terrorists" would be able to track with this app is UPS aircraft (UPS is helping the FAA test NextGen and has fleetwide ADS-B now, IIRC) and private planes that have chosen to equip with ADS-B.
This is a non-story. Next.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
Plus I've heard a few horror stories. Friends in Australia pay extra when coming to Canada just so they can avoid landing in the US. Not because they're terrorists or on any watch list or "look ethnic", but because they simply don't want the hassles at the end of a long flight.
Been there - I went through Vancouver instead of LA :)
A few hundred dollars vs having to negotiate LAX and the end of a long trip overseas. No brainer really. Especially now they're charging for the visa waiver programme. The fee is nominal, I presume the real purpose is to get your credit card details.
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
This is such a cool app, i want to know how far my GF is when she goes away ....by the distance and minute.... .....500 feet, 1000 feet, 1500 feet.......ok cost is clear she is really gone now...., call up the buddies for some poker!
>Bye dear........
>Ok