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ShipMap

shipmap.org

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Re: ShipMap

#41

There are pirates (thieves, but I like Pirate better?) whom were renting luxury boats in the Mediterranean, and stealing them. They would fly to Europe, and dress like rich fancy boys. They would then rent the ships for vacation. They would take the transponder off the luxury vessel, and put it on a toy boat. The owner would check on his vessel, and it all looked fine. Meanwhile, the thieves would have the boat in Ru…

How do they sail into Russia? They would need their own AIS transponder and a valid ship registration, the Greek/Turkish maritime zone and the Black Sea has a tone of coast guard and military activity and you need to Lee-register/declare traversal. Going into Russia through the northern sea doesn’t seem to be viable either.

I would assume that all bets are off once they reach international waters?

Re: ShipMap

#42

There are pirates (thieves, but I like Pirate better?) whom were renting luxury boats in the Mediterranean, and stealing them. They would fly to Europe, and dress like rich fancy boys. They would then rent the ships for vacation. They would take the transponder off the luxury vessel, and put it on a toy boat. The owner would check on his vessel, and it all looked fine. Meanwhile, the thieves would have the boat in Ru…

How do they sail into Russia? They would need their own AIS transponder and a valid ship registration, the Greek/Turkish maritime zone and the Black Sea has a tone of coast guard and military activity and you need to Lee-register/declare traversal. Going into Russia through the northern sea doesn’t seem to be viable either.

Or they could just turn off AIS broadcasts?

Re: ShipMap

#43

I see a lot of these points going over land, even where there aren't any big rivers. Maybe this is a plot of the containers rather than the ships?

What you’re witnessing is a self reported dataset from an international community (read as “unconcerned with The Protestant Work Ethic”) of ship captains and owners. There are so many edge cases and oddities that the more you look the more you’ll find. The moral of the story here is that you cannot accept AIS data, or any single data source, to be God’s Truth; you must always skeptical of the data before your eyes, l…

Couldn't a more rational theory be that the data is essentially captured over VHF radio waves and there can be data loss due to things like gaps in capture ranges, faulty capture devices, faulty transponders, or even signal congestion?

Re: ShipMap

#44
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, the underlying data is from exactEarth. It’s not free data. I believe exactEarth obtains the data by reading the pings from the ship’s transponders. https://www.exactearth.com/product-exactearth-shipview

It’s free in the sense that there are projects where as long as you are operating an antenna feeding data, you get access to a feed of all data for free with the only restriction being you can’t compete by just restreaming the complete feed.

Oh that's interesting, thanks. So I guess it's similar to ADS-B exchange[1] and the like but for ships.

Have you operated an antenna, by chance? I've considered building an ADS-B receiver to satisfy my curiosity about the planes I see out my window all day.

[1] https://www.adsbexchange.com/

Re: ShipMap

#45
post #40

It’s lovely to see this here! I made it a few years ago; it was the last project we made under the Kiln banner before we devoted all our efforts to building a software platform (Flourish) instead. If anyone has any questions, AMA!

Where does the data come from?

We were commissioned to make the map by the UCL Energy Institute, who had a research license from exactEarth for this historical AIS data.

If you press the little info button at the top right, you get some basic information, including this:

Where did you get the data and who paid?

Our data sources for shipping positions are exactEarth for AIS data (location/speed) and Clarksons Research UK World Fleet Register (static vessel information). We are very grateful to our funders, the European Climate Foundation.

Re: ShipMap

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not going to lie but this sounds far more entertaining than sitting at my dining room all day making computer programs.

In a broader sense, they can be considered as hackers.

Making business harder for tourists and renting places is neither cool nor "hacking".

Re: ShipMap

#47

Does anyone know where they get the data for these shipping map sites?

This site [1] allows you to get their real time global feed if you push your local feed in exchange. AFAIR equipment costs a few hundred bucks tops. I think other sites like [2] offer to provide a base station. Not sure what data and licensing you get in exchange though.

[1] https://www.aishub.net/

[2] https://www.marinetraffic.com/

Re: ShipMap

#49
post #19

Also happened to know about this site just today, thanks to the video by Johnny Harris (who covered a lot of geopolitical stuff recently). Awesome stuff. cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PbgYReEUO8

Yeah that's where I found out about it too, was pretty surprised it was never posted on HN over the years.

Re: ShipMap

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a broader sense, they can be considered as hackers.

Making business harder for tourists and renting places is neither cool nor "hacking".

It just means maybe there is a market for boat rental pen-testing and security consultancies. There are probably lots of similar vulns in the rental business's process, which can be demonstrated by white hats and corrected. In this case, it was the business incorrectly trusting the thieves' story and foolishly delivering a product they had no way to repossess.
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