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I built a system that takes pictures of all the airplanes that fly over my house

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Re: I built a system that takes pictures of all the airplanes that fly over my house

#181

Post by brokenmachine »

Naracion wrote: post #171
jhugo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since 2020-01-01, ADS-B is a requirement in a lot of US airspace (FAR 91.225). Turning it off is allowed for govt / intelligence / law enforcement / military only. Many countries have similar requirements. People often think an aircraft is flying with transponder off because it doesn't appear on FR24/FlightAware. In fact these companies allow blocking aircraft from their service; this is why ADS-B Exchange is better.

If turning ADSB off is only allowed for government / military / intelligence airplanes, would using a CV algorithm to capture these airplanes be against the law? Recently there was a post of Google satellite cameras capturing a B-2 Stealth Bomber showing up on Google Maps [1]. Would such planes be captured by a vision system only, and would that be of concern to the government that might be trying to keep it undetect…

I don't see a B2 at your link?

Re: I built a system that takes pictures of all the airplanes that fly over my house

#182

Post by brokenmachine »

punnerud wrote: post #138

Useful idea for usage: Point a WiFi-dish/antenna towards the plane and gather WiFi & Bluetooth MAC addresses for all the passengers. Now you can make statistics about the number of passengers, how long /often they travel ++ good information if you want to trade stocks in airplane companies. You can direct the antenna precisely because you have the image recognition in addition to GPS.

This is precisely the kind of comment that I come to hacker news for. Love it!

Re: I built a system that takes pictures of all the airplanes that fly over my house

#183

Post by King-Aaron »

newsclues wrote: post #157
t0mas88 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you add a laser pointer you'll effectively get yourself arrested within a few hours. Aircraft get laserd relatively often and it's dangerous to the pilots. We report it to air traffic control with an estimated location, they then coordinate with the police. Common practice is to turn off exterior lights when lasered, because it's just bored people with a laser pointer and they can't aim when the plane has no light…

Get arrested? I was thinking it would be good for rebels in Africa or the Middle East who get attacked by nation state actors. This is a low cost anti air deterrent and monitoring system, that can operate remotely, and autonomously. Don’t poor people have the right to not be bombed?

Shining a laser at a bomber provides said bomber a target

Re: I built a system that takes pictures of all the airplanes that fly over my house

#184

Post by jhugo »

motohagiography wrote: post #170
jhugo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since 2020-01-01, ADS-B is a requirement in a lot of US airspace (FAR 91.225). Turning it off is allowed for govt / intelligence / law enforcement / military only. Many countries have similar requirements. People often think an aircraft is flying with transponder off because it doesn't appear on FR24/FlightAware. In fact these companies allow blocking aircraft from their service; this is why ADS-B Exchange is better.

Not a pilot, but played with ADS-B tracking several years ago, and my impression was below something like 4-5000' the transponder wasn't required to transmit location. This meant that surveillance aircraft (usually single engine propeller craft and helicopters) didn't send GPS, only the fact that it was in the air.

Yeah. It's a requirement in a lot of US airspace, but not all airspace. Even at low altitudes it's required near major airports though.

Surveillance aircraft, if operated by a government entity, would not be required to transmit anyway. (Though they may choose to for safety purposes if it doesn't compromise the mission, just as the military often do in busy airspace.)

Re: I built a system that takes pictures of all the airplanes that fly over my house

#186

Post by t0mas88 »

newsclues wrote: post #157
t0mas88 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you add a laser pointer you'll effectively get yourself arrested within a few hours. Aircraft get laserd relatively often and it's dangerous to the pilots. We report it to air traffic control with an estimated location, they then coordinate with the police. Common practice is to turn off exterior lights when lasered, because it's just bored people with a laser pointer and they can't aim when the plane has no light…

Get arrested? I was thinking it would be good for rebels in Africa or the Middle East who get attacked by nation state actors. This is a low cost anti air deterrent and monitoring system, that can operate remotely, and autonomously. Don’t poor people have the right to not be bombed?

I don't think bombers typically fly around war zones with their ADS-B on :-)

Re: I built a system that takes pictures of all the airplanes that fly over my house

#187

Post by wodenokoto »

8192kjshad09- wrote: post #92
avree wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a website who's only purpose is delivering blurry pictures need HTTPS?

Preventing ISPs and other bad actors from using it to deliver ads/malware?

It also prevents access for users living in oppressive countries.

HTTPS-everywhere was the second bane of my internet existence when I lived in China.

I don’t know how it is now but a decade ago you basically couldn’t access anything on https.

Re: I built a system that takes pictures of all the airplanes that fly over my house

#188

Post by phkahler »

yeldarb wrote: post #69
phkahler wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they ever indicate using a model like that? Just plug in an ADS-B receiver and they'll broadcast their tail number and location to you. Everything else can be looked up.

Yeah the crop is done after uploading a photo taken towards the general direction of the plane: > The Function uses a model trained in Azure Custom Vision to detect if there is an airplane in the photo and where it is

Oh that's interesting. It doesn't even have to be that good at plane identification, just "what's the main focus of this picture".

Re: I built a system that takes pictures of all the airplanes that fly over my house

#189

Post by Naracion »

brokenmachine wrote: post #181
Naracion wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If turning ADSB off is only allowed for government / military / intelligence airplanes, would using a CV algorithm to capture these airplanes be against the law? Recently there was a post of Google satellite cameras capturing a B-2 Stealth Bomber showing up on Google Maps [1]. Would such planes be captured by a vision system only, and would that be of concern to the government that might be trying to keep it undetect…

I don't see a B2 at your link?

Oh wow, they removed it. I apologize, I simply shared the link that had been shared before in December 2021. I should also have taken a screenshot.

Here is the HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29627105

Here's a Techradar post on this: https://www.techradar.com/news/eagle-eyed-redditor-spots-a-f...

Re: I built a system that takes pictures of all the airplanes that fly over my house

#190

Post by Istribitel »

robotastic wrote: post #19

Hi! I am the guy behind this, awesome to see it posted here. Happy to answer any questions. To answer a question I saw pop up, I am using the FAA aircraft registration data to pull up the extra information about the planes. It lists who actually owns the plane, vs who is operating it. That is why you see so many banks. Places like Flightaware have much better data, but a pricy to look up.

Did you present this at PyMNtos some time back? I love this project. It's fun to see it here!
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