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Somebody used spoofed ADSB signals to raster the meme of JD Vance

alecmuffett.com

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Re: Somebody used spoofed ADSB signals to raster the meme of JD Vance

#21

Post by zeeZ »

burkaman wrote: post #7
idontwantthis wrote: post #3

Can someone explain what this means? Where would this have been seen?

Most planes broadcast their position using ADS-B, and some websites collect these signals and visualize them so you can track flight paths. Somebody broadcast a fake flight path that draws a picture of JD Vance on these sites: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=adfdf9&lat=26.678&lon=-...

To expand on that, those websites mostly operate on random volunteers self hosting a (starting price) fairly cheap receiver and antenna with an open source stack that feeds the ADS-B data to the website operator in exchange for nothing or free "premium" benefits.

The spoofer could have just sent them fake location information drawing an image using latitude, longitude and altitude for color (in the default view flight paths have different colors based on the altitude of the plane at that point in time).

They could have built an antenna and actually broadcast this data, but that would be a lot more effort and most likely some form of crime.

Re: Somebody used spoofed ADSB signals to raster the meme of JD Vance

#22

Post by observationist »

pear01 wrote: post #10
sammy2255 wrote: post #2

This has gotta be some sort of federal crime

I believe this was "spoofed" only in the sense that a particular provider/online platform accepted data via an API that was abused to draw this on that platform only. Searching around it seems it was not found if you looked on other platforms, so it might not even have been a crime. I believe they didn't emit any real "signals" just took advantage of an API that should probably be better secured.

At worst it'd be a violation of the site ToS - it's a crowdsourced community data based system, and not any sort of an official, important system. The account doesn't seem to have been banned, so maybe the admins are just rolling with the joke.

Re: Somebody used spoofed ADSB signals to raster the meme of JD Vance

#23

Post by fragmede »

15155 wrote: post #16
TimorousBestie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting question. Assuming the FAA has the authority to enforce ADSB requirements (an open question post-Chevron), I can’t find any regulation saying non-aircrafts cannot transmit ADSB. Only ones saying aircrafts in certain categories must. There’s probably some non-interference requirement somewhere (FCC spectrum licensing perhaps), but I’m not seeing it immediately. All this is in the hypothetical that RF wa…

(Assuming this were actually RF) This is easily-prosecutable willful interference or possibly aircraft sabotage: ADS-B operates in licensed bands and uses an already highly-contended modulation scheme and transmission protocol.

They'll probably try and make a case of wire fraud and CFAA as the usual go tos if it wasn't in RF.

Re: Somebody used spoofed ADSB signals to raster the meme of JD Vance

#29

Post by sneak »

andrewstuart wrote: post #27

Please explain the tech.

ADS-B is packet data telemetry broadcast unencrypted and unauthenticated by aircraft on 1090MHz.

Anyone can receive it, and many do. FlightRadar and others have networks of people with receivers that forward all received packets to central servers.

The aircraft self-report location, heading, altitude, etc, so anyone can transmit packets making ghost planes.

I am somewhat surprised nobody has stashed an ADS-B spoofer near ATL or AMS that just broadcasts tracks of A380 tail numbers crossing the runways perpendicular at 500 ft AGL or something. They have primary radar, sure, but I imagine there would still be a temporary disruption until people figured out what was going on.

I think this is the first case I’ve seen of ADS-B spoofing in the wild.

EDIT: this was spoofed reports to the data aggregators via the internet, not broadcast on radio waves. I’ve still never seen or heard tell of RF ADS-B spoofing.

Re: Somebody used spoofed ADSB signals to raster the meme of JD Vance

#30

Post by dpe82 »

zeeZ wrote: post #21
burkaman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most planes broadcast their position using ADS-B, and some websites collect these signals and visualize them so you can track flight paths. Somebody broadcast a fake flight path that draws a picture of JD Vance on these sites: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=adfdf9&lat=26.678&lon=-...

To expand on that, those websites mostly operate on random volunteers self hosting a (starting price) fairly cheap receiver and antenna with an open source stack that feeds the ADS-B data to the website operator in exchange for nothing or free "premium" benefits. The spoofer could have just sent them fake location information drawing an image using latitude, longitude and altitude for color (in the default view fligh…

As a pilot I really hope it's the former. Broadcasting spoofed traffic at minimum would be confusing and distracting to both pilots and ATC.
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