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

alecmuffett.com

101–110 of 162 posts

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

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not "rely" on, but some definitely use public ADS-B aggregator sites.

if there is any critical aviation service using a 3rd party website that relies on volunteer reporting of data, they deserve whatever happens

[dead]

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

#102

As other commenters noted, this is almost certainly not RF spoofing, just sending bad data to an aggregator (ADS-B Exchange) over the internet. This instance of spoofing is notable for being the first that I know of that wasn't primitive vector art or text, but a raster image! In that area of Florida multiple receivers would have picked up actual ADS-B broadcasts. ADS-B aggregators do have various anti-spoofing measu…

(Of course if you were spoofing ADS-B RF signals you wouldn't necessarily need to be anywhere near the spoofed locations. Just like with GPS spoofing.)

Surely the receiver would run plausibility checks on the received messages and reject spoofed locations that are physically impossible to receive by said receiver?

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

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be a surprise to you but it is a surprise to me because there are many other characters that he could be a fan of , he's literally giving Putin top billing here, right next to a picture of what seems to be him and his granddaughter. What's next? Pol Pot? Stalin? Kim?

I really recommend you read Bob Woodward's four most recent books, starting with Fear [¹] . They give us a fascinating look into Trump's mind, and we get frank discussions from Trump and the people around him about how he not only idolizes strong men like Putin and Kim, but wishes he could be more like them if it weren't for the limits on his power and weak people around him (i.e. more feared/respected by his subordi…

That word works two ways: it shows that Trump would like to be feared, but he's not, it also shows that he's probably very scared, especially of the people he's sucking up to.

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

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be a surprise to you but it is a surprise to me because there are many other characters that he could be a fan of , he's literally giving Putin top billing here, right next to a picture of what seems to be him and his granddaughter. What's next? Pol Pot? Stalin? Kim?

Well he certainly likes Kim https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/us/politics/trump-north-s...

Kim wrote him beautiful letters, in Trump's own words, "and then we fell in love"

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8OG3U66X9w

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

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Of course if you were spoofing ADS-B RF signals you wouldn't necessarily need to be anywhere near the spoofed locations. Just like with GPS spoofing.)

Surely the receiver would run plausibility checks on the received messages and reject spoofed locations that are physically impossible to receive by said receiver?

> spoofed locations that are physically impossible to receive by said receiver?

Wait until you hear about Sporadic-E or Aurora. RF is a weird place full of natural phenomena making the impossible very possible.

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

#107

As other commenters noted, this is almost certainly not RF spoofing, just sending bad data to an aggregator (ADS-B Exchange) over the internet. This instance of spoofing is notable for being the first that I know of that wasn't primitive vector art or text, but a raster image! In that area of Florida multiple receivers would have picked up actual ADS-B broadcasts. ADS-B aggregators do have various anti-spoofing measu…

Just because I don't often get a chance to talk about this, I'll mention that there was a malfunction/accident/bug that caused what you might call spoofed signals to go out around Long Island and New York. Really interesting case where it seems that an FAA system wasn't handling magnetic declination correctly, which led to it generating false TIS-B targets that were rotated 13 degrees from real aircraft positions, fr…

Wow, that would appear to have some potential for bad stuff to happen.

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

#108
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably, the history of this aircraft shows MLAT as the source for all tracking. This spoof is the first ads-b “track” for this plane. But there’s so much wrong with the data: 50k ft at 80knots (ground speed!) in a 747.

Dang, dude invented a 747 that's incapable of stalling.

Groundspeed, not airspeed.

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

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are non-radar towers that don't have scopes. They may have a traffic display, or maybe not. They might choose to use a public ADS-B aggregator site because it gives them situational awareness, but they don't use it to provide radar services to aircraft. That's my understanding from listening to a lot podcast episodes with air traffic controllers, anyway. I think it's an unofficial, non-FAA approved kind of thin…

> They might choose to use a public ADS-B aggregator site because it gives them situational awareness I do not understand what the upside is, aside from saving a tiny amount of effort and cost -- they could get the same data with more reliability by just running their own ADS-B receiver, without having a dependency on a third-party.

> they could get the same data with more reliability by just running their own ADS-B receiver, without having a dependency on a third-party.

Setting up an ADS-B receiver is indeed very cheap. Less than 100$. That's what many people, both aviation enthusiasts and ham radio operators, do for fun.

The problem is, do that on an airport? You'll now need permits to install the antenna (needs to be covered in the lightning protection system and even if it's just a passive receiver probably someone needs to sign off on an antenna being added). Fire code means you'll need approval and specialized people to run the cable (you need to drill holes in fire walls). Maybe there's some law or regulation requiring approval or causing a paper trail (e.g. in Germany, all electrical appliances have to be isolation-tested and visually inspected every two years by an electrician). Doing that the proper way is an awful lot of work. And by that point, someone will notice "hey, a Raspberry Pi? An RTL-SDR stick from eBay? No way that is certified to be used in a safety critical environment", killing off the project or requiring a certified device costing orders of magnitude more money.

In contrast, a privately owned laptop, tablet or phone with the Flightaware app? No one will give a shit about it unless someone relies on FA too much, causes an incident and that is found out.

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

#110
post #98

Unless I'm much mistaken, Vance's face is centered over Mar-a-Lago! https://maps.app.goo.gl/fjqtAa2qgcWsJvFfA https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=adfdf9&lat=26.680&lon=-...

If you get the DF17 frames and extract the airborne position messages Type Codes 9–18. Then CPR decode them into latitude/longitude....plus plot enough spoofed positions so the point cloud forms a QR code like raster on the map, then scan the rendered pattern...you get a URL to the unredacted Epstein files.

Hehe, you had me all the way to the punchline, that was funny.
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