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ACARS Drama

acarsdrama.com

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Re: ACARS Drama

#71

Post by jval43 »

lxgr wrote: post #40
netsharc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different languages have different keyboards (e.g. QWERTZ or AZERTY). I wonder what problems would happen if we reordered the alphabet... For one thing the ASCII ordering is now suddenly jumbled up. Maybe our great supreme intellectual leader Elon will issue Magacode to supersede Unicode, kym epcy epc ngy vky yxcohy!

Sorting lists alphabetically would produce vastly different results by language, for one thing.

Collation rules already differ by locale or language in many programming languages, libraries, and applications.

This is necessary because the order of words or characters is sometimes only sensibly defined if you know the language a text is written in.

Re: ACARS Drama

#72

Post by kotaKat »

MBCook wrote: post #68
isabanin wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FOB is Fuel On Board. Nothing interesting.

Ah that makes sense. Though it certainly doesn’t explain why those messages are worth showing. Edit: oh they seem like small numbers. Like 24 or 36, I’m assuming hundreds of pounds? Could it be they are displayed because they have relatively little fuel left? Example: https://infosec.exchange/@acarsdrama/114196005649300274

Just routine updates to base for routing as needed. Hundreds/thousands of pounds on board. They plan their fuel usage fairly meticulously so base will use it in further calculations.

Re: ACARS Drama

#73

Post by ForTheKidz »

buildsjets wrote: post #45
Suppafly wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is that because the tech is 50 years old from before QWERTY was the standard? QWERTY predates electronic devices.

QWERTY was invented to make input slower on mechanical devices and prevent the mechanical equivalent of a buffer overflow.

> QWERTY was invented to make input slower on mechanical devices and prevent the mechanical equivalent of a buffer overflow.

This is sort of like saying a c compiler is there to stop you from dereferencing null pointers

Re: ACARS Drama

#74

Post by lazide »

lxgr wrote: post #60
outworlder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's broadcast in the clear, unencrypted. Just like all non-military aircraft comms.

> It's broadcast in the clear, unencrypted. But so were analog mobile phones and pagers, and in some countries, even receiving unencrypted voice ATC radio isn't legal.

The whole point of ATC is that everyone in the area is able to figure out what is going on by listening in.

What/how is making listening in on that illegal ok?

Re: ACARS Drama

#75

Post by tyingq »

marcellus23 wrote: post #18

Interesting that the keyboard for these[0] is not a QWERTY keyboard but instead has the buttons arranged alphabetically. That must be a pain in the ass to type in. Is that because the tech is 50 years old from before QWERTY was the standard? Do newer planes have QWERTY? 0: https://acarsdrama.com/fmc.webp Unrelated, this one is cute: https://infosec.exchange/@acarsdrama/114194436695883209

There are ACARS devices with qwerty. Like https://www.aeroexpo.online/prod/spectralux-corporation/prod...

Changing anything significant on an aircraft requires certification though. So you typically have to have a very good cause to do it.

Re: ACARS Drama

#76

Post by lxgr »

marcellus23 wrote: post #18

Interesting that the keyboard for these[0] is not a QWERTY keyboard but instead has the buttons arranged alphabetically. That must be a pain in the ass to type in. Is that because the tech is 50 years old from before QWERTY was the standard? Do newer planes have QWERTY? 0: https://acarsdrama.com/fmc.webp Unrelated, this one is cute: https://infosec.exchange/@acarsdrama/114194436695883209

My guess would be: QWERTZ touch typing was not a common skill in most pilots at the time these were introduced, and an ABC layout is slightly more ergonomical than QWERTZ for users not familiar with either.

Now that's changed, but changing the keyboard now would ruin older pilots' muscle memory.

Re: ACARS Drama

#77

Post by codetrotter »

netsharc wrote: post #37
dhosek wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s long past time to reorder the alphabet to follow QWERTY order. It will make keyboarding much easier for children. We just need to write a new alphabet song.

Different languages have different keyboards (e.g. QWERTZ or AZERTY). I wonder what problems would happen if we reordered the alphabet... For one thing the ASCII ordering is now suddenly jumbled up. Maybe our great supreme intellectual leader Elon will issue Magacode to supersede Unicode, kym epcy epc ngy vky yxcohy!

Fun fact about character ordering:

Swedish sorting traditionally and officially treated v and w as equivalent, so that users would not have to guess whether the word, or name, they were seeking was spelled with a v or a w. The two letters were often combined in the collating sequence as if they were all v or all w, until 2006 when the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens ordlista (The Swedish Academy's Orthographic Dictionary) declared a change.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_alphabet

Re: ACARS Drama

#78

Post by lxgr »

lazide wrote: post #74
lxgr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's broadcast in the clear, unencrypted. But so were analog mobile phones and pagers, and in some countries, even receiving unencrypted voice ATC radio isn't legal.

The whole point of ATC is that everyone in the area is able to figure out what is going on by listening in. What/how is making listening in on that illegal ok?

Not sure about the details, but I suspect it's more a consequence of laws on telecommunication privacy from analog days being very generic than a specific intention to make ATC listening illegal. Opt-out vs. opt-in by frequency and/or purpose, essentially.

That said, it's supposedly still being very much enforced against e.g. planespotters at airshows in some places – no idea what the point of that is.

Re: ACARS Drama

#79

Post by financetechbro »

refulgentis wrote: post #63

There's something a bit off about this: - I know what ACARS, is and understood less of what's going on here after reading the "What is ACARS drama?" - It's an uncomfortable mirror, a reminder that not everything has to become puerile entertainment. I wouldn't call anything I read in the messages "drama" - The odd obsession over framing it as "drama" & humorous, to the point it is difficult to understand the "what is…

I think you are overthinking a fun little project with a memeish name. This stuff is just super fascinating and entertaining to aviation nerds. And using “drama” in the name is just typical hyperbole and almost like gen z / internet slang that you find online.

Comments riffing on the LEO request for PAX TOUCHING PAX is just typical forum stuff. Not something that I condone and somewhat unsavory, but it’s the internet and people riff on much more horrible stuff online. Doesn’t mean it’s okay but just not a specific flaw of this project, imo…

Re: ACARS Drama

#80

Post by PatchworkCasino »

gnfargbl wrote: post #13

Looks like you can "feed the drama" by sending unauthenticated JSON messages to an endpoint that the site specifies? Fortunately, nobody on the internet has the urge to break things just for the hell of it, so I'm sure everything will be fine.

From my experience the tailwatcher and (not) suprisingly related HAM communities are magical in their ability to just trust their community and rarely get burned.

Only 4 active connections allowed per site on a popular HAM webring? Never hogged by bots.

Site that allows minimally authenticated posting of aircraft ACARS messages? Never seen it hijacked for ads.

Physics-limited space for nearly untracable HF radio transmissions that can span half the US? Handfull of trolls that voluntarily relegate themselves to the 'troll freqs'.

It's no surprise the site allows unauthenticated JSON; in the rest of the hobby the FCC makes most types of security outright illegal.

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