Is it true, I have heard, that ACARS messages are like as expensive as sending data to Hubble, and airlines hate how expensive it is (hence it is not a viable method of transmitting more volumes of more desired data, like position data, regularly etc.) but have no great alternative that they can develop to replace it?
ACARS Drama
81–90 of 110 posts
Re: ACARS Drama
#82Earlier 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?
ACARS isn't ATC traffic. It's semi-private communications with airline company dispatch. Text-based ATC communications is done over a different system called CPDLC (FANS-1/A).
That said, this is no different than listening to any other unencrypted, non-cellular radio traffic. Totally legal everywhere (except a few rare exceptions, like the UK).
And as I mentioned in my other comment, in the US the ECPA specifically says you can listen to aeronautical radio traffic.
Re: ACARS Drama
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's mostly a myth. I've seen a YouTube video in the last couple of years that explained the true origins of the QWERTY keyboard. Originally, the keyboard was alphabetical and arranged two rows, based on a piano keyboard, the black keys went A-N left to right, and the white keys went O-Z, right to left. Then it got shortened in width and the letters got folded over (this is why at the right edge of the middle row y…
This was posted a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43381088
Thanks - I wish I could find the video I watched. I think it had the information in that article, but in a more digestible format.
Re: ACARS Drama
#84What's the legality of this? I was thinking of doing something similar but with POCSAG but from what I can tell it would be illegal because of ECPA(Electronic Communications Privacy Act)
Explicitly legal. ECPA has an carve out for listening to aeronautical radio traffic:
18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(g)(ii)(I/IV):
"It shall not be unlawful under this chapter or chapter 121 of this title for any person to intercept any radio communication which is transmitted by any station for the use of the general public, or that relates to ships, aircraft, vehicles, or persons in distress;... or by any marine or aeronautical communications system."
Re: ACARS Drama
#85Looks 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 tran…
HF is definitely traceable.
Hams make an entire sport of of this ("fox hunting"), and the FCC has a network of automated monitoring stations dotted across the country specifically to determine the location of rogue radio transmissions.
That said, most of the time it's easier to just ignore the radio trolls.
Re: ACARS Drama
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
True. Makes the decision even more baffling.
Keyboards in aircraft instrumentation certainly do NOT predate electronic devices. Given that one-handed operation for instrumentation is almost always the primary mode of interaction, and instrument panels are really just face-plates on quite deep electronic device containers, the idea of a widescreen panel hole profile just to fit the input keys in a different format/aspect ratio does not make sense. Some of the mo…
These are all very good points. Thanks for explaining!
Re: ACARS Drama
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
True. Makes the decision even more baffling.
Keyboards in aircraft instrumentation certainly do NOT predate electronic devices. Given that one-handed operation for instrumentation is almost always the primary mode of interaction, and instrument panels are really just face-plates on quite deep electronic device containers, the idea of a widescreen panel hole profile just to fit the input keys in a different format/aspect ratio does not make sense. Some of the mo…
>if you're going to have to have two simulators? Will type-ratings be transferrable? Will there be separate differences training and/or currency requirements between the two distinct input methods?
Boeing found a way.
Re: ACARS Drama
#88Looks 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.
For a long while I’ve had the plan to spam the hell out of the ingestion points for nonconsensual spyware/telemetry in open source projects, rendering the collected data useless. Been too busy to write the code the last few years.
Re: ACARS Drama
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 tran…
HF is definitely traceable. Hams make an entire sport of of this ("fox hunting"), and the FCC has a network of automated monitoring stations dotted across the country specifically to determine the location of rogue radio transmissions. That said, most of the time it's easier to just ignore the radio trolls.
Yeah, but like other things, as long as the trolls stay in their corner, people tend not to bother them because better in a contained spot than anywhere else. Learning 7200kHz (and 14.313) is 4chan radio and to steer clear is a radio rite of passage; I doubt most people would WANT to fox hunt them because then they're gonna leave and potentially settle somewhere more disruptive.
Re: ACARS Drama
#90Earlier 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!
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 Dic…
How is it that Sweden seems dramatically more inclined to make major changes to things most other societies wouldn't touch?
I'm thinking of the Swedish calendar[1] and Högertrafikomläggningen[2] when they switched which side of the road they drove on.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_calendar: TL;DR: The plan was to skip all leap days in the period 1700 to 1740. Every fourth year, the gap between the Swedish calendar and the Gregorian would reduce by one day, until they finally lined up in 1740... he Great Northern War stopped any further omissions... 1712 had 367 days... 1753... The leap of 11 days was accomplished in one step, with 17 February being followed by 1 March