US Says Plane Finder App Threatens Security 524
ProgramErgoSum writes "The Plane Finder AR application, developed by a British firm for the Apple iPhone and Google's Android, allows users to point their phone at the sky and see the position, height and speed of nearby aircraft. It also shows the airline, flight number, departure point, destination and even the likely course-the features which could be used to target an aircraft with a surface-to-air missile, or to direct another plane on to a collision course, the 'Daily Mail' reported. The program, sold for just 1.79 pounds in the online Apple store, has now been labelled an 'aid to terrorists' by security experts and the US Department of Homeland Security is also examining how to protect airliners. The new application works by intercepting the so-called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcasts (ADS-B) transmitted by most passenger aircraft to a new satellite tracking system that supplements or, in some countries, replaces radar."
fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Be afraid! Everything is a threat!
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and we can't take away all your freedoms unless you are afraid...
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Haha, wish you sit on a plane which has been pointed at by an iPhone.
Re:fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Knowledge is Power. Power can be used by the Terrorists. Ban Wikipedia.
Re:fear (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if this app is banned the mere fact that this is possible means terrorists can write their own programs. If they want to protect air lines they should devise some means securing this automatic signal.
Re:fear (Score:4, Insightful)
Which would defeat the purpose of ADS-B, as it's a replacement for radar. You want other aircraft in the area to know where you are, and hence you really don't want to restrict what is receiving that signal (even if you limit it to just aircraft, someone could always take an ADS-B decoder from their aircraft and spit the signal out over IP).
Re:fear (Score:5, Insightful)
New DHS directive:
Everyone who is not an obese whining imbecile is to be considered a threat.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm fucking dangerous. I'm eating a carrot and reading the dictionary. I'm bugs bunny on a plane.
Re:fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Already done? (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this any different from a website like flightstats.com, and I'm sure there are plenty of other sites like that too. It isn't difficult to figure out where the planes are. The app probably only makes it marginally easier to view this data on a phone. Sounds like much ado about nothing
Re:Already done? (Score:5, Interesting)
Its different because the data fed to flightstats is delayed for exactly this sort of reason. The app developers are intercepting identifying signals transmitted directly by the airplanes closing the gap between real-time and that delayed by a government-mandated time period. I'm an airplane geek so I would love an app like this. In the meantime, I'm stuck decoding ACARS transmissions with my laptop. I love watching planes take off over my house and have pictures of the plane get automatically downloaded from airliners.net. Way cool.
Re:Already done? (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to understand how anyone can complain when they failed to institute basic encryption policies to protect such data.
It would make no sense to block the application because it's obvious the work can be easily reproduced.
If this was ever a concern they should have at least implemented some basic protections.
Re:Already done? (Score:5, Insightful)
The worst thing which can happen is for the ATC system to not be able to see the aircraft because a key is wrong. Concerns about terrorism are secondary.
Re:Already done? (Score:5, Insightful)
Concerns about terrorism are never secondary.. The 3,000+ people killed by terrorists the the US in the last decade are a far greater concern than the best part of 200,000 other murders over the same period. fewer than 40 people killed by terrorists in the UK in the last decade are a greater concern than than close to 3,000 killed by other murderers over the same period, or something on the order of 30,000 from each of road accidents and suicide.
It follows that a risk of a terrorist attack is of greater concern then the risk of accidents, even if the latter is a greater threat in terms of the number of people killed.
Do you expect a rational policy?
Re:Already done? (Score:5, Interesting)
What's the point of encrypting these signals? I'm pretty certain you could derive enough of the information in them with a database of airline schedules, background knowledge of the routes airplanes take, and some on the spot information about the plane (which was was it heading? What time is it right now? What flights were delayed recently?) which is freely available stuff if you just crawl the airline websites. The airplanes only broadcast it to make things a bit easier for air traffic controllers; it's nothing a theoretical terrorist group couldn't figure out on their own.
Also, you can count on the fingers of one head the number of times a commercial airplane has been shot down with a missile in the USA, so basically this is a non-problem.
Re:Already done? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most terrorists won't have access to heavy-duty surface to air missiles - at best they'll have Stingers, which aren't very good at chasing high-altitude aircraft (effective range of 3 miles).
-Chris
Re:Already done? (Score:5, Funny)
the single best time to shoot down a plane for a terrorist is when it's nearing it's terminus (either takeoff or landing)
-knock-knock-knock-
"Sir, you're under arrest for providing information terrorists might find useful. You have the right to..."
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Already done? (Score:5, Insightful)
The app developers are intercepting identifying signals transmitted directly by the airplanes closing the gap between real-time and that delayed by a government-mandated time period
Really? Which radio in the iPhone is being used to intercept those signals? The GSM/WCDMA radio? The Wi-Fi radio? The Bluetooth radio? The GPS radio?
I infer from Pinkfroot's "Share Data" page [pinkfroot.com] that their apps just get the ADS-B data over the Intertubes from people who have ADS-B receivers and make the data available.
Re:Already done? (Score:5, Insightful)
I infer from Pinkfroot's "Share Data" page [pinkfroot.com] that their apps just get the ADS-B data over the Intertubes from people who have ADS-B receivers and make the data available.
And if I'd Read The Entire Fine Article, I wouldn't have had to infer; The Fine Article says exactly that:
The firm behind the app, Pinkfroot, uses a network of aircraft enthusiasts in Britain and abroad, who are equipped with ADS-B receivers costing around 200 pounds to intercept the information from aircraft and send it to a central database.
Wouldn't it make more sense, then, to ban the receivers rather than the apps? It sounds like all the app is doing is aggregating data that's already available. A resourceful terrorist could write his own software to do that.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It sounds like all the app is doing is aggregating data that's already available. A resourceful terrorist could write his own software to do that.
A resourceful terrorist already owns an ADS-B receiver... Five seconds of googling, I found a web site with simple instructions for building your own. The idea that a terrorist will be able to obtain munitions and technology required to take down an airplane but will decide not to use it because they can't get an app for that is just too funny for words.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No, not Tuesdays. If we're gonna ban any day, then it must be Mondays. I don't like Mondays.
Re:Already done? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's bad (Score:4, Insightful)
If something could potentially be used in a bad way, even if most people aren't going to abuse it, it must immediately be banned! So, basically, anything that can be used as a weapon, too. Which is... pretty much everything.
Coming up next - mandatory blindfolds! (Score:2)
Mandatory blindfolds or hoods. Include the flight crew, because God might tell them to crash another plane [wikipedia.org].
-- Barbie
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, people already don't want to fly, and who can blame them? China has the right idea with their new record-breaking high-speed trains. And for trans-ocean voyages, a slow cruise is more pleasant anyway - or just teleconference. It's not like we don't have the technology.
In a backwards way, the terrorists are actually helping to make the planet a bit greener, except that the US military is the world's single largest user of fossil fu
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't want to fly commercial any more, and it's not due to fear of ter'rists. It's out of anger that my government is not approaching this scientifically. They are ignoring forensic science and not profiling, out of fear of offending foreign nationals. Because they refuse to profile, I have to check luggage rather than carry it on (I usually bring tools with me), I can't bring bottle water or soup on the aircraft with me, and am stuck eating airplane food - which invariably makes me sick due to allergies.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Plus I've heard a few horror stories. Friends in Australia pay extra when coming to Canada just so they can avoid landing in the US. Not because they're terrorists or on any watch list or "look ethnic", but because they simply don't want the hassles at the end of a long flight.
Been there - I went through Vancouver instead of LA :)
A few hundred dollars vs having to negotiate LAX and the end of a long trip overseas. No brainer really. Especially now they're charging for the visa waiver programme. The fee is nominal, I presume the real purpose is to get your credit card details.
Re:It's bad (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd have thought that the _problem_ is that the aircraft is broadcasting its position, not that somebody wrote an app to listen to the signal.
If some Android developer can figure out how to do it, so can anybody else.
But...go ahead, ban the app if it makes you feel better.
Re:It's bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's bad (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure I can think of anything less stealthy than a commercial airliner, really. They're huge, noisy, and covered in running lights. The only use I can think of for this app for a hypothetical terrorist is to identify a particular aircraft, but we are talking about terrorists here. They typically aren't known for their choosiness in civilian targets. The point is to scare a population by killing a large chunk of largely random people, after all. Binoculars would suffice to target a particular aircraft type or airline, if they're already in range for a shoulder launched SAM, anyway.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The source of this story was the Daily Mail, that also brought us such superb journalism as this [destructoid.com].
Re:It's bad (Score:4)
Absolutely, because we can all pick up a Stinger missile at the Walmart, but intercepting the location ourselves is just beyond the realm of possability.
Re:It's bad (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not about legitimate security concerns. as a SAM would hit the aircraft regardless of whether or not an app captured transponder data and superimposed it on a map or not. In fact this app would probably not help a terrorist very much at all, except possibly with identifying a specific aircraft - but don't you think that the terrorist would have receivers already, be listening to VHF transmissions between the cockpit and air traffic control, and so on?
This kind of app is most useful for aviation nuts who like to track weather, aircraft flights, and other trivia no one will care about a day later. It is good for GA to know what's in the air around you (ignoring FCC and FAA regs about cellphones in the air), and it's particularly good for seeing for yourself how busy air space is along your intended route as you plan.
What is this whole stink all about?
Homeland Security Theater. It's about time for the season premier episode and this seems to be it. It is all about a Wizard of Oz like production where we are supposed to watch the media rantings, and not seeing the puny man behind the curtain for the farce he is. It is all about continued existence of Homeland Security and the huge tax burden it creates to support that woefully inadequate charade while not doing what it takes to actually prevent terrorist attacks (e.g., profiling international flight passengers, deporting illegal aliens, stopping illegal immigration, I mean, invasion, at the borders). It is about forcing Americans to embrace the idea of big government, a nanny state, and a global government with no checks and balances.
It is not about real security at all. It's about a temporary apparent security for which we are exchanging our essential liberties.
Re:It's bad (Score:5, Insightful)
I was worried when I realised that the local bus company had posted information telling us the routes and times of the bus services in the city. If it weren't for the drivers doing their best to randomise their arrival times, terrorists would use this information for nefarious purposes!
I saw a kind of foreign looking guy the other day. Close call that.
Yes, let's all focus on the iPhone apps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes, let's all focus on the iPhone apps... (Score:5, Funny)
... instead of, say, the surface-to-air missiles
Hey, I have a right to bear arms. You iPhone users can git your own amendment or else you can git out!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
... instead of, say, the surface-to-air missiles
Hey, I have a right to bear arms. You iPhone users can git your own amendment or else you can git out!
I really don't think the 2nd amendment makes allowances for the possession of strategic or tactical air defenses.
Speaking of which, instead of spending time on worrying about iPhone apps, maybe these terrorism "experts" should be concentrating on preventing terrorists from gaining access to surface-to-air missiles.
Re:Yes, let's all focus on the iPhone apps... (Score:5, Interesting)
The intent behind it does, really.
The whole "well-regulated militia" bit likely intends to give citizens the right to be sufficiently well-armed to constitute a significant military force -- that's what a militia is. At the time, that consisted of rifles and pistols, but any modern significant military force would necessarily include RPG's, MANPADS, and the like.
If you really want the Second Amendment to mean what it originally was intended to mean, then yes -- private ownership of these weapons is Constitutionally guaranteed. I don't think this is a good idea, but this position requires changing the meaning of the 2nd.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And realistically, the 2nd amendment really ought to be updated to provide people with the right to secure communications.
Re:Yes, let's all focus on the iPhone apps... (Score:5, Insightful)
The intent behind it does, really.
The whole "well-regulated militia" bit likely intends to give citizens the right to be sufficiently well-armed to constitute a significant military force -- that's what a militia is.
As I read it, the 2nd Amendment directly refers back to Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 16, which states that Congress gets to arm the militia. Given that, couldn't you extrapolate that since you'd get your weapons from Congress, what weapons you're allowed to get would be decided upon by them?
Re:Yes, let's all focus on the iPhone apps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hate to reply to myself... But I had to add this:
The fact is, in a direct way, current law does in fact require males of the 17-45 age bracket to own at least a basic weapon applicable to modern military service. In other words: Evil. Scary. Black rifles. Preferably Automatic.
Re:Yes, let's all focus on the iPhone apps... (Score:5, Insightful)
The typical interpretation that I've seen from the more conservative pro-gun groups is that it includes any weapon up to and including what would normally be used by a single infantryman in wartime. So you can have rifles, smaller anti-tank weapons, and MANPADS, but anything crew-served is out.
And where does the 2nd amendment say that?
The Constitution implicitly assumes the private ownership of warships (see 'letters of marque and reprisal'), so the idea that the founders would have been shocked by private ownership of crew-served weapons seems rather silly.
That said, I'm not sure I'd be too happy with rednecks towing 105mm howitzers behind pickups with a rack of Stingers in the back.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you comply with Federal requirements, you can own (and shoot!) artillery.
It's a bit expensive, so you usually find only mortars and cannon for sale.
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Browse.aspx?SearchType=0&Timeframe=0&Keywords=*&Cat=3100&Items=50 [gunbroker.com]
The owners are typically well-behaved, and it isn't a poor man's hobby.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And where does the 2nd amendment say that?
The Constitution implicitly assumes the private ownership of warships (see 'letters of marque and reprisal'), so the idea that the founders would have been shocked by private ownership of crew-served weapons seems rather silly.
Personally, I'm more for the spirit interpretation of the 2nd. The goal of the 2nd, in the eyes of the guys who had just overthrown the official government, was that The People should have enough firepower to take down the government if necess
Re:Yes, let's all focus on the iPhone apps... (Score:5, Interesting)
The relevant question is not "what would shock the founders" -- hell, a country where you can't keep slaves anymore would be a shock to many of them.
Well, the Constitution did have to be amended to ban slavery. Don't get me wrong - I hate slavery with a passion, but it was the law of the land, and the founders clearly intended for it to be the law of the land.
When you think about it, individuals owning guns has always been fairly well-correlated with freedom.
Feudalism was very oppressive, and its power derived from the expense of equipping soldiers. An effective military force required a horse (a specialized breed not useful for farming/etc), and all kinds of armor and gear. It also required a squad of support personnel for every knight (to maintain all that gear, and carry it around - it isn't like the knight hiked across Europe in plate and they didn't ride war horses around either).
When guns came out, it changed everything. Now a poor man could be issued a relatively inexpensive musket and they were as powerful as anything the enemy could field short of a siege weapon. The siege weapons themselves weren't all that expensive either - you didn't need many of them and they didn't require feeding like war horses/etc, and they didn't have to be built to fit a particular man like armor. Nobody needed armor, since armor was useless anyway. Guns democratized warfare, and the nobility vanished.
In theory modern weapons carry this even further, except that nobody is allowed to own inexpensive but effective weapons like RPGs/etc. So, power is becoming more concentrated among those who are allowed to own weapons. On the other hand, when needed anybody who controls the police could quickly equip at least a 3rd-world grade army inexpensively.
Now, the flip side to all of this is that more powerful weapons also greatly increase the amount of damage a single nutcase can do to the rest of society. In the middle ages a guy with a sword couldn't really do more than slash up a few people at church or something before being overcome. Even a guy with a barrel of black powder could only do so much since there wasn't anything big to blow up that wasn't also made to withstand siege. Today, just about anybody can get their hands on enough armament to wreak quite a bit of havoc - to the point where now nuclear proliferation is becoming a big concern.
I'm not sure what the solution is - to some extent the genie is out of the bottle. However, I'm not convinced that giving every redneck a howitzer and a MANPAD is going to make things better. Certainly that would make me think twice about flying...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Plain finder application does not "threaten" security. It's not a person to be threaten. What is threatened here is your precious freedoms, which you declare left and right and do very little to fight for.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yes, let's all focus on the iPhone apps... (Score:5, Interesting)
The UK developed an air-to-ship missile during WWII that was (and I shit you not) pigeon guided.
Pigeons were shown silhouettes of German battleships and rewarded with food whenever they pecked on them. Then pigeons were mounted in the transparent nose of a glide missile. There was a glass panel in front of them connected to actuators, so if the ship was off to the left the pigeon would peck on the glass and the missile would turn left.
Absolute genius. I don't know if it was ever used in anger, but the theory is sound.
Re:Yes, let's all focus on the iPhone apps... (Score:5, Informative)
That would be the US, not the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon [wikipedia.org]
Re:Yes, let's all focus on the iPhone apps... (Score:5, Funny)
Besides - I'm pretty sure you have to agree not to use your device for anything involving terrorism or nuclear or biological weapons when you sign up for your iTunes account. So terrorists couldn't use it anyway.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yes, let's all focus on the iPhone apps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also note that the iPhone app works because THE AIRPLANE IS BROADCASTING THIS INFORMATION CONSTANTLY. If this information is a security threat, why did they create an air traffic control system where this information is public? If you can't be arsed to encrypt your own broadcasts, is it really shocking when someone actually reads them?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, where does it say the "US" said ANYTHING? (Score:5, Informative)
The linked article and the summary says that "he programme, sold for just 1.79 pounds in the online Apple store, has now been labelled an 'aid to terrorists' by security experts and the US Department of Homeland Security is also examining how to protect airliners." The Daily Mail article says "The US Department of Homeland Security is also examining how to protect airliners."
Nowhere does it say the "US" or any US official has said the application "threatens security". In fact, the only official to say anything in the article was a UK official, a British MP, who said, 'Anything that makes it easier for our enemies to find targets is madness. The Government must look at outlawing the marketing of such equipment.'
So basically, the only thing that comes close to any "government" entity calling this application a threat is a British politician, and the "US" has actually made no statement about this application whatsoever, other than a reference in one sentence of the article that DHS is "examining how to protect airliners", and is not, as the headline implies, calling for the app to be pulled or censored, or indeed, even talking about the app at all.
Great sensationalism, guys. The best part of this is that the comments are howling with the typical anti-US-government complaints, when the "US" hasn't said anything about the app at all. What I come to expect from slashdot.
Aid to terrorists, eh? (Score:5, Informative)
Did Anybody Read the Fucking Article?? (Score:5, Informative)
I expected these typical responses from people didn't even bother reading the article. Of course slashdot got the headline wrong, but that's to be expected as well.
The fact is that nobody in the US government has said this app is an aid to terrorists. Its just something that is supposed by a couple of random people. I don't know how slashdot comes to the conclusion that the "US" (government I presume) exclaimed this.
In short, this entire article and summary is just flamebait and you suckers just got trolled hook, line and sinker. The editors should be ashamed of themselves.
Re:Did Anybody Read the Fucking Article?? (Score:5, Informative)
You need to finish reading sentences. The actual line reads, "The programme, sold for just 1.79 pounds in the online Apple store, has now been labelled an 'aid to terrorists' by security experts and the US Department of Homeland Security is also examining how to protect airliners."
That means security experts have called it an aid to terrorists, and that the DHS is looking into protecting airlines (which they're kind of always doing, since it's their job). It does not mean that DHS has called it an aid to terrorists.
Re:Did Anybody Read the Fucking Article?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Selective quoting is wonderful.
But come on, that sentence is badly written in the first place.. It is so easy for someone without the full knowledge of the English language to get the wrong idea...
Re:Did Anybody Read the Fucking Article?? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, it is pretty bad. Still, this is the Daily Mail. Expecting quality English from them is like asking a lynch mob of confused and angry Mail readers to take off their shoes before storming a hospital to bring an end to their foul plot to use the MMR vaccine to bring about an Islamic caliphate in what used to be a very nice town in which children respected elders and England won the world cup every week.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Oh how I wish...
a bit late (Score:3, Insightful)
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It really does sound like a "working as designed" problem. Honestly, if you design something to broadcast data with no technical security policies at all, you really can't complain when your data gets intercepted and used for things you can't control. Removing the iPhone app doesn't even remotely fix the problem either, of course, since this kind of device could just be purpose-built.
Make your own. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Anything that makes it easier for our enemies to find targets is madness. The Government must look at outlawing the marketing of such equipment."
Perhaps they should consider banning the ADS-B transmitters, then?
In any case, banning the app would do nothing to anyone with the funds for a SAM. See this document [www.lll.lu] to make your own reciever.
I reserve judgement (Score:2)
until I see a story from a source other than the Daily Fail.
It should be banned (Score:5, Insightful)
Because terrorists would never, ever be able to find out this information by themselves, or crash their plane into an airliner by, uh, looking for it in the sky while they're flying.
Have we now moved on from security theater to security standup comedy? At best this seems to be a DHSvertisment telling terrorists where to get useful apps for their iPhone. which they might otherwise never have heard of.
Re: (Score:2)
"Because terrorists would never, ever be able to find out this information by themselves"
No, they wouldn't. They need iPhones to accomplish all of their evil deeds!
Me too (Score:3, Insightful)
If it can be done with a phone app, then obviously it can be done in other ways by terrorists.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck ... dont vote for it
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
What conceivable use is this to a terrorist? I've been considering this for a few minutes now. My kneejerk reaction was that the government is being fucking stupid. Then I pondered on exactly how knowing which plane is which is at all helpful. Any ideas anyone? Perhaps I'm focusing too much on the hijacking scenario, and someone could use it to select a target for a SAM. But that just doesn't seem likely, since I would think you would already know your target if you go through the trouble of bringing a SAM to an airport.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
My kneejerk reaction was that the government is being fucking stupid.
The government is not being stupid ... talk up another story about terrorists ... keep the population worried about being blown up by [insert current bad boys here]. A population that is scared is easier to abuse and keep under control.
Paraphrasing an old joke ... (Score:5, Insightful)
US Department of Homeland Security (Score:2, Troll)
Here's an idea: How about protecting the borders and allowing ICE to deport illegal aliens who are already here? That would be a great first step.
Re: US Department of Homeland Security (Score:5, Insightful)
I live sixty miles from the Mexican border. We have a bunch of undocumented/illegal aliens here. They are not terrorist threats; only very few are criminals. Most of them are ordinary people who just want a chance to live like anybody else.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: US Department of Homeland Security (Score:5, Informative)
The UFW has been trying to get people to come take those jobs, and it's been tough going, few people are desperate enough to take the jobs. I'm not sure what the current number is, but as of when Colbert was covering on his show, the number was under 20, and definitely way under a hundred.
Re: US Department of Homeland Security (Score:4, Insightful)
Undocumented workers pay income tax and payroll taxes [usatoday.com], too. They're the ones who should be having tea parties - they get taxed, but they don't get the vote.
Re: US Department of Homeland Security (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution is to remove the cheap labor from the equation completely
Here's a better solution: Make it easy for the cheap labor to come into the country legally. The farmer would then have to comply with all of the labor laws to employ them, including minimum wages. No more $2 per hour melon pickers.
Most of the problems with illegal immigration (the actual problems, not the imaginary problems) boil down to having this class of people in the country who don't dare interact with the US legal system. Make them legal, and all of those problems disappear.
Make it a crime to employ an undocumented worker.
It is a crime. It needs to be a bigger crime, though, and we need a good way to catch such employers.
I suggest turning the people who absolutely can't be fooled about the employee status against the employers. Who absolutely knows the legal status of the employees? The illegal employees themselves. Offer a green card to any illegal who rats out their boss, throw the boss in jail, and very quickly you'll find that no one is willing to employ anyone who can't prove they're legal.
Make it a crime to pay someone less than minimum wage
Again, it is a crime. And because it's a crime, it doesn't happen -- except when the employees are afraid to use the legal system.
or better yet, a crime to pay someone less than fair market wages
What's a fair market wage? And how can the market set a fair wage if no one is allowed to pay one penny under whatever that wage is? Markets require a range of prices offered to settle on a price that is fair. This suggestion makes no sense.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's another idea: how about preventing the crimes that are already happening in this country!
Wait--was the original story about, again?
So stupid (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone with a SAM can see if a plane is right there! They don't need an iPhone app to tell them what they are looking at is a plane. Have they had issues with terrorists accidentally targeting endangered condors with missiles by mistake?
airports - where are they? (Score:5, Funny)
Here comes the stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
I get this argument from idiot alarmists all the time:
"We can't allow for the last link of dissemination of information to the public at large to exist, but it's okay for the information to be available. We just need to make it *less* available."
This sort of argument appears to stem from one or many of a few beliefs:
1) Terrorists are too stupid to get this sort of information from less casual sources.
2) Of all of the speedbumps to becoming a terrorist, figuring out where the flights are was the thing that was holding people back.
3) They had no idea that we had this information available (this is a variant of 1),
4) It's okay to leave information we consider dangerous out in the open, as long as you can't get it without knowing the right URL (or, in this case, the right frequencies). This isn't quite what crypto nerds mean when they say "security through obscurity isn't security at all," but it's pretty relatable.
And to think, US Cyber command is under the impression that they don't need geeks. If this is what passes for an understanding of safety and security in our government, we're just doomed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Stupid argument (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a stupid argument because it is so extremely simple to figure out when to shoot down an aircraft with a SAM anyway.
You already know the approximate time when it will takeoff since that is public knowledge since the passengers needs to know.
Most airports has only one or two runways. You can easily figure out in which direction the plane is going to start (it will start at the same direction as the ones before it, probably into the wind).
Now you can simply put ourself outside the airport at the point where the plane will fly right over you at a low altitude off perhaps a couple off hundred yards. The guys that photos planes position them self correct every time with this knowledge.
The reality is that aircrafts is extremely exposed and easy to shoot down with SAMs since it is easy to get them during landing and takeoff and you can't fence off an area big enough to protect them.
encrypt tower to plane radio first (Score:4, Insightful)
tower: AC310 heavy drop to 30 thousand and proceed to outer marker on heading 31 you are clear for runway
Hm, I wonder where AC310 heavy is ?
That's what ADS-B is supposed to do. (Score:5, Informative)
That's what ADS-B is supposed to do [faa.gov] - give anyone who wants it a picture of what's in nearby airspace. It may have been a mistake to implement that capability and mandate that the transmitters be installed on aircraft. But, with that done, bitching about people using the data is pointless.
An attacker could buy a general aviation ADS-B receiver [navworx.com] for $1495 and get the same data on an HP iPAQ. So this only protects against terrorists with very low budgets.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
OMG, I'll save you some money [www.lll.lu], not even terrorist should go broke on their quests.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not very low budgets. I mean, they've got to afford the surface-to-air missiles first. But after the missiles all they had left was enough to buy an iPhone, a two-year contract, and a $2 app.
And hopefully some lunch, because they're just gonna walk outside and wait until a plane shows up overhead in range, and they're gonna get hungry sitting there.
Homeland Security... (Score:5, Funny)
step 4 ... (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Mention that the Department of Homeland Security also thinks about security threats
3. Get article mentioned on Slashdot where people still don't RTFM in any detail, but do like to shit bricks that mention DHS in any context
4. Get traffic to ad-driven site
And thanks to the Strisand Effect... (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks to the Streisand Effect [wikipedia.org], Plane Finder AR [apple.com] will doubtless skyrocket to the top of the charts by the end of the day.
If this were a legitimate security risk, they just did about a thousand times the damage that it would have been had they ignored it. Pathetic. This is why efforts like the Cyber Command [wikipedia.org] is such an obvious failure to anyone with a lick of Internet-savvy before it was ever launched.
More likely concern (Score:5, Interesting)
As many here have pointed out, it's absurd to think that this app would be useful for a terrorist who has the resources to obtain a surface to air missile. If you're going to shoot down a civilian plane, do you really need to know the flight number? Or do you just pick the one you see above you?
A more likely concern is that the device can be used to reveal government misconduct. It was hobbyist plane-spotters who, through their observations of civilian air traffic, exposed the CIA's Torture Jet flights [washingtonpost.com] or "extraordinary renditions", wherein they kidnapped people abroad and transferred them to third countries [newyorker.com] like Egypt, Jordan and Uzbekistan for interrogation using tortures that even the CIA wouldn't use (I guess there still are some).
If the choice is between ceasing their crimes against humanity, or trying to cover them up better: they prefer the latter strategy.
app is kinda crappy (Score:3, Informative)
I live in a flight path to LGA, planes go over every five or ten minutes and often *blink* the apartment with their shadows. Which is kinda neat. But I think there's a misapprehension about this app. I t doesn't receive ADS transmissions, it relies on (some group of users other than app users) to submit the data to a db. Planes fly over my apartment every five or ten minutes. I've had this app open for an hour and none of the overflying planes were reflected in the UI.
Of course, if they were, I'da downed them with a SAM, which I never felt the need to do when they are flying over til now.
Threat? You're joking, right? (Score:4, Informative)
No US passenger airline has equipped with ADS-B yet. In fact, most of them are fighting tooth and nail *not* to, because they don't want to spend the money.
The only thing the bogeyman of "terrorists" would be able to track with this app is UPS aircraft (UPS is helping the FAA test NextGen and has fleetwide ADS-B now, IIRC) and private planes that have chosen to equip with ADS-B.
This is a non-story. Next.
p
Re:OMG (Score:4, Informative)
You're absolutely right, and it's all rather sad. We're talking about data at the end of the day, and as we're all aware it can work all ways. American Airlines' website is custom designed to produce data of use to "terrorists". As is the UK government website, Slashdot, CNN and Google.
All of them intentionally produce useful data from a huge set. This data can be used for terrorism. And booking flights, reading the news or finding things incidentally.
For those who don't know the Daily Mail, they're technically a UK newspaper but are frequently closer to Stewart/Colbert satire, if unintentionally. They basically use conservative outrage to push the paper, and usually promote "the enemy" in the process. There was an unofficial competition between various alcoholic drink manufacturers a few years back to see who could get the most publicity from the Daily Mail by producing a 40% ABV drink and subtly suggesting it was worse than .
Re:OMG (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:OMG (Score:5, Insightful)
DHS might be able to stop corporations, but they can't stop me from publishing the source code:
PA LAW: "The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man, and every citizen may freely speak, write and print on any subject." ----- MD LAW: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution thereof, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people thereof..... the liberty of the press ought to be inviolably preserved; that every citizen of the State ought to be allowed to speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege."
And so on across all 50 Member States. Nobody at the US level has the right to block publishing or sharing source code of programs I or thers create
Aside -
I found this bit of the Bill of Rights interesting: "Monopolies are odious, contrary to the spirit of a free government and the principles of commerce, and ought not to be suffered." And yet the BGE and Comcast monopolies exist. Perhaps the Maryland government should buy-out the wires and lease the lines to any company that wished to use them (BGE, PPL, comcast, cox, appletv, etc). i.e. Consumer choice is a right.
Re:OMG (Score:4, Informative)
>>>BGE does not have a monopoly
Yeah Maryland has choice for the supplier, but who owns the electric wires and natural gas pipes? BGE.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Places like FlightAware and others actually have a direct feed from the FAA which provides, among other things, radar data of aircraft all around the US. FAA feeds are required to be delayed, with the only except