7 ms·

Ambient Shipping – a project to allow you to look inside passing cargo ships

200 points by dhotson 9y ago

beardbandit 9y ago
Readme was a little vague. Found better documentation here: http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Cargo_Scanner http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Cargo_Scanner
- oatmale 9y ago
  This is a link to a cargo scanner for a video game. The op posted a project that displays the cargo for real ships.
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    whoosh would probably not be a very constructive statement here, but I think that was an intentional humorous post...
- 123e1daAdfafsdf 9y ago
  Seemed pretty complete to me. This reads a radio broadcast ships identifier from an attached SDR and looks up the cargo manifest in an API.
unstatusthequo 9y ago
Great tool for pirates yeah?
- ruytlm 9y ago
  In light of this comment, the sibling comment with the joke link to a space-sim video game cargo scanner seems fitting; pretty sure in-game piracy is the primary use of a cargo scanner in that fictional world, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up the same in the real world.
  - nannal 9y ago
    Always scan the freighter before you and your catalyst buddies suicide gank.
  - zardo 9y ago
    It's main use is the NP-spacecops stopping smuggling. Of course, that doesn't work with a 'scanner' that queries the registered cargo manifiest
- travmatt 9y ago
  I feel like the trick in modern piracy isn't finding a ship, rather knowing how to survive once the US Navy shows up.
new299 9y ago
Wow... I had no idea this kind of manifest information was publicly available. I'm kind of unreasonably excited by this. Using the Enigma datadata I was able to figure find at least one major vendor another player in my industry uses. That information isn't publicly disclosed elsewhere. Really interesting stuff.
- donarb 9y ago
  I seem to recall an article online somewhere about 10-15 years ago that described the process that Apple used when shipping desktop computers. They used some sort of freight forwarding company and were able to mask the owner and contents of the shipping containers to protect against theft as well as speculation by competitors as to the type and number of computers in each container.
  - new299 9y ago
    yes, I imagine if you are interested in masking this information it's absolutely possible but requires some effort. Still interesting to have this as a tool when investigating companies.
- gerhardi 9y ago
  What kind of patterns would be interesting to find out in this dataset? A thought came in to my mind to do some data acrobatics and possibly publish a dashboard based on this data if I can arrange some extra time.. (didnt check any possible terms of use for the data yet)
  - new299 9y ago
    It would be interesting to be able to pick a company and then track the flow of goods to/from that company. For example, I was interested in a particular company so I looked them up, found shipments, searched another table for the shipper, and then googled to find out what they make. But being able to more easily navigate that would be interesting, who else does that supplier ship to? The shipments I saw looked kind of regular, but plotting them on a timeline, with weights, would give me a better understanding of what's happening. Can I correlate shipment sizes with earnings etc? I think there are lots of interesting things to look for.
caf 9y ago
This would be pretty great as an AR app that queried a live shipping map like marinetraffic.com rather than a local SDR for the AIS info.
- thisisit 9y ago
  I could be wrong but the data on marinetraffic.com only says "tanker" or something of that sort. How does only apply that with this kind of data?
  - caf 9y ago
    The AIS data is for getting the vessel position and ID / name, the Enigma Public API would still be used to get the cargo details.
- deepskyhacker 9y ago
  Nice idea, but scrapping MarineTraffic.com data is against the terms, according to MarineTraffic.com. They provide a premium API for that. There are very few real-time AIS data sources that are freely available to the public unfortunately.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    I believe LinkedIn just lost a case for trying to disallow that. I'm not sure of the morality of it, but it looks like it is legal to do so. Citation/info: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/15/16148250/microsoft-linkedin-third-party-data-access-judge-ruling https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/15/16148250/microsoft-linked...
trishmapow2 9y ago
Knew about AIS but not this level of information, SDR has more and more interesting uses every day.
- lyime 9y ago
  What' SDR?
  - FireBeyond 9y ago
    Software Defined Radio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio)
bhouston 9y ago
This could be used for trading I am sure. Proabably already is. Know a company's expected numbers before they are released by correlating ahipments over time. Very very cool. I am reminded of the parking lot analysis from satellite photos some traders were doing.
- icelancer 9y ago
  >> I am reminded of the parking lot analysis from satellite photos some traders were doing. This has been done for years. The smart companies are forging deliveries and movement to manipulate portfolios.
- travmatt 9y ago
  IIRC Bloomberg terminals have pretty extensive information regarding shipping.
AlfeG 9y ago
Would be cool to combine with some AR kit - so that it would be possible to look to ships and see it's info in realtime )
- betimsl 9y ago
  Start a startup!
JosephRedfern 9y ago
Worth noting that (unless I am mistaken, which I may well be) this probably only works in the US, since the AMS is a U.S. Customs system.
gadders 9y ago
I was hoping for screenshots and an app like Flight Radar :-( Not that I can see any cargo ships from where I am, but it would be cool.
- ablation 9y ago
  MarineTraffic.com, though without the cargo manifests.
tyng 9y ago
What an ingenius way to combine two seemingly 'harmless' datasets to reveal powerful insights! I'm sure there are many other possible/potential ways to combine publicly available data, hmmm...
emilecantin 9y ago
I have a marinetraffic.com antenna at home, tried it late last night. The data I get seems a bit out of date (July), so as I understand it, it's US-only at the moment.
En_gr_Student 9y ago
So is this tool meant as a road-map to literal pirates, so they can know what to target and when, or is it to let folks know what pirates know, so they can be taken out by the navies of the world? Seriously - AIS "provides position, speed, heading and other metadata about its movements" and Enigma public gives "what the ship contains".
- grkvlt 9y ago
  You could use it as a basis for an AR type 'virtual pirate' game, where you navigate your pirate vessel around the worlds oceans, trying to track and board actual ships. You would get points based on the types of cargo they contain, and success could be determined by statistics on actual piracy, proximity of naval vessels, public information about the owners previous responses to attacks etc. With the money you earn from stealing cargo you can 'buy' a better pirate ship, or 'employ' more virtual pirates to increase success...? Could be a pretty simple Android or iOS app to write?

200 points by dhotson 9y ago

Readme was a little vague. Found better documentation here: http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Cargo_Scanner http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Cargo_Scanner

oatmale 9y ago
This is a link to a cargo scanner for a video game. The op posted a project that displays the cargo for real ships.
- Karunamon 9y ago
  whoosh would probably not be a very constructive statement here, but I think that was an intentional humorous post...
123e1daAdfafsdf 9y ago
Seemed pretty complete to me. This reads a radio broadcast ships identifier from an attached SDR and looks up the cargo manifest in an API.

unstatusthequo 9y ago

Great tool for pirates yeah?

ruytlm 9y ago
In light of this comment, the sibling comment with the joke link to a space-sim video game cargo scanner seems fitting; pretty sure in-game piracy is the primary use of a cargo scanner in that fictional world, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up the same in the real world.
- nannal 9y ago
  Always scan the freighter before you and your catalyst buddies suicide gank.
- zardo 9y ago
  It's main use is the NP-spacecops stopping smuggling. Of course, that doesn't work with a 'scanner' that queries the registered cargo manifiest
travmatt 9y ago
I feel like the trick in modern piracy isn't finding a ship, rather knowing how to survive once the US Navy shows up.

new299 9y ago

Wow... I had no idea this kind of manifest information was publicly available. I'm kind of unreasonably excited by this. Using the Enigma datadata I was able to figure find at least one major vendor another player in my industry uses. That information isn't publicly disclosed elsewhere. Really interesting stuff.

donarb 9y ago
I seem to recall an article online somewhere about 10-15 years ago that described the process that Apple used when shipping desktop computers. They used some sort of freight forwarding company and were able to mask the owner and contents of the shipping containers to protect against theft as well as speculation by competitors as to the type and number of computers in each container.
- new299 9y ago
  yes, I imagine if you are interested in masking this information it's absolutely possible but requires some effort. Still interesting to have this as a tool when investigating companies.
gerhardi 9y ago
What kind of patterns would be interesting to find out in this dataset? A thought came in to my mind to do some data acrobatics and possibly publish a dashboard based on this data if I can arrange some extra time.. (didnt check any possible terms of use for the data yet)
- new299 9y ago
  It would be interesting to be able to pick a company and then track the flow of goods to/from that company. For example, I was interested in a particular company so I looked them up, found shipments, searched another table for the shipper, and then googled to find out what they make. But being able to more easily navigate that would be interesting, who else does that supplier ship to? The shipments I saw looked kind of regular, but plotting them on a timeline, with weights, would give me a better understanding of what's happening. Can I correlate shipment sizes with earnings etc? I think there are lots of interesting things to look for.

caf 9y ago

This would be pretty great as an AR app that queried a live shipping map like marinetraffic.com rather than a local SDR for the AIS info.

thisisit 9y ago
I could be wrong but the data on marinetraffic.com only says "tanker" or something of that sort. How does only apply that with this kind of data?
- caf 9y ago
  The AIS data is for getting the vessel position and ID / name, the Enigma Public API would still be used to get the cargo details.
deepskyhacker 9y ago
Nice idea, but scrapping MarineTraffic.com data is against the terms, according to MarineTraffic.com. They provide a premium API for that. There are very few real-time AIS data sources that are freely available to the public unfortunately.
- KGIII 9y ago
  I believe LinkedIn just lost a case for trying to disallow that. I'm not sure of the morality of it, but it looks like it is legal to do so. Citation/info: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/15/16148250/microsoft-linkedin-third-party-data-access-judge-ruling https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/15/16148250/microsoft-linked...

trishmapow2 9y ago

Knew about AIS but not this level of information, SDR has more and more interesting uses every day.

lyime 9y ago
What' SDR?
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  Software Defined Radio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio)

bhouston 9y ago

This could be used for trading I am sure. Proabably already is. Know a company's expected numbers before they are released by correlating ahipments over time. Very very cool. I am reminded of the parking lot analysis from satellite photos some traders were doing.

icelancer 9y ago
>> I am reminded of the parking lot analysis from satellite photos some traders were doing. This has been done for years. The smart companies are forging deliveries and movement to manipulate portfolios.
travmatt 9y ago
IIRC Bloomberg terminals have pretty extensive information regarding shipping.

AlfeG 9y ago

Would be cool to combine with some AR kit - so that it would be possible to look to ships and see it's info in realtime )

betimsl 9y ago
Start a startup!

JosephRedfern 9y ago

Worth noting that (unless I am mistaken, which I may well be) this probably only works in the US, since the AMS is a U.S. Customs system.

gadders 9y ago

I was hoping for screenshots and an app like Flight Radar :-( Not that I can see any cargo ships from where I am, but it would be cool.

ablation 9y ago
MarineTraffic.com, though without the cargo manifests.

tyng 9y ago

What an ingenius way to combine two seemingly 'harmless' datasets to reveal powerful insights! I'm sure there are many other possible/potential ways to combine publicly available data, hmmm...

emilecantin 9y ago

I have a marinetraffic.com antenna at home, tried it late last night. The data I get seems a bit out of date (July), so as I understand it, it's US-only at the moment.

En_gr_Student 9y ago

So is this tool meant as a road-map to literal pirates, so they can know what to target and when, or is it to let folks know what pirates know, so they can be taken out by the navies of the world? Seriously - AIS "provides position, speed, heading and other metadata about its movements" and Enigma public gives "what the ship contains".

grkvlt 9y ago
You could use it as a basis for an AR type 'virtual pirate' game, where you navigate your pirate vessel around the worlds oceans, trying to track and board actual ships. You would get points based on the types of cargo they contain, and success could be determined by statistics on actual piracy, proximity of naval vessels, public information about the owners previous responses to attacks etc. With the money you earn from stealing cargo you can 'buy' a better pirate ship, or 'employ' more virtual pirates to increase success...? Could be a pretty simple Android or iOS app to write?