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One of the saddest parts of this affair is that he has kicked a hornet's nest. Twitter is one of the homes of the OSINT movement and these moves, including the

One of the saddest parts of this affair is that he has kicked a hornet's nest. Twitter is one of the homes of the OSINT movement and these moves, including the lawsuit against Sweeney, have pissed off enough people in the OSINT movement that they stopped tracking Russian war crimes and the FSB to find where the stalker video was taken. It was nowhere close to an airport. Of course, the person could have followed the car from an airport, but we currently don't have any third-party evidence for that. I don't wish anyone harm. But the response and rage directed at someone merely reposting publicly available information from an API seems to be disproportionate. The excuse used to purge elonjet was being held together by a fairly thin rope that seems to be down to a few threads. From the founder of Bellingcat, https://twitter.com/eliothiggins/status/1603454821700452365 https://twitter.com/eliothiggins/status/1603454821700452365 I looked at the discord on how they did it, and they went frame-by-frame, found a very specific curb, then they looked for that specific curb in the area. After they found the curb, they then cross-referenced it against a building that was visible in a reflection of the car window that they then used to confirm their find. It took them just a few hours. I expect that the more this hornet's nest gets kicked, the closer they'll look. I, personally, wouldn't want to be in their crosshairs. edit — a link to the images, https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1036758130761158677/1053008754456662026/allboxed.jpg https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1036758130761158677/1... https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1036758130761158677/1053008754699943956/loc1boxed.jpg https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1036758130761158677/1... the building itself, https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1036758130761158677/1053014710678720534/image.png https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1036758130761158677... This was done by https://twitter.com/Sepulco1 https://twitter.com/Sepulco1

woodruffw 4y ago
> prosecution Persecution? :-)
- areoform 4y ago
  Good catch ty! In my defense, he is prosecuting a case against him, but it's weird usage so I fixed it :)
Ferrotin 4y ago
Obviously he followed the car from the airport — how else would he identify the car with Elon Musk’s kid?
- dtjb 4y ago
  we don't know anything about the "stalker" other than what Musk said. Musk has been caught lying about his children in the past [1] to justify his Twitter policy swings. I'd like to think he wouldn't stoop so low as to use his kid like that, but the truth is we don't know. Now journalists are being banned for copying word-for-word the police response stating that "no police report was filed" over the stalker incident. [1] https://twitter.com/justinemusk/status/1595506087570333696 https://twitter.com/justinemusk/status/1595506087570333696
  - monksy 4y ago
    It's like journalists don't believe that anything will happen to them. The faster they divest from twitter the better.
    - dtjb 4y ago
      That would be a loss for twitter IMO. I know it's being remade into ground zero for culture war discourse, but there's nowhere else online like Twitter when it comes to breaking news and developing situations. Journalists and reporters sharing information as it's verified real time. When something was going down, you went to twitter.
      - KerrAvon 4y ago
        and now Mastodon is the same thing, but decentralized and not owned by a single point of human failure.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        Well this should be a good lesson in why not to trust something that supposedly is in the public interest to a private company that can easily be bought up by some billionaire with emotional problems.
Orangeair 4y ago
> Don't ever, ever try to lie to the internet - because they will catch you. They will de-construct your spin. They will remember everything you ever say for eternity. Gabe Newell, 2013
- catach 4y ago
  The counter to that is if you spread and repeat your lie far more than the debunkers are wiling or able to spread the truth, then your lie will be the thing generally believed. "A lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on." --various
- dylan604 4y ago
  The internet is written in ink. --someone on the internet in the past
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
akiselev 4y ago
Oh man when I saw that and thought it was in my home town (South Pasadena), I didn't realize it was right at my gas station! It's a block or so down from my favorite Trader Joes too. His allegation makes little sense based on my knowledge of the area. Not only is that location not near an airport but getting to one would take a hell of a long time. Painfully slow arterial roads in every which way except the 110 which goes straight through Downtown LA, usually with very heavy traffic. If you follow Orange Grove north, it enters one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in East LA with some incredible chateau sized houses, so if he wanted to find a rando to frame it makes sense he'd do it from there (assuming he owns property there). Edit: according to [1] the child in question might have been one he had with his ex Grimes and according to [2] she bought a house in the area. Kinda checks out? Except the whole bit about someone stalking them all the way there from LAX [3]! If you were driving from LAX to Pasadena though, this is exactly the place you’d exit the freeway to gas up before heading up Orange Grove to the fancy neighborhoods [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010663 [2] https://observer.com/2018/06/grimes-buys-house-pasadena-los-angeles-elon-musk/ https://observer.com/2018/06/grimes-buys-house-pasadena-los-... [3] https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=37.359&lon=-121.930&zoom=6.0&showTrace=2022-12-13 https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=37.359&lon=-...
- cactusplant7374 4y ago
  Do you have the tweet where Elon says that they were stalked all the way from LAX? The way I read it was Elon was making a tenuous connection all along. He never said his kid was near an airport.
dtjb 4y ago
An important distinction, I think, is that Sweeney (@elonjet) appears to use a different tracker than the publicly available one. PIA is the freely available and public flight tracker, but can be put into private mode which Musk does. Sweeney then (likely) reverts to using non-public ICAO addresses which he identifies by manually coordinating Musk's known plane location/history. I'm not an expert here, just sharing what I've seen. Please offer corrections. https://twitter.com/scottwww/status/1490553502640140288/photo/2 https://twitter.com/scottwww/status/1490553502640140288/phot... https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1603533380150181888 https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1603533380150181888
- akiselev 4y ago
  On his jet registration [1] it lists the code as A835AF and I believe this is the flight to LA in question [2]. This means that he was not using the spoofed ICAO code from PIA, broadcasting the publicly known one instead. [1] https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberResult?NNumberTxt=628TS https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberResul... [2] https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=37.359&lon=-121.930&zoom=6.0&showTrace=2022-12-13 https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=37.359&lon=-...
  - wordsarelies 4y ago
    So few people use a privacy codes it just makes it easier to track if he uses it.
    - Kye 4y ago
      It's the same situation with privacy features in browsers. All it does is give trackers another data point to cross reference with the things you can't or don't think to scrub.
- _djo_ 4y ago
  That's false. Musk's jet is not enrolled in PIA, which is just a programme that obfuscates the ADS-B identifier from the FAA's registry. Spotters can still find the aircraft. However as I said it's not true in this case, the FAA registry entry for the aircraft has the accurate ADS-B hex code identifier, and the aircraft is trackable openly on sites like ADSB Exchange and even using your own ~$20 hardware radio receiver. Sweeney is doing nothing out of the ordinary for this particular aircraft other than linking the ADSB Exchange API to a Twitter account. As an aside, there's also nothing illegal nor morally wrong about spotters deobfuscating a jet that's in the PIA programme either. That's just a fig leaf measure, it's not actually effective.
ac29 4y ago
> It was nowhere close to an airport. Its less than 10 miles from the nearest airport (San Gabriel Valley Airport).
- tedunangst 4y ago
  Is that the airport the jet tracker said Elon was at?

woodruffw 4y ago

> prosecution Persecution? :-)

areoform 4y ago
Good catch ty! In my defense, he is prosecuting a case against him, but it's weird usage so I fixed it :)

Ferrotin 4y ago

Obviously he followed the car from the airport — how else would he identify the car with Elon Musk’s kid?

dtjb 4y ago
we don't know anything about the "stalker" other than what Musk said. Musk has been caught lying about his children in the past [1] to justify his Twitter policy swings. I'd like to think he wouldn't stoop so low as to use his kid like that, but the truth is we don't know. Now journalists are being banned for copying word-for-word the police response stating that "no police report was filed" over the stalker incident. [1] https://twitter.com/justinemusk/status/1595506087570333696 https://twitter.com/justinemusk/status/1595506087570333696
- monksy 4y ago
  It's like journalists don't believe that anything will happen to them. The faster they divest from twitter the better.
  - dtjb 4y ago
    That would be a loss for twitter IMO. I know it's being remade into ground zero for culture war discourse, but there's nowhere else online like Twitter when it comes to breaking news and developing situations. Journalists and reporters sharing information as it's verified real time. When something was going down, you went to twitter.
    - KerrAvon 4y ago
      and now Mastodon is the same thing, but decentralized and not owned by a single point of human failure.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      Well this should be a good lesson in why not to trust something that supposedly is in the public interest to a private company that can easily be bought up by some billionaire with emotional problems.

Orangeair 4y ago

> Don't ever, ever try to lie to the internet - because they will catch you. They will de-construct your spin. They will remember everything you ever say for eternity. Gabe Newell, 2013

catach 4y ago
The counter to that is if you spread and repeat your lie far more than the debunkers are wiling or able to spread the truth, then your lie will be the thing generally believed. "A lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on." --various
dylan604 4y ago
The internet is written in ink. --someone on the internet in the past
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

akiselev 4y ago

Oh man when I saw that and thought it was in my home town (South Pasadena), I didn't realize it was right at my gas station! It's a block or so down from my favorite Trader Joes too. His allegation makes little sense based on my knowledge of the area. Not only is that location not near an airport but getting to one would take a hell of a long time. Painfully slow arterial roads in every which way except the 110 which goes straight through Downtown LA, usually with very heavy traffic. If you follow Orange Grove north, it enters one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in East LA with some incredible chateau sized houses, so if he wanted to find a rando to frame it makes sense he'd do it from there (assuming he owns property there). Edit: according to [1] the child in question might have been one he had with his ex Grimes and according to [2] she bought a house in the area. Kinda checks out? Except the whole bit about someone stalking them all the way there from LAX [3]! If you were driving from LAX to Pasadena though, this is exactly the place you’d exit the freeway to gas up before heading up Orange Grove to the fancy neighborhoods [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010663 [2] https://observer.com/2018/06/grimes-buys-house-pasadena-los-angeles-elon-musk/ https://observer.com/2018/06/grimes-buys-house-pasadena-los-... [3] https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=37.359&lon=-121.930&zoom=6.0&showTrace=2022-12-13 https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=37.359&lon=-...

cactusplant7374 4y ago
Do you have the tweet where Elon says that they were stalked all the way from LAX? The way I read it was Elon was making a tenuous connection all along. He never said his kid was near an airport.

dtjb 4y ago

An important distinction, I think, is that Sweeney (@elonjet) appears to use a different tracker than the publicly available one. PIA is the freely available and public flight tracker, but can be put into private mode which Musk does. Sweeney then (likely) reverts to using non-public ICAO addresses which he identifies by manually coordinating Musk's known plane location/history. I'm not an expert here, just sharing what I've seen. Please offer corrections. https://twitter.com/scottwww/status/1490553502640140288/photo/2 https://twitter.com/scottwww/status/1490553502640140288/phot... https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1603533380150181888 https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1603533380150181888

akiselev 4y ago
On his jet registration [1] it lists the code as A835AF and I believe this is the flight to LA in question [2]. This means that he was not using the spoofed ICAO code from PIA, broadcasting the publicly known one instead. [1] https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberResult?NNumberTxt=628TS https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberResul... [2] https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=37.359&lon=-121.930&zoom=6.0&showTrace=2022-12-13 https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=37.359&lon=-...
- wordsarelies 4y ago
  So few people use a privacy codes it just makes it easier to track if he uses it.
  - Kye 4y ago
    It's the same situation with privacy features in browsers. All it does is give trackers another data point to cross reference with the things you can't or don't think to scrub.
_djo_ 4y ago
That's false. Musk's jet is not enrolled in PIA, which is just a programme that obfuscates the ADS-B identifier from the FAA's registry. Spotters can still find the aircraft. However as I said it's not true in this case, the FAA registry entry for the aircraft has the accurate ADS-B hex code identifier, and the aircraft is trackable openly on sites like ADSB Exchange and even using your own ~$20 hardware radio receiver. Sweeney is doing nothing out of the ordinary for this particular aircraft other than linking the ADSB Exchange API to a Twitter account. As an aside, there's also nothing illegal nor morally wrong about spotters deobfuscating a jet that's in the PIA programme either. That's just a fig leaf measure, it's not actually effective.

ac29 4y ago

> It was nowhere close to an airport. Its less than 10 miles from the nearest airport (San Gabriel Valley Airport).

tedunangst 4y ago
Is that the airport the jet tracker said Elon was at?