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Taylor Swift threatens to sue student who tracks her private jet
- asdefghyk 3y agoRE "...The letter, issued in December, says that the information poses "an imminent threat to the safety and wellbeing" of Swift, calling it a "life-or-death matter" for her........" In my opinion would have to be a exaggeration. Who knows where she goes after leaving the airport. .....
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoIsn't her concert schedule completely public? People do buy tickets for her shows.
- dalore 3y agoYes! by the same logic we should not be tracking her public concerts. The location and times of the concerts should be private information only available to her.
- SlackingOff123 3y ago"He added that he received the threatening letter after media outlets began scrutinising Swift's carbon footprint. In 2022, Swift topped the list of celebrities with the highest private jet CO2 emissions, according to digital marketing firm Yard. The organisation found that her jet emissions were about 1,185 times more than the average person's total annual emissions." Quite the coincidence. . Given this is public information that any potential stalker could easily find themselves, do you think the student is doing anything wrong or illegal?
- Alifatisk 3y ago> The organisation found that her jet emissions were about 1,185 times more than the average person's total annual emissions. I haven’t fact checked this but if that’s true then I find that horrifying.
- viraptor 3y agoI'm surprised it's so low. She's got two private jets and a job which requires multiple flights a month. Also: >Before the tour kicked off in March of 2023, Taylor purchased more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-spent-160-hours-using-private-jet-eras-tour-2023-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-spent-160-hours... Really, I'd be more worried about the total amount of emissions from all the cars/flights from people going to her gigs. That's got to dwarf her own total.
- avery17 3y agoCarbon credits are a scam.
- Alifatisk 3y agoHow? I did a quick lookup and the results points to the otherwise. https://consensus.app/results/?q=Does%20the%20carbon%20credits%20system%20actually%20work%3F&synthesize=on https://consensus.app/results/?q=Does%20the%20carbon%20credi...
- jabbawookiees 3y agoNot sure if this is what GP meant, but one funny thing about carbon credits is that energy producers that produce no emissions but don't do carbon capture (e.g. solar farms) can earn still carbon credits which they can sell to carbon emitters (e.g. steel mills). Zero is not a negative number, so the entire world can one day be "carbon neutral" following this funny accounting and physics won't care.
- viraptor 3y agoThey are in many cases. I was trying to show she at least seems to care enough to try to counteract her own impact. That likely means the tried to minimise the number of fights too.
- pvaldes 3y ago
- leetgirl83 3y agoHow about someone here show us how "public" this info is? Since it is so "easily accessible"?
- Niksko 3y agoA Google search got me the tail number. ADS-B data is easily accessible, there are APIs. Seems like some bigger sites like Flight Aware are already redacting info for her tail number, but it took me a few minutes to find another site that didn't seem to. I think you can credibly make the argument that when these protocols were invented, the intent wasn't for the data to be this public or accessible, and that we could perhaps update the protocols to avoid something like this. But from a technology point of view, saying that flight data is somehow private is like saying that if I set up an FM radio station and someone buys an FM radio and listens in they're somehow snooping on my radio station.
- mnky9800n 3y agoIf they are going to redact her tail number then I would appreciate them redacting mine as well.
- nullindividual 3y agoThis data is absolutely designed to be 100% public and actively broadcasted — by law.
- xenadu02 3y agoAircraft make use of the air space above a bunch of people's random property. They could (in theory) also come down on top of you. I think it makes sense for that data to be public. If you don't like it don't fly. Also you can't prevent this sort of thing. Airplane ADS-B squawks ident info for collision avoidance and to help ATC (Air Traffic Control). The signal is simple for reliability and compatibility. Anyone can receive that data. This whole thing about her carbon footprint is also nonsense assuming those jets are ferrying her crew and equipment that would just have to travel by commercial jet otherwise. Unless it's a lux jet just for her it makes as good as no difference in CO2 emissions whether her jet emits them or she pays United to do it.
- AlchemistCamp 3y agoIt will be interesting to see how differently HN reacts to this story vs the ones just over a year ago about a student tracking (i.e., de-anonymizing) Elon Musk’s jet, and then asking him for money.
- preommr 3y agoFWIW, it's actually the same guy doing the tracking (jack sweeney).
- defrost 3y agoWhy wait? Taylor Swift threatens legal action against student who tracks her jet (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/06/taylor-swift-jet-tracking-legal-threat/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/06/taylor-...) 64 points|exitb|20 hours ago|93 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39274857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39274857 and 11 points|EA-3167|9 hours ago|12 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39283800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39283800
- AlchemistCamp 3y agoBecause the story is still generating comments! :)
- TapWaterBandit 3y agoLol yep, thought the same thing. HN landed hard on the "sucks to be you" side of things with Musk, curious to see where this ends up.
- maximus-decimus 3y agoIt was even the same guy from what I'm gathering.
- preommr 3y agoWhy not just delay updating data by a few days? It provides the same amount of value in tracking carbon emissions and eliminates the safety risk. Like I fully support transparency, and the data is already public, but are we really going to pretend that if in the one out of a million chances something happens to her, and it comes to light that the perpatrator in some form used this app, that it wouldn't sour people's views? It just seems like an unnecessary trouble to go through.
- viraptor 3y agoYou know when she's going to fly based on the tour schedule and past flights anyway. What's a realistic scenario where you can do something bad to her while she's flying, but wouldn't be able to without knowing the precise time? (Keep in mind you can deploy your own ADB receiver to confirm the planes around your location in real time, regardless of the internet)
- lifestyleguru 3y ago"I want attention but not like this"
- zajio1am 3y agoThere is reasonable argument that it is not much difference between tracking someone car and tracking someone private jet. But super-rich are outgroup so most people who would strongly oppose the first case would not care in the second case. The fact that there is flight data system is not much relevant, it could be modified to anonymize data.
- coldtea 3y agoStrange how Elon Musk is not some weird exception it was presented as when shut down an account and complained about the same exact thing...
- lomase 3y agoWhataboutism is so boring.
- coldtea 3y agoYes, double standards are so much more exciting and fun!
- morsch 3y agoMusk's double standards on free speech absolutism made the original feud marginally noteworthy in the first place.
- coldtea 3y agoAnd the exact same thing goes for the double standards of the anti-Musk, pro-Swift crowd on this matter!
- ffgjgf1 3y agoWhat double standards? How is the reaction to Taylor Swift particularly different?
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- pylua 3y agoShe definitely is the darling right now. I wonder if going after this student would change the perception of her in people’s minds.
- sschueller 3y ago"But she needs it for work" I don't think so. I highly doubt all her crew, backup dancers and singers all fly private jet. They either all together charter a larger plane or fly on regular airlines like the rest of us. Fly first class, take a bus or stay home. Only because the schedule isn't as flexible as you like doesn't mean you can go destroy the planet more than the rest of us because it's convenient for you.
- PM_me_your_math 3y ago[dead]
- snickerbockers 3y agoI feel like if we lived in a world which was actually just, we'd be able to enact "COVID protocol" on rich people by forcing them to find ways to do their jobs without flying everywhere. Nobody really "needs" live concerts anymore, and if they do then taytay can just project an image of herself from her basement onto a giant glass screen like she's Hatsune Miku.
- _chu1 3y agoDon't compare Miku to Taylor Swift ever again lol
- Woeps 3y agosue a student... but they're not the only one using/showing this data ... If they would really care they should lobby to make their (or all?) flight data private. (which I find understandable)
- dalore 3y agoIt's tracking her jet, not her. She is free to use something else, and even send the jet to places without her. If I recall she even has 2 jets.
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39274857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39274857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39283800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39283800
- RecycledEle 3y agoGiven the number of people flying on private jets who demand legislation to take away my old pickup truck, I suggest we ban all civilian air travel until it meets 100% of the environmental and safety requirements my old pickup truck has had to meet in its lifetime.