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The surprising thing was how easy it was to do this. Really, all you had to do was look: These planes seem to literally use (unencrypted, easily decoded) trans
by jjwiseman 11y ago
The surprising thing was how easy it was to do this. Really, all you had to do was look: These planes seem to literally use (unencrypted, easily decoded) transponder codes that mean "FBI surveillance", the public records show company names that mostly fit a simple regex, and one of the front companies even has the exact same address as the U.S. Dept of Justice.
- god_bless_texas 11y agoJJ, I love your research on this, with SDR Dongle. I'm building up my ADS-B receiver with a NooTech SDR. One question, you talked about capturing squawks with your SDR - did you try for ADS-B or do you know if these aircraft employ it? This would give you location. Kudos to you, man!
- jjwiseman 11y agoYes, I use dump1090 which can decode Mode S/ADS-B with or without location and Mode A/C.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- RyJones 11y agoalmost like they weren't trying with that last point.
- upofadown 11y agoSince you can look up the aircraft based on the N number using the same transponder code doesn't really make much difference.
- jjwiseman 11y agoYes, but I did it the other way around: I found the aircraft that were using the transponder code, then looked up who they were owned by and what other aircraft they had. That's how I was able to identify potential front companies that don't fit the "XYZ Aviation w/ PO Box in VA" template.
- cagey_vet 11y agoyou do understand that flightaware data is crowdsourced, yes? the data format is trivial to fake, and subsequently upload. i am not saying thats the case here, but implicitly trusting user input makes me skeptical about the entire conclusion.
- jjwiseman 11y agoRead my link from the parent comment: https://storify.com/jjwiseman/tracking-fbi-aerial-surveillance https://storify.com/jjwiseman/tracking-fbi-aerial-surveillan... tldr: I didn't use Flightaware; I observed these aircraft directly using my own receiver, decoding their callsigns and squawk codes, and correlated with FAA records and the company confirmed by the FBI itself to be a front. But it's true, most of this evidence is still circumstantial. Just because a company with an odd name and no internet presence has the same PO Box as the DOJ doesn't prove it's a front company; but it's pretty suggestive.