The demise of ADS-B Exchange?

[Le Addeur noir]

A reported backlash after the sale of this site today has led to the loss of 404 SBS feeds (just over 4% of the total feeds) according to a reliable source.

As of 21:30Z, the site is down,

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/

The loss of this excellent site will be badly felt, if this was to happen.

It looks like ADS-B has been hacked.

https://hackaday.com/2023/01/26/ads-b-e ... s-unhappy/

[Stratofreighter]

...per 2145 hrs Greenwich it still works over here in The Netherlands.

...but indeed
https://www.businessinsider.com/student ... &r=US&IR=T
gives cause for concern...

Student who tracks Elon Musk's jet blasts sale of flight-tracking site he uses to keep tabs on aircraft
Jan 26, 2023, 12:46 AM

The college student who tracks Elon Musk's jet
says he's worried the tracking software he uses to keep tabs on celebrity aircraft
could soon be yanked from the public after it was sold Wednesday.

Aviation data company JetNet said on Wednesday that it bought ADS-B Exchange,
a free website that tracked thousands of commercial aircraft around the world.

Now it's unclear whether the flight information on the ADS-B exchange will remain free to the public.

Jack Sweeney, the 20-year-old student behind the @ElonJetNextDay account and other Twitter accounts that track celebrity jets,
said selling the company
violates the spirit of the air enthusiast community that's powered the site.
He's even calling for a boycott.

Dan Streufert, president and founder of ADS-B Exchange,
said in a statement that the deal would "meet the business needs of our users while maintaining our enthusiast roots and unfiltered data."

The plane-tracking company, which was founded in 2016,
uses more than 9,000 volunteer-run radios, or "feeders,"
to transmit data from ADS-B-equipped aircraft.
ADS-B is a surveillance technology that broadcasts information like GPS location and altitude from one aircraft to another, and to ground stations.

The software was sold for an undisclosed amount.
The website has been popularized by Sweeney, who attends the University of Central Florida.
Sweeney uses ADS-B to follow certain aircraft, like those owned by Musk, Donald Trump, and Taylor Swift.
He then sets up bots to automatically upload their flights to Twitter.

Sweeney took a jab at JetNet and Streufert for the sale,
saying the move undermines the point of creating ADS-B Exchange in the first place.

"The whole basis of the organization was that it's a community," he told Insider.
"Everyone is choosing to give their data to make a community server,
not to a private equity firm or company that is trying to make money."

A spokesperson for JetNet did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.

Meanwhile, Sweeney is calling for feeders to boycott the platform, calling it a "sad day."
He said he's looking for alternatives to ADS-B Exchange,
like creating his own version or using another tracking websites,
like Open Sky Network and airframes.io.


According to the FAA, sharing the public information is legal,
but there are a few federal programs that can help block the tracker,
however the agency acknowledges that these are not a "silver bullet" and can be skirted via ADS-B Exchange.

https://www.businessinsider.com/student ... &r=US&IR=T

[Le Addeur noir]

ADS-B was back up un the UK by 22:00Z last night.

However it appears they were hit by some sort of issue at around 17:45Z yeaterday (26th), which has resulted in a permanent loss of historic data in at least the UK area.

[Le Addeur noir]

ADS-B appears to be in rude health as of the 27th January, however some may be interested to learn that an alternative site has been created with the same aims of the ADS-B site had prior to it's sale, and this is,

https://globe.adsb.fi/

Word is many ADS-B feeds are being transferred to this new site.

So if ADS-B Exchange goes paid subscription only, you know where to come...

[grunt087]

Just from a quick comparison of the two sites globe.adsb.fi had 1900 aircraft being tracked and ADS-B Exchange had 5700 but coverage in my area they seemed the same. I worry that ADS-B exchange might end up a pay site but they claim no major changes will be made for now.

[theguide]

More and more receivers are moving to https://globe.adsb.fi/ and volunteers that previously supported adsbx now support https://adsb.fi

One of the reasons : https://www.jetnet.com/news/jetnet-acqu ... hange.html (more here: https://discord.com/channels/5467766363 ... 2493549578 )