Hey Tay, just Shake It Off. Really. You have no expectation of privacy using public airspace. If you don't want to be tracked, you probably shouldn't be traveling in a flying machine emblazoned with registration marks. Maybe try the train.
Edit: now that I think about it for more than sixteen seconds, couldn't that be a marketing opportunity in disguise (as if her act needs more marketing)? "Know when she flies over your house! Get a selfie with the contrail in the background! Most likes on a tiktok gets a personal response saying thanks for thinking of me!"
Do you have an expectation of privacy when you broadcast signals out of your house using the public electromagnetic spectrum?
FWIW, I'm on the side of privacy being an overrated concern. I've been hearing people yammer on about it since the Slashdot days. It's well-tread territory and I've heard every argument in support of privacy on forums like these.
What I don't see very often is an examination of the negative sides of privacy and the positive side of public information. After decades of privacy, dare I say extremism, we have people who would, eg, do away with public records for private property ownership, which seems anthemic to the very notion of a republic.
EDIT: I'm serious, just downvote away, I know that this is an unpopular opinion, but I would appreciate if at least one person engaged in this dialog beyond clicking a button!
What if someone made a website listing all of everyone's travels, live - where everyone is at all times. It would be dystopian.
I think the free speech issue - it's public data - trumps all. And the risk that powerful people will have different laws and protections, where rights are supposed to protect the vulnerable, would be a very dangerous precedent.
At the same time, I don't think this data should be public for anyone.
> You have no expectation of privacy using public airspace.
Perhaps legally, but as we have seen elsewhere, with computing capabilities, that antiquated (IMHO) notion yields dystopian totalitarianism. Walking down the street in 1789 was anonymous unless someone happened to see you, and then the spread of their knowledge was limited to custom-manufactured physical objects moving at the speed of a horse.
We do have an expectation of privacy generally, and that is nullified if we reduce it to an EM-shielded, soundproofed basement with the windows boarded up.
There are tons of websites listing all commercial flights. If you don’t want to be tracked, you just need to travel like everyone else rather than on a private jet, the most wasteful form of travel.
But it's not everyone's travels. It's the travels of an airplane. Which are all public information.
Her problem is that she feels entitled to tens or hundreds of thousands of times more airplane travel than the average person (private plane only carrying her/her friends), and is trivial to deanonymize.
She should try flying coach. Or at least charter. I've flown on aircraft that also broadcast all their flight information, yet you have no idea about which flights I took - because I am not so vain and self-centered (and wealthy) as to fly in a private, personal jet.
(If she can't handle coach, she could always plane-pool with her other billionaire friends. Then we'd have no idea of where she is at any particular moment. But I understand that takes most of the kick out of private jets.)
I mean, we DO track flights publicly using sites like FlightRadar. Taylor Swift just happens to own a plane and what people track is the plane, not her. If the plan flies without her, the trackers don't know. Not unless they augment that information with spotters that have a clear view of the boarding activity of the plane.
This could be a good argument, but we are specifically talking about flying private aircraft which is public info (and for good reason).
I know it wouldn’t quite work because people would notice it’s Taylor Swift or Elon Musk or whomever but she could fly on a commercial plane like I do and that wouldn’t be tracked publicly.
Unfortunately being an interesting person means people are interested in everything you do. It comes with being famous. Maybe she could stop being on commercials or posting on social media or something to help reduce her popularity since it’s a problem?
> If you don't want to be tracked, you probably shouldn't be traveling in a flying machine emblazoned with registration marks. Maybe try the train.
Note that this exact same argument applies to traveling by private car- The number plates are required by law to be clearly visible, so it must be ok to track as well.
This is blatantly false. Tracking someone in public is still stalking. In fact, it's literally stalking (if you followed someone in a private area, you'd likely get trespassing charges on top).
Bill Murray said that when people claim they want to be rich and famous:
I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job.
As a professional who flies much of her life, ad hoc arrangements would be insufficient. You can't have the overhead and stress of figuring out and adjusting to something new every day. She lives on the road (much of the time) - it's her home, effectively. It's not a vacation or a business trip.
> You can't have the overhead and stress of figuring out and adjusting to something new every day.
you mean like literally everyone else who doesn't own a private jet does? Anyone who can afford a private jet can easily afford to hire someone else to figure out the details and make the needed travel arrangements for them.
On a practical note if privacy and security is so important to Swift she could easily use a fractional program to rotate tail and serial numbers.
Not sure why I find this so grating but the idea that an aircraft using the public commons, funded by taxpayers, as an anonymous medium that conceals their immense wealth sort of strikes me as the equivalent of someone saying “my Benz doesn’t need license plates because I’m really really rich.”
The Privacy ICAO Address Program. You get a temporary ICAO addresses to broadcast which are not associated with the Civil Aircraft Registry and a third-party callsign. Only works in US airspace is my understanding though.
The Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed (LADD) program from the FAA only filters what gets shown in data feeds from the FAA. Something like ADS-B which gets the actual live data from the aircraft is unfiltered.
A few hours later, I found out that Apple's other cofounder, Steve Wozniak, who was a prolific prankster, called up the Cupertino police and reported that a silver Mercedes was illegally parked in a handicapped space and told them the person reporting it was Andy Hertzfeld, giving them my phone number at work.
Airplanes have the equivalent of a license plate painted on the side.
What's different is the broadcast in-the-clear of your information of where you are at all times; not many cars have that feature.
For airplanes, this is the equivalent of broadcasting "Hey, so-and-so is away from home in his airplane; and here's their home address, you are probably safe to go to their house and burgle it."
Unless the aircraft owner has a Delaware corporation for it, of course.
I'm guessing Taylor's home(s) have someone keeping an eye on them even when she's away, so that doesn't seem relevant. It would also apply to anyone with a private jet like hers.
> Not sure why I find this so grating but the idea that an aircraft using the public commons, funded by taxpayers, as an anonymous medium that conceals their immense wealth
How would not being tracked in near real-time conceal their wealth?
Pretty sure they would need to prove an intent to stalk and harass as opposed to being aviation enthusiasts. If Taylor doesn't like it there are a number of ways to avoid being tracked, and the cost to avoid tracking would be a rounding error in computing her daily expenses.
> If Taylor doesn't like it there are a number of ways to avoid being tracked, and the cost to avoid tracking would be a rounding error in computing her daily expenses.
Is that true? I assumed not, because otherwise these celebrities would be doing it. How would it be done?
There are a number of ways to avoid being tracked [1], and interestingly the Vox or NYT podcast where I heard about them indicated that Swift was in the program(s). Based on this quote from the article, it does seem that there are ways to still get the data, "Many private owners signed up for the Limited Aircraft Display Data (LADD) program, but sources that don’t use FAA data aren’t obligated to obey those restrictions and can still publish the information emitted from a jet’s transponder."
In situations like this, I always wonder why you start with a threatening letter from the lawyers, and not just a phone call between the two parties, where one of them would say "hey look, I know you can do this, but it makes me scared for my safety—I think you can understand why—and I really hope you'd consider not doing it". Start from that, rather than just going straight to threats. You can always be a dick later, try being a human first.
That said, I'm actually on her side here. I don't like being tracked on the internet, and I do everything I can to avoid it. I can't imagine someone following me around, and me being persuaded by the argument that I'm in a public space, so I have no expectation of privacy. As far as I know, there isn't another option except to be in the public space if I want to get somewhere. And I think people who track other people because they can, and you can't stop me are in many ways worse than people whose motives are entirely venal. Just act like grown-up, civilized human beings.
> You can always be a dick later, try being a human first.
This I agree with.
> I don't like being tracked on the internet, and I do everything I can to avoid it.
That's the difference. Swift could avoid being tracked by plane too, but she doesn't want to because it would mean she'd lose the advantage of having her own private jet. The price of having a private jet is having your travels tracked. There are a lot of benefits to fame, and a lot of downsides. You take the good with the bad. In the case, the bad is that people are going to know and complain about how wasteful and bad for the environment her air travel is.
Tweeting about where a public figure's private plan goes doesn't even come close to the levels of obnoxiousness that paparazzi rise to.
> As far as I know, there isn't another option except to be in the public space if I want to get somewhere.
And you have no expectation of privacy in public, which is why you are already tracked and recorded every time you step outside no matter where you go just like I am. Neither of us have the kind of money and resources to protect ourselves that celebrities do either.
> The December letter from Swift’s attorney states that Sweeney’s actions are “in violation of several state laws” but does not specify them. The letter does, however, cite nine anonymous Instagram comments
...meanwhile, the fbi (or any agency, dhs etc) has access to everyone's pinpoint location via third party data brokers. yet here we are, arguing for the anonymity of a JET OWNED AND USED BY A CELEBRITY
Sending letters asking people not to do something is also very legal. Also, stalking and/or laws are entirely unrelated to whether or not ADSB data is legally collected. It's a different issue entirely.
It's legal to look in a phone book, but that doesn't mean you can't harass someone over the phone.
Readit News
Edit: now that I think about it for more than sixteen seconds, couldn't that be a marketing opportunity in disguise (as if her act needs more marketing)? "Know when she flies over your house! Get a selfie with the contrail in the background! Most likes on a tiktok gets a personal response saying thanks for thinking of me!"
Replace airspace with "space". Public figure in a public space. They always want the perks without the cost.
Now, not being harrased is another thing. But not being noticed? (Specially in an airplane) Haters gonna hate.
Epilogue: Yes, any publicity is publicity. I am even considering her AI releases, and the acompaning complains, a public stunt.
What does this mean? Do you mean that she arranged for AI porn of herself to be released?
FWIW, I'm on the side of privacy being an overrated concern. I've been hearing people yammer on about it since the Slashdot days. It's well-tread territory and I've heard every argument in support of privacy on forums like these.
What I don't see very often is an examination of the negative sides of privacy and the positive side of public information. After decades of privacy, dare I say extremism, we have people who would, eg, do away with public records for private property ownership, which seems anthemic to the very notion of a republic.
EDIT: I'm serious, just downvote away, I know that this is an unpopular opinion, but I would appreciate if at least one person engaged in this dialog beyond clicking a button!
I think the free speech issue - it's public data - trumps all. And the risk that powerful people will have different laws and protections, where rights are supposed to protect the vulnerable, would be a very dangerous precedent.
At the same time, I don't think this data should be public for anyone.
> You have no expectation of privacy using public airspace.
Perhaps legally, but as we have seen elsewhere, with computing capabilities, that antiquated (IMHO) notion yields dystopian totalitarianism. Walking down the street in 1789 was anonymous unless someone happened to see you, and then the spread of their knowledge was limited to custom-manufactured physical objects moving at the speed of a horse.
We do have an expectation of privacy generally, and that is nullified if we reduce it to an EM-shielded, soundproofed basement with the windows boarded up.
Her problem is that she feels entitled to tens or hundreds of thousands of times more airplane travel than the average person (private plane only carrying her/her friends), and is trivial to deanonymize.
She should try flying coach. Or at least charter. I've flown on aircraft that also broadcast all their flight information, yet you have no idea about which flights I took - because I am not so vain and self-centered (and wealthy) as to fly in a private, personal jet.
(If she can't handle coach, she could always plane-pool with her other billionaire friends. Then we'd have no idea of where she is at any particular moment. But I understand that takes most of the kick out of private jets.)
I know it wouldn’t quite work because people would notice it’s Taylor Swift or Elon Musk or whomever but she could fly on a commercial plane like I do and that wouldn’t be tracked publicly.
Unfortunately being an interesting person means people are interested in everything you do. It comes with being famous. Maybe she could stop being on commercials or posting on social media or something to help reduce her popularity since it’s a problem?
Note that this exact same argument applies to traveling by private car- The number plates are required by law to be clearly visible, so it must be ok to track as well.
Deleted Comment
I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job.
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/bill_murray_411631
As someone else here said, she could fly on different (unknown) people's private jets, or a private jet service's.
Oh, but then it wouldn't be tricked out exactly the way she wants it. Tiny violins.
you mean like literally everyone else who doesn't own a private jet does? Anyone who can afford a private jet can easily afford to hire someone else to figure out the details and make the needed travel arrangements for them.
As I said: tiny violins.
Not sure why I find this so grating but the idea that an aircraft using the public commons, funded by taxpayers, as an anonymous medium that conceals their immense wealth sort of strikes me as the equivalent of someone saying “my Benz doesn’t need license plates because I’m really really rich.”
The Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed (LADD) program from the FAA only filters what gets shown in data feeds from the FAA. Something like ADS-B which gets the actual live data from the aircraft is unfiltered.
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/equipadsb/privacy
Reminds me of Job's trick around that - https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/steve-jobs-car-apple-ceo-l... (and probably what you're referring to).
The rich will always have ways of throwing money at annoyances that us poors do not have; and we will always laugh at them for it.
A few hours later, I found out that Apple's other cofounder, Steve Wozniak, who was a prolific prankster, called up the Cupertino police and reported that a silver Mercedes was illegally parked in a handicapped space and told them the person reporting it was Andy Hertzfeld, giving them my phone number at work.
Deleted Comment
What's different is the broadcast in-the-clear of your information of where you are at all times; not many cars have that feature.
For airplanes, this is the equivalent of broadcasting "Hey, so-and-so is away from home in his airplane; and here's their home address, you are probably safe to go to their house and burgle it."
Unless the aircraft owner has a Delaware corporation for it, of course.
How would not being tracked in near real-time conceal their wealth?
Is that true? I assumed not, because otherwise these celebrities would be doing it. How would it be done?
[1] - https://robbreport.com/motors/aviation/how-airliners-keep-pr...
That said, I'm actually on her side here. I don't like being tracked on the internet, and I do everything I can to avoid it. I can't imagine someone following me around, and me being persuaded by the argument that I'm in a public space, so I have no expectation of privacy. As far as I know, there isn't another option except to be in the public space if I want to get somewhere. And I think people who track other people because they can, and you can't stop me are in many ways worse than people whose motives are entirely venal. Just act like grown-up, civilized human beings.
This I agree with.
> I don't like being tracked on the internet, and I do everything I can to avoid it.
That's the difference. Swift could avoid being tracked by plane too, but she doesn't want to because it would mean she'd lose the advantage of having her own private jet. The price of having a private jet is having your travels tracked. There are a lot of benefits to fame, and a lot of downsides. You take the good with the bad. In the case, the bad is that people are going to know and complain about how wasteful and bad for the environment her air travel is.
Tweeting about where a public figure's private plan goes doesn't even come close to the levels of obnoxiousness that paparazzi rise to.
> As far as I know, there isn't another option except to be in the public space if I want to get somewhere.
And you have no expectation of privacy in public, which is why you are already tracked and recorded every time you step outside no matter where you go just like I am. Neither of us have the kind of money and resources to protect ourselves that celebrities do either.
It's legal to look in a phone book, but that doesn't mean you can't harass someone over the phone.