edit 3: Also seeing this jet listed. (N-628TS) https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af , Seem to be a couple of jets used by elon musk and/or spacex. YMMV. At least some of them are trackable at least.
Looks like the popular ADS-B aggregators have deleted the data "at the request of the operator" which makes it sleazy at best to call it "private data."
How does that make the data non-public? His plane is still broadcasting it into the air and anyone with an antenna can pick it up and share the already public information. Sure, a few of them have been bullied by Elon into not doing so. But that doesn't make the information non-public. It just makes Elon a sleazebag who can't be trusted to hold his word.
So PIA in a nutshell means that you can request a private identifier for your plane, that is not publicly linkable to you.
And if the identifier is compromised, you can request a new one.
Which would make the identifier itself, and its real-time location, public information, but the knowledge of who owns the identifier would remain as private information.
> Which would make the identifier itself, and its real-time location, public information, but the knowledge of who owns the identifier would remain as private information.
Yes and no. Tracking airplanes is something hobbyists have been doing for decades; there are people who hang out by airports and record every flight in and out. The PIA program can be useful for realtime masking but the information is far from secret — nor should it be, imo.
> "Elon Musk, for example, has a Gulfstream and there's only so many people that fly that particular plane out of Brownsville, Texas and fly to the same airports," Sweeney told Insider.
> ...
> "These privacy mitigation programs are effective for real-time operations but do not guarantee absolute privacy," an FAA spokesperson said. "A flight can still be tracked in other ways such as a Freedom of Information Act request, www.LiveATC.com, ADSB Exchange, or a frequently departed airport."
Would this count as stalking though? I pulled up a definition on Google and
> According to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), the legal definition of "stalking" means "engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her safety or the safety of others or suffer substantial emotional distress."
Using an antenna to figure out somebody's approximate location and publicizing it, when that somebody already has stalkers going after his children [1], seems like it would cause reasonable fear
If Elon Musk is legitimately afraid for his or his family's safety, it is strange that he did not file a police report and blocked people on Twitter for suggesting he do so.
Moreover, the narrative he's presenting doesn't make sense. Not only did the @ElonJet account not tweet for over 24 hours prior to the alleged incident, but people have determined that the location doesn't make sense for what he's claiming.
Hard to find the specific comment I was looking for. I think this is one of the main sources, in addition to ElonJet not having tweeted on December 13th (the day of the alleged incident).
This is only sort of true. While not having ADS-B Out does limit where you can fly, it is not illegal to fly a civil aircraft without ADS-B Out equipment. The following rules are the most relevant:
If your aircraft is equipped with operable ADS-B Out equipment, it is illegal not to turn it on. 14 CFR 91.225(f).
If you wish to fly in Class A, B, or C airspace, within a Mode C veil, or in Class E airspace above 10,000', you must have ADS-B Out. 91.225(a) and (d).
There is no rule implementing a blanket requirement for all civil aircraft to have ADS-B Out.
You would be surprised how much airspace this leaves open to aircraft without ADS-B Out. You can in fact fly across the entire country, legally, without it.
And in my experience ATC could not care less whether you have ADS-B Out. 91.225 is riddled with "unless authorized by ATC," and practically speaking, in thousands of hours of flying I have never seen an aircraft turned away because of a lack of ADS-B Out. I've asked some controllers about this directly and it makes no difference to them.
EDIT: I should add that in Musk's case this ADS-B business is all a little bit of a red herring, because the second you get radar services, your data is public regardless of ADS-B status.
Whatever you think of Elon up until this point, I don't see how you can find him reliable/trustworthy. He specifically said that @elonjet was ok and then reversed course on that.
Has anyone actually made a link between a plane being tracked, and his car somehow being tracked too? Probably not because they are unrelated, but it sure sounds scary in a short angry tweet
Elonjet is in the air transmitting ADSB. From what I remember it’s a Gulfstream that flies higher and faster than anything commercial. A would-be attacker using this data wouldn’t be able to get anywhere elonjet is destined for before elonjet.
Elon almost certainly has armored vehicles that can protect against any small arms fire and entire teams of security at each source and destination that almost certainly secret service-esque secure the area in advance. He also likely has security that secures the plane at rest.
So he arrives at the source/destination and likely goes directly to a secured hangar for the movement between armored road vehicles and the plane.
What are we worried about here, someone with an RPG, Stinger, or maybe a .50 cal in some advantaged position? Someone planting an IED on the route, runway, etc? Any sophisticated and determined actor who would be able to deploy such means could definitely get the location data with or without a Twitter bot.
Meanwhile he’s regularly at Twitter HQ, Tesla, his favorite restaurants, his kids go to schools, etc. People walk around in the open…
Elonjet is almost certainly the strongest and most secure aspect of his and his family’s life. If some murderous wacko (or group) wanted to go after him or his family there are much “easier” ways to harm, kidnap, etc.
This almost certainly has to be about wealth and power exceptionalism that essentially says “I didn’t buy a Gulfstream AND Twitter so people can track MY jet on MY platform".
> A would-be attacker using this data wouldn’t be able to get anywhere elonjet is destined for before elonjet.
If he flies random routes, that’s true, but I doubt he does. You could figure out where he flies regularly, move there, and prepare your ambush.
Having real-time data adds that you can tie it to your alarm clock, and better time your final preparations. You wouldn’t have to suspiciously camp out for hours at an airport, for example, getting tired and risking discovery.
Now, is that significant? Maybe, if he’s paranoid enough to put a lot of variation in his flight patterns, but I doubt it. Also, as you say, “Any sophisticated and determined actor who would be able to deploy such means could definitely get the location data with or without a Twitter bot.”
Every person (no matter how wealthy or powerful) has routines in all aspects of life and you're right that elonjet flies somewhat predictable routes. All of my points about the security of any routine aspect of elonjet movement applies to Elon and his family outside of elonjet. Again, restaurants, external meetings, offices of his various companies, etc. For his family it's likely even more predictable - schools, playdates with friends, extracurricular activities, etc.
I am genuinely trying to understand the "security risk" argument for this move. At the risk of the internet classic "I have a friend..." I do have a retired Army Special Forces (Green Beret) friend who's former "co-workers" I've met do high profile executive protection and have described what their work looks like because it's obviously fascinating - that's where I got this general "security playbook" from. They literally adapt head of state, diplomat, etc active warzone-level security measures for their services.
It's been mentioned by guests on the Joe Rogan podcast that even at his level he's surrounded by former elite-level military security at all times. Comments like "Wow, when I got to the studio today I wasn't expecting there to be Navy SEALs everywhere".
I still believe, all things considered, that elonjet almost certainly has to be the most secure aspect of movement for Elon and his family.
...Flight plans are public record, and must be filed ahead of time. I'm not aware of the acceptability of deviating from them; IFR I believe may be verboten, but VFR you might have leeway.
Besides which, taking the "scenic route" while flying completely defeats the point of flying being the most direct way to get from point A to point B. Hence the front loading of the airport security model.
You do as little "in air" security as possible, because that crap is horrifyingly expensive because physics.
I've personally flown on private IFR flights where the flight plan was filed something like 10 minutes (or even less) before departure (or amended several times, etc). It doesn't seem like a good way to go about knowing where someone is. Everything regarding elonjet only applies to the aircraft and it's likely he loans out his aircraft to other execs/employees at his companies, miscellaneous friends and family, etc. So even if you somehow developed some methodical and resource-intensive master plan to attack the aircraft or movement associated with it you wouldn't have any guarantee you'd get your intended target.
A missile defense system was announced for Gulfstream aircraft at a cost of about $3.5m[0], which for a ~$65m aircraft isn't really that expensive...
Can I track the real-time location of well-known LGBT activists?
The rules should be simple and the same for everyone.
- Have free speech, so you can argue for OR against any idea (abortion, immigration, LGBT, cryptos, whatever);
- Harassment, abuse, threats, doxxing, etc. are not tolerated against anyone.
Basically, target ideas but not individuals. It's a simple rule, really.
This is the second time in a month now that Elon has justified actions which go directly against his previous statements by using his children as props (not to mention we have no idea if the events that he claims happened with said children even happened).
Children are sacred, just the possibility of harming one makes you inhuman, so the easiest way to shut down and dehumanize your opponent is imply they hurt children. They used to do it with accusations of communism and before that witchcraft.
1. The PD in question couldn't confirm that Musk even filed a report about this incident (but that they were reaching out to Musk) according to a journalist who send an inquiry. We have no proof that this happened to begin with beyond claims by Musk and a blurry picture of a car. Musk banned the journalist who send the inquiry to the PD from Twitter. I would note that the journalist did not mention ElonJet in any form, just that there was no verifiable proof that it had happened.
2. Said picture of a car was location-traced by someone involved with Bellingcat to be extremely far away from any nearby airports; Musk suggests that someone was tailgating the car in question from the airport if I recall, but this would be absurd and not really possible given the distance. If the incident happened to begin with, it was most likely unrelated to ElonJet. He's blatantly using an incident with his child to ban an account he personally doesn't like.
To be clear, it's his full right to do this, but there's some irony in how the guy bloviating about free speech absolutism for weeks on end changes tune to "only the speech I like" the second he finds an excuse to do so.
Also going after journalists reporting on this is pathetic, not to mention shows a blatant disregard for freedom of the press, and as history has shown us time and time again, getting a journalist to shut up tends to just make them more vocal because of the Streisand Effect. More people than ever know about ElonJet than before he banned it and his repeated attempts to prevent people from linking to Mastodon.social and other big Mastodon instances because that's where the ElonJet guy went have only caused more reporting on it.
But no video of the incident actually taking place. Quite surprising that Elon apparently is not aware of the dozen or so cameras on a car made by the company he owns!
>
Yeah I think you'd change your tune as well if some psychopath attacked your infant child.
This is demonstrably false; last I checked, Elon didn't even file a police report.
> Sweeney said he hasn't received any notification of legal action, and the last time his bot tweeted anything was Dec. 12, "which is not last night, so I don’t get how that’s connected.”
I personally think this is an emotional overreaction and, based on the location of the recent incident (far from his plane), I think @ElonJet was not involved (and probably doesn't pose any threat to Elon), but I don't think that means his previous statements were a lie.
Anyone would change their mind and overreact after an attack on their child.
And in a broader context, the new policy seems like a good idea. In general, I suspect real-time location tracking does more harm than good, and none of us would tolerate a website tracking our location.
an alleged attack, the evidence for which is a single video that was a shot not at the airport when the plane wasn't in the same city; note, too, no police report was filed about the supposed incident.
I generally take people at their word, but Musk in particular has used up every last bit of benefit-of-the-doubt credit I had for him. I pretty much gave up on Musk when he tried to insert himself into the Thai cave rescue, and wound up calling the guy who actually saved the kids a pedophile because his mini-sub idea was bad and he couldn't handle the perceived slight.
Let's say it wasn't. Let's say it went down exactly as described. That leaves Musk with a lower threshold for banning legit journalists than he for filing a police report. Not impossible, but rather weird.
Why is there no footage from any of the multiple cameras on the Tesla that was allegedly attacked? It would be trivial for him to obtain that if it exists.
There won't be a police report. Many people have investigated Elon's claims, and determined that the alleged incident could not have taken place when or where he claimed it did.
Filing a false police report is a crime. It's only a misdemeanor, but if Elon's stupid enough to go down this route a conviction for a crime of dishonesty can be used against him in court to impeach any testimony he gives until his dying days.
The ultra-wealthy have complained for years about this. There's actually a method to get temporary and anonymous call signs for PJs through the FAA, but it's not supported internationally, so every time you leave US airspace you have to yank and reprogram the box. So basically Musk doesn't appear to be using the tools the government gives the ultra-wealthy to avoid scrutiny of their travel, probably because it's inconvenient, but he reserves the right to complain endlessly about it.
Are we at that point where the accounts that mention those who mentioned said accounts are banned yet? Twitter was banning journalists last night so I imagine they are going to be banning journalists talking about the banning of journalists.
We're going to have to rename the Streisand Effect before the end of all this.
At least one of the journalists suspended last night had just retweeted another journalist's post that had screenshot the @joinmastodon post linking to ElonJet there.
If you are ok with Elon Musk (or any other plane) being trackable, you should be ok to have your license plate tracked and your movements published wherever you go.
I’m fine with planes being tracked, I’m not necessarily fine with cars being tracked.
Cars don’t have to broadcast their location to not get blown up by air defense. Planes do. And we’re legally allowed to listen to all wireless frequencies.
Your argument doesn’t make sense. If tracking plane registrations and making that data publicly available is ok to you - you should also be fine to have your license plate scanned and your movements made publicly available to everyone.
Otherwise you are a hypocrite.
Broadcasting your location to “get avoided being blown up by air defense” is just pure non-sense. Collision avoidance yes, but what country are you living in believing that the military would just shoot down planes from the sky?
Nearly every country will shoot a plane that’s not identifying itself out of the sky. Especially after 9/11. It’s actually policy in a lot of countries now.
Generally would happen after a visual confirmation though.
Anyway, cars don’t carry the same type of power that planes do. Cars are being tracked in most countries anyway, just that the data isn’t public.
Finally there is nothing stopping you from making a “install this software on your webcams to monitor car locations” is there? If you’re so non hypocritical, go make that software and convince folks to run it, because that’s how airplane tracking happens.
Unless you’re arguing that planes shouldn’t carry radios with them and that countries should be fine with unidentified planes in their air space?
Yes, I’m absolutely fine with unidentified planes in airspaces. And maybe could you cite how often planes were shot down because “they didn’t carry radios”? Such nonsense.
The data with car movements not being public is exactly the point. I’m certainly not going to start tracking people’s license plates and further accelerate some dystopian society.
And no: license plates aren’t tracked everywhere. EU laws for example are rather strict about that.
So what you’re saying is that the FAA shouldn’t publicly post flight data?
Because that’s the issue, the data is already public. it’s not about whether we have a right to track planes or other vehicles, it’s that plane coordinates are already public information.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread”
The law also requires rich and poor alike to register their private jets and broadcast their locations when in flight. I'm sure Elon has no problem not being allowed to sleep under a bridge, and I have no problem with my private jet being tracked. Cars is a bit of a false equivalence. If he wanted privacy, he could drive
License plates and cars are already tracked and that data, along with cell phone data, is sold to the highest bidder.
Palantir, founded by Elon Musk's friend Peter Thiel, is in-part responsible for making wide-scale invasive surveillance accessible to government and private industry. Elon Musk has personally hired private investigators to "stalk" people he doesn't like or suspects of wrong-doing.
It goes beyond Musk in my opinion. The elite are annoyed that every peasant now has the technological ability to photograph and disseminate their actions and whereabouts. Show their lies and hypocrisy for all to see.
The cat is out of the bag though. The same technology that allowed Musk to become a cult figure can be used against him.
I recommend "Slowness" by Milan Kundera, he has some interesting thoughts about elite/popularity/celebrities. To be honest one can be pretty "elite" without gaining this amount of popularity. Elon is trying to become a celebrity with his actions so he shouldn't complain that people treat him like a celebrity.
It's hard for me to give an example of anonymous US billionaires, but the richest guy in Poland is pretty much anonymous. Last time I checked there were no photos of him, no biography, and even people in his big company didn't know how he looks sometimes.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 156 ms ] threadedit 1: Presumably should be visible here, if airborne... https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ac70d2
edit 2: TIL about privacy ICAO, but not sure how effective. https://nbaa.org/aircraft-operations/security/privacy/privac...
edit 3: Also seeing this jet listed. (N-628TS) https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af , Seem to be a couple of jets used by elon musk and/or spacex. YMMV. At least some of them are trackable at least.
- https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n900sx
- https://de.flightaware.com/live/flight/N900SX
So PIA in a nutshell means that you can request a private identifier for your plane, that is not publicly linkable to you.
And if the identifier is compromised, you can request a new one.
Which would make the identifier itself, and its real-time location, public information, but the knowledge of who owns the identifier would remain as private information.
Yes and no. Tracking airplanes is something hobbyists have been doing for decades; there are people who hang out by airports and record every flight in and out. The PIA program can be useful for realtime masking but the information is far from secret — nor should it be, imo.
> "Elon Musk, for example, has a Gulfstream and there's only so many people that fly that particular plane out of Brownsville, Texas and fly to the same airports," Sweeney told Insider.
> ...
> "These privacy mitigation programs are effective for real-time operations but do not guarantee absolute privacy," an FAA spokesperson said. "A flight can still be tracked in other ways such as a Freedom of Information Act request, www.LiveATC.com, ADSB Exchange, or a frequently departed airport."
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-appears-use-faa-to...
> According to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), the legal definition of "stalking" means "engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her safety or the safety of others or suffer substantial emotional distress."
http://www.oxfordlegal.com/legal-definition-stalking/
Using an antenna to figure out somebody's approximate location and publicizing it, when that somebody already has stalkers going after his children [1], seems like it would cause reasonable fear
[1]: https://nypost.com/2022/12/15/elon-musk-shares-video-of-craz...
https://nitter.it/pic/orig/enc/bWVkaWEvRmtBR0FsUGFjQUE4MjQzL...
https://nitter.it/@ZacksJerryRig/status/1603286484785586178
Moreover, the narrative he's presenting doesn't make sense. Not only did the @ElonJet account not tweet for over 24 hours prior to the alleged incident, but people have determined that the location doesn't make sense for what he's claiming.
Details on this?
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1603454821700452365
Don't worry they want to classify that as cyber stalking next.
If your aircraft is equipped with operable ADS-B Out equipment, it is illegal not to turn it on. 14 CFR 91.225(f).
If you wish to fly in Class A, B, or C airspace, within a Mode C veil, or in Class E airspace above 10,000', you must have ADS-B Out. 91.225(a) and (d).
There is no rule implementing a blanket requirement for all civil aircraft to have ADS-B Out.
You would be surprised how much airspace this leaves open to aircraft without ADS-B Out. You can in fact fly across the entire country, legally, without it.
And in my experience ATC could not care less whether you have ADS-B Out. 91.225 is riddled with "unless authorized by ATC," and practically speaking, in thousands of hours of flying I have never seen an aircraft turned away because of a lack of ADS-B Out. I've asked some controllers about this directly and it makes no difference to them.
EDIT: I should add that in Musk's case this ADS-B business is all a little bit of a red herring, because the second you get radar services, your data is public regardless of ADS-B status.
He's obviously a liar at minimum.
Elonjet is in the air transmitting ADSB. From what I remember it’s a Gulfstream that flies higher and faster than anything commercial. A would-be attacker using this data wouldn’t be able to get anywhere elonjet is destined for before elonjet.
Elon almost certainly has armored vehicles that can protect against any small arms fire and entire teams of security at each source and destination that almost certainly secret service-esque secure the area in advance. He also likely has security that secures the plane at rest.
So he arrives at the source/destination and likely goes directly to a secured hangar for the movement between armored road vehicles and the plane.
What are we worried about here, someone with an RPG, Stinger, or maybe a .50 cal in some advantaged position? Someone planting an IED on the route, runway, etc? Any sophisticated and determined actor who would be able to deploy such means could definitely get the location data with or without a Twitter bot.
Meanwhile he’s regularly at Twitter HQ, Tesla, his favorite restaurants, his kids go to schools, etc. People walk around in the open…
Elonjet is almost certainly the strongest and most secure aspect of his and his family’s life. If some murderous wacko (or group) wanted to go after him or his family there are much “easier” ways to harm, kidnap, etc.
This almost certainly has to be about wealth and power exceptionalism that essentially says “I didn’t buy a Gulfstream AND Twitter so people can track MY jet on MY platform".
If he flies random routes, that’s true, but I doubt he does. You could figure out where he flies regularly, move there, and prepare your ambush.
Having real-time data adds that you can tie it to your alarm clock, and better time your final preparations. You wouldn’t have to suspiciously camp out for hours at an airport, for example, getting tired and risking discovery.
Now, is that significant? Maybe, if he’s paranoid enough to put a lot of variation in his flight patterns, but I doubt it. Also, as you say, “Any sophisticated and determined actor who would be able to deploy such means could definitely get the location data with or without a Twitter bot.”
I am genuinely trying to understand the "security risk" argument for this move. At the risk of the internet classic "I have a friend..." I do have a retired Army Special Forces (Green Beret) friend who's former "co-workers" I've met do high profile executive protection and have described what their work looks like because it's obviously fascinating - that's where I got this general "security playbook" from. They literally adapt head of state, diplomat, etc active warzone-level security measures for their services.
It's been mentioned by guests on the Joe Rogan podcast that even at his level he's surrounded by former elite-level military security at all times. Comments like "Wow, when I got to the studio today I wasn't expecting there to be Navy SEALs everywhere".
I still believe, all things considered, that elonjet almost certainly has to be the most secure aspect of movement for Elon and his family.
Besides which, taking the "scenic route" while flying completely defeats the point of flying being the most direct way to get from point A to point B. Hence the front loading of the airport security model.
You do as little "in air" security as possible, because that crap is horrifyingly expensive because physics.
A missile defense system was announced for Gulfstream aircraft at a cost of about $3.5m[0], which for a ~$65m aircraft isn't really that expensive...
[0] - https://www.aerospaceonline.com/doc/farnborough-gulfstream-o...
The rules should be simple and the same for everyone.
Basically, target ideas but not individuals. It's a simple rule, really.Before the narrative changed with this incident, you would have been accused of stochastic terrorism.
2. Said picture of a car was location-traced by someone involved with Bellingcat to be extremely far away from any nearby airports; Musk suggests that someone was tailgating the car in question from the airport if I recall, but this would be absurd and not really possible given the distance. If the incident happened to begin with, it was most likely unrelated to ElonJet. He's blatantly using an incident with his child to ban an account he personally doesn't like.
To be clear, it's his full right to do this, but there's some irony in how the guy bloviating about free speech absolutism for weeks on end changes tune to "only the speech I like" the second he finds an excuse to do so.
Also going after journalists reporting on this is pathetic, not to mention shows a blatant disregard for freedom of the press, and as history has shown us time and time again, getting a journalist to shut up tends to just make them more vocal because of the Streisand Effect. More people than ever know about ElonJet than before he banned it and his repeated attempts to prevent people from linking to Mastodon.social and other big Mastodon instances because that's where the ElonJet guy went have only caused more reporting on it.
He posted a video of the guy, his car, and his license plate
This is demonstrably false; last I checked, Elon didn't even file a police report.
> Sweeney said he hasn't received any notification of legal action, and the last time his bot tweeted anything was Dec. 12, "which is not last night, so I don’t get how that’s connected.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/twitter-suspe...
Anyone would change their mind and overreact after an attack on their child.
And in a broader context, the new policy seems like a good idea. In general, I suspect real-time location tracking does more harm than good, and none of us would tolerate a website tracking our location.
I generally take people at their word, but Musk in particular has used up every last bit of benefit-of-the-doubt credit I had for him. I pretty much gave up on Musk when he tried to insert himself into the Thai cave rescue, and wound up calling the guy who actually saved the kids a pedophile because his mini-sub idea was bad and he couldn't handle the perceived slight.
Filing a false police report is a crime. It's only a misdemeanor, but if Elon's stupid enough to go down this route a conviction for a crime of dishonesty can be used against him in court to impeach any testimony he gives until his dying days.
Why did he reverse course? This part is missing from your appeal so I'm wondering if you know the answer, but just find it irrelevant.
We're going to have to rename the Streisand Effect before the end of all this.
Cars don’t have to broadcast their location to not get blown up by air defense. Planes do. And we’re legally allowed to listen to all wireless frequencies.
Otherwise you are a hypocrite.
Broadcasting your location to “get avoided being blown up by air defense” is just pure non-sense. Collision avoidance yes, but what country are you living in believing that the military would just shoot down planes from the sky?
Generally would happen after a visual confirmation though.
Anyway, cars don’t carry the same type of power that planes do. Cars are being tracked in most countries anyway, just that the data isn’t public.
Finally there is nothing stopping you from making a “install this software on your webcams to monitor car locations” is there? If you’re so non hypocritical, go make that software and convince folks to run it, because that’s how airplane tracking happens.
Unless you’re arguing that planes shouldn’t carry radios with them and that countries should be fine with unidentified planes in their air space?
The data with car movements not being public is exactly the point. I’m certainly not going to start tracking people’s license plates and further accelerate some dystopian society.
And no: license plates aren’t tracked everywhere. EU laws for example are rather strict about that.
Because that’s the issue, the data is already public. it’s not about whether we have a right to track planes or other vehicles, it’s that plane coordinates are already public information.
Maybe we should also track all iphones and make that data publicly available. If people wanted privacy they could use Android…
Palantir, founded by Elon Musk's friend Peter Thiel, is in-part responsible for making wide-scale invasive surveillance accessible to government and private industry. Elon Musk has personally hired private investigators to "stalk" people he doesn't like or suspects of wrong-doing.
This is not about “protecting Elon Musk”. But being sensitive about tracking individuals by the means of license plates / registrations.
The cat is out of the bag though. The same technology that allowed Musk to become a cult figure can be used against him.
It's hard for me to give an example of anonymous US billionaires, but the richest guy in Poland is pretty much anonymous. Last time I checked there were no photos of him, no biography, and even people in his big company didn't know how he looks sometimes.
Edit: His name is Tomasz Biernacki, here is a bloomberg article altough I can't pass the paywall https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-18/reclusive...