Tell HN: Musk's aircraft are not using PIA transponder codes

Without offering my personal view on the matter: there are individuals who believe that social networks, such as Twitter, have a non-trivial impact on public life (e.g., through political influence). These individuals likely believe they are essentially engaged in political activism by putting effort into this. There are also people who think he has enough on his plate with Tesla and SpaceX, and that these are more valuable ways to contribute to society than putzing around with a social media site. They'll put effort into this as well.

Idk why you think Musk should be treated like someone's shitty Dad trying to skip town. He's a literal billionaire, who could be trying to gain political and economic favors through who he meets. His actions have a very real material effect on the world, just ask any of the (now fired) Twitter employees.

Seeing as though this is what has caused Musk to go even further off the deep end, banning journalists, causing more people to leave Twitter, and getting more unwelcome attention from regulators, I'd say it's directly related to him needing to spend even more time on Twitter and away from Tesla and SpaceX.

He could have opted to be more hands off, appointing a competent manager to run the place while he focused elsewhere. But he's chosen the opposite.

> Who cares about his private planes?

The many people that followed ElonJet before it was banned from Twitter.

In most ways, I agree with you. I don't particularly care and it is a distraction from real things.

The one area that I disagree is that it draws attention to the fact that Musk is doing things that are very bad for the environment while his main business is trying to convince customers that they're saving the planet buying his stuff. It's harder to sell that global warming is a crisis and everyone should get one of your electric vehicles while you're flying your private plane everywhere. Sure, other companies can also be bad, but Tesla has been (in part) selling a vision and a lifestyle.

For me, I don't care about the tracking, but the fuel usage and CO2 generated is interesting. For example, the average American produces 15 tons of CO2 per year [1]. Musk took a 9.5 hour flight on his jet to London producing 51 tons of CO2 [2]. I think tracking his flights and in particular their pollution does harm to Tesla's image as a green company and instead makes people think of Tesla as a project of a billionaire that isn't looking to save the world, but to enrich himself.

A decade ago, Musk was the environmentalist of the future. Since then, his image has changed dramatically as he's ranted against public transit and it's come to light that Hyperloop may have been an attempt to torpedo high-speed rail that would have competed with Tesla cars [3] and as the Boring company has gotten cities to bite and then ghosted them [4].

Instead of Tesla's electric cars being one portion of a green transportation future, we're seeing a CEO that's actively harming environmental efforts while trying to enrich himself. As people started calling him out on those things, he's quickly descended into right-wing propaganda - a place where he feels safe from those criticisms.

Yes, I don't really care about his private planes, but I do care about the fact that Musk and his businesses seem to be working against positive goals for the environment and society - and the private planes are one manifestation of that.

[1] https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-carbon-dioxide-does-unite...

[2] https://mastodon.social/@elonjet/109533137146004704

[3] https://jalopnik.com/did-musk-propose-hyperloop-to-stop-cali...

[4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-boring-company-tunnel...

Twitter and Tesla shareholders that are concerned about the amount of CEO attention their respective company is receiving?

Yes, it's mostly a thing that continues just because it gets under his skin.

Musk does, he cares enough that he staged a false flag. If he has cars licensed to him then his terrible opsec endangered his family and waned him bad publicity. Where was his private security. He loled at Yoel Roth being n danger, this is all in light of that.

I care about billionaires shutting down a means of transparency over their actions and about his erratic and irrational application of policies on Twitter that suit his mood, and what the consequences of both might be.

It's not just about the aircraft.

> I don’t care where his plane is and don’t think it’s really healthy for people to obsess about getting this piece of information out in the public domain

Same. But neither do I think that people shouldn't be allowed to do it if they want to.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that humans respond to such desperate behavior.

Who took him seriously about free speech? This week it as “doxxing” last week it was Andy NGO’s accusations.

These are the ones owned by Falcon Landing LLC, the company he set up for his aircraft.

It's also the list tracked by Sweeney / ElonJet. https://grndcntrl.net/falconlanding/

> As a Musk defender…

A what now?

That is true, but you can look up recent flights of N628TS taking place only in the US and see it using its regular code there too.

Yep, absolutely correct.

Also, the history for N628TS shows "no data available" for Dec 6-12 and Nov 29-30.

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=34.765&lon=-...

Since there are gaps in the public location data, how can anyone make the claim that none of his aircraft have used PIA codes recently? Is that based on some additional history not on adsbexchange?

I think it's more than fair for him to publish the information... that said, it's also okay for Elon to ban doing such things on Twitter.

It comes down to ease of access, motivation and intent... In the end, Elon doesn't want third parties to disclose the location details of other people. I'm not sure if this would include posting a selfie at a disclosed location with a celebrity in the background.

In the end, I think the message is pretty clear, "don't f*ck with Elon's family."

Adjusting for our political reality - I used to think <person> was smart. Then I discovered that he thinks <basic fact> is a political issue, and seems unable to discuss it rationally.

wow this is a garbage fire, Im leaving

- another relevant PG quote

As I said, he may have at some point but clearly no longer is.

PIA only provides the anonymised codes, it's up to the aircraft owner to use them by recoding their transponder and as is clear from the evidence Musk's aircraft are using their original public codes.

Desperation grabs attention.

As I said, perhaps the aircraft were using PIA codes before. They certainly have been flying recently without them though. That’s easily verified.

In any case, getting around PIA is not illegal, and is something the FAA explicitly warns aircraft owners is possible. PIA is just an obfuscation of the ICAO hex code, there’s nothing stopping spotters at airports from tying a new hex code to an existing registration, and there’s nothing spotters like more than a mystery. All entirely within the law.

There is no evidence that anyone tracking Musk’s aircraft, including Sweeney, had any desire to cause physical harm to him, nor that they had that effect.

> This attempt to deny the criminal nature of an act is disturbing.

What criminal nature? Nothing Sweeney or any other flight tracker did was in any way criminal. Not even Musk has claimed that it was.