Read on Twitter
http://Skycircl.es is a project of @lemonodor, a furloughed Disney Imagineer who became obsessed with mysterious overhead aircraft and decided to monitor them, discovering (among other things) a massive, covert FBI aerial surveillance program.
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The project uses a cheap software-defined radio and a low-cost antenna to intercept transponder signals from overhead aircraft and plot their movements on maps in realtime, also storing longitudinal flight data.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sowJrQQfgxnLCErb-CvUV8VGXdtca6SWYWWLRPZgaHI/edit#slide=id.ga3a076b34_0_12
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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sowJrQQfgxnLCErb-CvUV8VGXdtca6SWYWWLRPZgaHI/edit#slide=id.ga3a076b34_0_12
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But the other half of the project is using open sources and freedom of information requests to pierce the veils of secrecy surrounding the front companies that many of these aircraft are registered to.
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The program has revealed just how busy our skies are with invisible, unregarded surveillance aircraft. This image is not a lengthy time-lapse: it is a snapshot of a single moment in the LA skies.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sowJrQQfgxnLCErb-CvUV8VGXdtca6SWYWWLRPZgaHI/edit#slide=id.g5086fd3e26_0_79
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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sowJrQQfgxnLCErb-CvUV8VGXdtca6SWYWWLRPZgaHI/edit#slide=id.g5086fd3e26_0_79
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Wiseman has collected BILLIONS of transponder pings from surveillance aircraft. New ones are tweeted in realtime by Advisory Circular, a network of Twitter bots that report on the skies over many major cities.
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1263724487435890688
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https://twitter.com/i/lists/1263724487435890688
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The project is all free/open source, and Wiseman has run it for years as a self-funded hobby. But since being furloughed, this has become harder to sustain. Now one of his laptops has died and he doesn't have the cash to replace it.
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He's soliciting donations to keep the project going. He's also in search of other coders to contribute, and free hosting for some of the project.
https://skycircl.es/donate-nerd-mode/
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https://skycircl.es/donate-nerd-mode/
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If he gets enough money, he's planned to give every spy aircraft in America its own social media account that tracks its movements in realtime; a mobile app that tells you which aircraft are overhead right now, and planet-scale analysis of spy planes.
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Our own household finances are under severe strain, but I just donated to him. He's an example of how tech can serve as a force-multiplier for people resisting authoritarianism and illegitimate exercises of power.
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A self-funded hobbyist is fighting the entire surveillance-industrial complex...and winning!
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