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by _Algernon_ 1279 days ago
>private information

It is publicly available information.

3 comments

Most doxxing is publically available information.
In most other cases that has been released illegitimately in the first place though. That's not the case here.

The information is publicly available because it is mandated to be as a condition of flying. Leaked private information is obviously different.

This is just a case of a billionaire with a god complex wanting to have his cake and eat it too.

> The information is publicly available because it is mandated to be as a condition of flying.

No, it's not.

Elon's jet receives a private temporary aircraft identifier unconnected to its owner every month, because it is subscribed to this program: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/equipadsb/privacy

This government program was specifically designed to hide the link between an aircraft identifier and the owner of the aircraft.

If the link between Elon Musk and the aircraft identifier he flies with was meant to be publicly available, why does this program exist in the first place?

Is it possible that this program is ineffectual, because of publicly-available information from other sources that can be cross-referenced?

If I were to put together a badly implemented privacy program that people can trivially circumvent without breaking the law, who should be blamed when people do exactly that?

Me, or the people doing the trivial yet legal circumvention?

>Elon's jet receives a private temporary aircraft identifier unconnected to its owner every month, because it is subscribed to this program: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/equipadsb/privacy

Wrong. None of Musk's planes are part of the PIA program: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34037524 as evident by any ads-b map out there.

If it’s not meant to be public. Why do his planes broadcast the information through the airwaves to anyone who wants to listen?
>In most other cases that has been released illegitimately in the first place though

There is plenty of information in public records like people's addresses that are released legitimately. An address is enough information to SWAT someone.

> In most other cases that has been released illegitimately in the first place though.

Nope. A lot of it comes from public sources, such as property taxes, vehicle registrations, court records...

It's still doxxing.

True, but depending on how "we" consider the target, it can be judged as the most despicable thing.
So what?

Virtually all doxxing is derived from public records.

Not exactly: https://mobile.twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/160385752457453...

What’s public is how each plane moves. What’s not is which one of these planes is Musk’s.

>hack

This is not "hacking". This is information derived from publicly available information, presumably a quite trivial inference. If it is public information that x=2 and y=3, then x+y=5 isn't suddenly private information, just because it requires a trivial inference.

Photos taken on phones often contain GPS data. If someone publicly shares a photo they’ve taken and the data isn’t scrubbed, it’s trivial to find out where the photo was taken.

Just because it’s easy to uncover doesn’t mean it’s fine to go off and broadcast it. That’s doxxing.

I’m not sure it’s broadcasting. My OS just displays location EXIF by default next to the thumbnail.

It’s only the web browser that hides that stuff.

If a later change to Chrome makes EXIF data easily viewable is then a privacy concern?

> presumably a quite trivial inference

It’s not a trivial inference.

You're actually right. No inference at all is necessary, because none of Musk's planes are part of the PIA program in the first place:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34037524

Some have been for a couple months. In any case, figuring out which plane uses which PIA code might seem easy if the patterns are always the same, but that’s still not trivial enough not to be considered as a privacy breach. Everything here sounds a bit like the "yes the house was private but the door was open" robber excuse.