In late December, Swift’s camp hit Jack Sweeney, a junior studying information technology at the University of Central Florida, with a cease-and-desist letter that blamed his automated tracking of her private jet for tipping off stalkers as to her location. In the letter, attorneys from the law firm Venable accused Sweeney of effectively providing “individuals intent on harming her, or with nefarious or violent intentions, a roadmap to carry out their plans.”
Sweeney provided the link to that letter in an email to the Associated Press. In that message, he emphasized that while he has never intended to cause harm, he also believes strongly in the importance of transparency and public information.
“One should reasonably expect that their jet will be tracked, whether or not I’m the one doing it, as it is public information after all,” he wrote.
A spokesperson for Swift echoed the legal complaint, saying that “the timing of stalkers” suggests a connection to Sweeney’s flight-tracking sites. The spokesperson did not respond to questions seeking elaboration of that charge, such as whether stalkers have been seen waiting for Swift at the airport when her plane arrived or, alternatively, if there is evidence that stalkers have somehow inferred Swift’s subsequent location from the arrival time of her flight.
The legal letter likewise accuses Sweeney of “disregarding the personal safety of others”; “willful and repeated harassment of our client”; and “intentional, offensive, and outrageous conduct and consistent violations of our client’s privacy.”
Such statements are difficult to square with the fact that Sweeney’s automated tracking accounts merely repackage public data provided by the Federal Aviation Administration, a government agency. That fact did not dissuade the Venable attorneys, who demanded that Sweeney “immediately stop providing information about our client’s location to the public.”
I’s she also going to sue Ticketmaster and her own PR team for publicly releasing every city she’s going to in her tours?
No but she will sue anyone who repeats it
I hereby sure myself for publishing information about my location in my Instagram posts. Continued posting clearly shows a blatant disregard of my safety and feelings.
This is like trying to stop paparazzi… No legal grounds.
Easier just to pay him off. Of course, that’s what he wants.
Wow, 5k is low-ball
She also sold her jet which I’m guessing is related. She had a dessault falcon 900lx registered as N898TS but she very recently sold it to a company in Missouri.
I don’t suppose it’s to Swaylor Tift Aviation is it?
That would make it absolutely impossible to track and link to her.
Nope she has no use for it anymore. She’s gonna buy a whole fucking new one because Travis Kelce is too tall for the old one.
But seriously though, can’t they just register the jet under some conspicuous shit and dodge all of this? I mean, she may be the money of the operation but there has to be several levels of separation between her and operations. Pay a “transport company” that pays a “jet company” and make all the companies in between ambitious and under different sgel companies. Obviously this isn’t possible or the billionaires would have done it. But it would seem there is a way to hide their jets just like they hide their money.
Possible, yes, but costs money. And we all know billionaires hate giving away money.
If they see little PERSONAL benefit then it’s a waste to them. And likely cheaper to have their lawyers send cease&desist letters, than to have them setup the shell companies for anonymity.
Billionaires are all selfish. No way does someone aquire that much if they weren’t.
So the legal complaint has no merit (even more so) if he just delays the feed by a day or two.
Maybe TayTay should ask the FAA to delay the data.
Another point goes to the Streisand Effect.
Considering the amount of MAGA creeps around, I’d reserve judgement on that. She must get 10 credible death threats a day.
And now more MAGA creeps know about it, and more trackers will pop up. Streisand Effect.
All it takes is one. Everybody can track planes if they want to. This guy just makes it easy. Everybody knows about him since Musk.
OK is making it easy a threat worth doing something about, or simply making public info easier to find? You’re trying to have it both ways. Is it “just easier” or a real threat?
Pick one.
I don’t see your logic here.
“All it takes is one.”
“Anyone can track planes.”
pick one.
Again, I don’t see your logic.
She has a 24/7, well paid security team. Most of America is a single $1000 emergency away from homelessness and financial ruin.
Fuck Taylor Swift and fuck idol worship.
You talk tough when you don’t have lunatics threatening your life. But, then you can, can’t you.
What the actual fuck is wrong with you? Taylor Swift isn’t your friend. She isn’t creeping around forums making a list of users that defend her. Her success was purchased by her rich father, her music is written and produced by a team of professionals who use scientifically proven methods to make sure the music is palatable to make the most money… Goddamn. Who defends the ultra rich?
It’s called empathy my friend. You should try some.
You misspelled psychosis.
You misspelled not caring about anyone.
Shut up simp. I don’t think you made this noise when musk did this.
Simp? Bwhahaha. Sorry I hit so close to the nerve.
What nerve, simp? Touch grass incel.
Please pay attention to our community rules, and tone down the insults.
That’s a good one too. You have a nice day.
Sucks to be her then. She could just not fly around in her private jet so much if she’s so worried.
Everyone has a job to do. Her’s forces her to travel a lot. Yours may not.
She’s got enough $$ she doesn’t HAVE to do anything the rest of her life and still live extremely comfortably.
Her “job” doesn’t force her to do shit.
You don’t walk in her shoes. You don’t know what is or should be important to her. She may be wealthy, but maybe her personal value is something other than what you think it should be.
I don’t walk in her shoes. Yeah duh, if I did I wouldn’t be, because if I ever made 5 million I’d retire, buy a house, and live off interest comfortably the rest of my life. I don’t need any more than that (and technically don’t even need that, considering I don’t have it now and I’m not dead).
That’s you, not her. Like most successful people I suspect she has higher aspirations. Although I find her music a bit jingleistic, I suspect making it is important to her, perhaps even more than her bank account.
Well apparently the planet isn’t important to her.
I thought we went over this already? Public data is public.
Yes we did, with elon. He ended up banning the accounts on xitter, after saying he would not do so.
You can still find it on Mastodon though
Until someone trains an AI on it, then everyone loses their minds.
------ the point ------>
You
I am also a bit lost as to why Swift would bring this suit. Most of her (work) trips are already public information, since being a public person is part of her job description. It’s a bit like the president complaining that we are tracking Airforce 1 when all news networks already report where he is going.
I think it’s cause you look less relatable to the average poor who’s spending $500 they can’t really afford to go watch you sing.
She could be getting legitimate death threats from Republicans not happy about her politics, which if it’s being published as a form of stochastic terrorism, there has been a legal limit on that as free speech.
I bet swift could fly first class and get through the airport without being identified. But the convenience of a private jet is just too sweet.
It’s because there’s no commercial flights that go from concert halls in Japan to football fields in the US.
Username checks out
She doesn’t need to do highly polluting transcontinental flights on a whim.
Are you implying billionaire planes don’t need airports?!
Maintenance costs on a V-22 may even put her in the poor house.
Or even rent a private jet on demand.
I have a legitimate question: why is this public information? Like… I’m not taking sides either way, I just don’t understand the reason that the current location of someone’s private property (her jet) is considered public info. They location of someone’s car or boat isn’t publicly available… So why a plane?
I understand that flight controllers need access to this info for logistics, but that’s not really public. They also need access to air waves for communication and those are heavily regulated.
This system is called ADS-B. It’s a peer to peer communication between airplanes where each plane will share its own data (flight level, speed, coordinates, flight number, etc.) and data from other planes by broadcasting it on same frequency as others. Result of this is that all the planes know where other nearby planes are located and their heading thus providing additional safety in avoiding collisions and other issues.
Data being broadcast in all directions means us on the ground can listen to them as well, which is what some sites are doing. Add internet to that mixture and we have a world coverage of every plane on the planet. You might wonder why data is not encrypted or something similar. There’s nothing that can be abused about the data and all this tracking helps enormously with resolving incidents and other useful functionalities like precise arrival estimates and similar.
Now, since every airplane has a registration number, people figured out which plane was hers. Just like they know which plane Musk uses and many others. Data is recorded and known and completely legal, helpful even. If she has issues with this fact solution is rather simple. Get a charter flight or rent a plane and no one is the wiser. This is just rich people entitlement and the only way she can “win” this court case is to go a step further in stepping over the line which is to drown the poor man with legal expenses.
Edit: Oh, also location of boats is known. Not all boats, but commercial ones for sure. Their system is called AIS.
Thank you! This is exactly the kind of info I was wanting to see.
Safety against air collisions.
Part of the answer is “it’s always been that way”. All this is done in coordination with the FTC and there are certain frequencies assigned for aerial radio communication. It’s not just done on 2.4GHz to be cheap like Wi-Fi / microwaves / etc.
Since the long-long-ago planes have been required to have their registered tail number visible. So if you do something not okay someone can find you and talk to you about it. After all cars are (mostly) limited to roads, boats are limited to waterways (and also have to have a name/number visible somewhere), planes can go anywhere and be annoying.
Radio communication to/from planes is just ‘in the clear’. It’s not encrypted because there isn’t/wasn’t a reason for it to be and for a long time it wasn’t even possible. Encrypting it offers no benefit and many potential downsides. It’s one more thing that can go wrong when you have a problem and need to talk to someone.
When tracking was upgraded to transponders ( a small radio dedicated to sending out info about who you are ) all that just stayed the same. They transmit a code you set and your altitude (and other info including tail number for newer ones/requirements after 2020 (just a coincidental year, the upgrade was planned years in advance)) so Air Traffic Control can say “Bugsmasher 123 turn left please”. Radar is expensive, a device in the plane constantly broadcasting “plane here” is significantly simpler and cheaper to track. Most airports don’t have Primary Radar.
ATC doesn’t care about your tail number for tracking anything other that what to call you to get your attention on the radio. For your current flight, if you are using Flight Following (talking to ATC so they know where you are) or filing an Instrument Flight plan, they give you a semi-random transponder code for that flight. That is what they use for logistics. They don’t care who you are, they care where you’re going and when you’re going to get there.
Tracking a tail number isn’t much different from the <1900s version, which would be “weird the Mayflower is in port in Boston” or something.
Radio communication to/from planes is just ‘in the clear’. It’s not encrypted because there isn’t/wasn’t a reason for it to be and for a long time it wasn’t even possible. Encrypting it offers no benefit and many potential downsides. It’s one more thing that can go wrong when you have a problem and need to talk to someone.
There’s tons of radio chatter one can listen to that’s just blasted into the air with zero enceyption that you can pick up with an inexpensive radio scanner or SDR. Tons of first responders haven’t updated to digital or encrypted radios (this will vary by state and municipality), railroad radio communication is often in the clear, as are boats and of course aircraft. There’s a public database of crowd sources frequencies here:
Seems like an excuse to stop people from drawing attention to her jet use. Easy solution would be to share the flight records only after she’s left each location
Yeah like a time delay of let’s say 4 hours.
I’d say make it 4.2 hrs.
fuck all other planes in the way amirite?
The problem is more to do with ADSB I think. If I remember correctly, all aircraft in the US must have an ADSB transponder now. That info is broadcast for traffic awareness but also contains a ton of other info like speed, altitude, and most importantly the tail number. That signal can be picked up by anyone within range using very simple radio equipment, sites like ADSB Exhange do this and populate a map. So right now unless they want to rework the entire ADSB system, as long as you know the tail number, you can track anyone’s aircraft live. Delaying this data would make the traffic avoidance impossible.
Well not just adsb but I think all filed flight plans are public also?
As are aircraft registrations and pilot’s licenses. You can just…look up pilots by name and get their certificate number(s), address, lots of stuff. Which is how AOPA just…mysteriously starts sending you magazines and catalogs shortly after you get your medical certificate. The FCC is similar with amateur radio licenses, which again is why you’ll invariably find ARRL spam in the same load of mail as your technician license. You can just look up an amateur radio operator’s name, phone number and address given their callsign, so posting your ham radio callsign on Lemmy is basically doxxing yourself.
ADS-B is not required to be carried by all aircraft, but the requirements read like the Mode C Transponder requirements; it’s legal to take your Cessna up for an hour’s flight around Somewhere Regional Airport without one but it will prove necessary for aircraft engaged in basically any commercial operation.
Delaying the ADS-B system itself would render it useless, but it may be possible to delay any public-facing web display. Wouldn’t stop any particularly interested party from buying an ADS-B In unit and receiving the signals directly though. Or building a radio receiver and decoder from scratch; ADS-B messages aren’t encrypted, nor do they carry any authentication so…honestly the FAA probably doesn’t want to encourage people to start fucking around with ADS-B hardware and would rather they just download aircraft position data from their web portal.
Or, say, they should only share it once the information is already public. You know, the information that the FAA is already sharing?
Gotta love the phrasing, like Swift commands some man-of-war, in a big Victorian wig and dress - the elite fuck.
I mean… I kinda get her rational, she’s got crazy stalkers… But all this really does is tell you what city she’s in.
Great, she’s in NYC… Which only has 9 million people in it.
Well here’s a wild idea, why not ride on a normal god damn plane like 90% of every other person who flies. Boom, can’t be traced by some kid then AND its better by a wide range for the environment. Nothing to see here but rich people problems lol
Sorry, but this isn’t a reasonable take. Someone like Taylor Swift cannot go into the public without it being a huge security risk. This isn’t a TS thing, this is a “being the most famous person ever right this moment” thing.
Okay but she’s actively choosing to be that famous. She spent 6 years with Joe living a quiet low key life, but she decided to do another breakout into more fame and this is the cost. Plus she could charter jets like other celebrities, or idk just not fly home every weekend from halfway across the world?
She could just rent a different jet each time. Would still pollute, wouldn’t stress out a college kid, would be more difficult for stalkers to track, wouldn’t have drawn as much attention.
And thousands of MAGA maniacs now thinking she is some villain. I bet she’s getting tons of death threats now. First AI porn, then conspiracy nutjobs on FOX news, then everybody is projecting the worlds failure to act on climate change on her (brilliant piece of fox news propaganda I must say now), and now this. It’s really not her week lol.
This is it exactly.
You ever heard of the curse of being famous? Imagine everyone took a love potion and everyone knows your face. Everyone around you is staring at you and attempts to speak to you, touch you, they might even actually worship the ground you walk on. Not only those that love them are around, but those that want to do harm. Cut her hair and sell it, harm her to boast about it. Who knows?
That’s a fucking hell I’d not want to live. That is why they don’t fly normal. There’s a reason that high profile celebrities don’t fly with the rest. It’s not necessarily a status thing, but a safety thing. There’s a reason the president has secret service and a private jet.
The president of my very violent country flies economy on public flights. I think she could have a few bodyguards in first class with her and be fine.
The president of my very violent country flies on two 747s.
I mean the average for my whole country is the same as the average for the most violent cities in the USA so I think I win.
You don’t have to own a plane to charter a private flight. She could just take private planes and not have to deal with crowds of people. Then you wouldn’t be able to track her plane, because she would be taking different planes. This is how most famous people deal with the issue.
You right. Makes more sense that way imo
She’s rich enough to hire a private jet if that’s the problem. I don’t feel sorry for her at all. Or any other billionaire having their jet tracked for that matter.
She could ride in an anonymous tour bus, harder to track, she could even have a security convoy, and still save money and emissions. Billionaires are murdering us all, I have no sympathy for her or anyone with her wealth if they take private jets on trips that would take two hours to drive.
That. Is a fair argument.
She could even have a private railcar! Easier to track than a tour bus but has a significant cool factor right now.
I commented on another thread elsewhere that it would be cool if musicians did private railcars and private trains, because just imagine the collaborations and how it would affect both rail infrastructure and musical tours. Plus the opportunities for media and fan interactions become so much cooler than with a cramped tour bus
You ever heard of the curse of being famous?
🤢🤮
Well, I had no opinion of her since I don’t follow her entertainment. And I did not care about her. I thought sheust be not so bad to have such a following but now she publicly displayed she is as deranged and out of touch as the other billionaires out there. Thus I now have an opinion on her and it’s not good.
Her music is not for me, but I’ve never had anything against her. I have grown to support her a little in the past year or so for taking shots at Ticketmaster. This jet thing offsets the Ticketmaster things plus some. My opinion of her is now at a net negative.
Hopefully she’s not close to this personally, and she can call it off, but that sure doesn’t seem likely.
but now she publicly displayed she is as deranged and out of touch as the other billionaires out there
Well you said you didn’t follow her at all so that might come as a minor surprise to you, but she’s always been incredibly entitled and out of touch with normal people. Even before, but especially since she became a billionaire. She was one of the artists pulling her music from Spotify at one point, which is fine but she argued that her music has a certain value that she expects people to pay for, implying her music is too good for streaming or you know… poor people.
I don’t think she has ever really been in touch with the average person. Her dad is a stock broker who could afford to fund her enough for her to get a big break. Nothing against her personally since she seems decent enough. But she also has a case of afluenza that we can help cure her of. She has alternatives: use a tour bus or charter a private plane.
Actually surprised no one here is launching themselves to defend her like they didn’t defend Elon on this. Haha.
That’s a good thing though right?
She’s been anti piracy and streaming to an astonishing degree and her concert ticket prices show what’s wrong with everything entertainment right now. I reckon that alone doesn’t sit well with the lemmy crowd who I believe are not the typical swift fans to begin with.
Twitter is probably a war zone I don’t think the 3 swifties on Lemmy care.
Can confirm. Love her but she shouldn’t be flying a private jet. Nobody needs that
Probably not a big overlap with lemmy and taylor fan worshippers. Still not a mainstream site and she’s absolutely positively a mainstream music artist.
