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Flying BA15 from London to Sydney, I noticed that the flight is not tracked over Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, except for a short ping.

Is this for security reasons? Do planes disable their ADS-B, or is the data somehow restricted? Since position tracking is a safety feature, is this regulated or an airline decision?

DeltaLima
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Mantriur
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1 Answers1

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The reason is that there is no member of the general public in those areas with an ADS-B receiver sharing live data with the public tracking sites.

Websites like Flight Radar 24 rely largely on volunteers installing ADS-B receivers and sharing their received data. They have a good coverage, but some areas are still not covered.

DeltaLima
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    In other words, those websites rely on people who have nothing more important to do, are interested in aviation and/or radio, have reliable Internet access, and are rich enough to be able to afford said Internet access plus an ADS-B receiver. It should not come as a surprise that the population density of such persons is higher in Western Europe than in Afghanistan, for example. – Jörg W Mittag Jan 09 '20 at 15:11
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    There are also many countries where even receiving radio transmissions is illegal if you're not the intended recipient. – StephenS Jan 09 '20 at 17:05
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    Some of these sites actually provide the equipment for free if you commit to setting it up and operating it in an area where they need more coverage (for example https://www.flightradar24.com/apply-for-receiver). The legality is probably the bigger issue with those empty spots on the map. – PhilippNagel Jan 09 '20 at 17:54
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    @StephenS ADS-B is a public broadcast, though. It's intended for everyone to be able to receive it. Such a law would not apply to it. – Michael Hampton Jan 09 '20 at 20:16
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    @MichaelHampton Law might apply to private, unauthorized ownership of ADS-B receiving equipment, though. I wouldn't want to have a strange looking antenna in Iran right now, especially if the explanation is "it keeps track of airplanes". As a similar example: https://blog.telestial.com/2017/11/countries-where-satellite-phones-banned-or-restricted/ – ceejayoz Jan 09 '20 at 21:00
  • Flightradar24 actually has instructions for a Pi-based DIY receiver. The receiver dongle costs about 30 USD and supposedly covers 200-400 miles. So the whole thing runs at less than 100 USD. Not a major investment. https://www.flightradar24.com/build-your-own – Mantriur Jan 09 '20 at 22:06
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    @Someone, not a major investment for a first-world country, which is why there's great coverage even in the vast empty reaches of the United States, but $100 for the receiver plus the cost of an always-on internet connection is quite a bit in a place like Afghanistan. – Mark Jan 09 '20 at 22:40
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    @MichaelHampton The U.K.'s OFCOM apparently does not share that view. ATC transmissions are similarly broadcasted in the clear, but OFCOM's official position is that people other than ATC, pilots, and such are not "intended recipients" and are not allowed to listen to those transmissions, record them, or share them with anyone else. This is why liveatc doesn't operate in the UK. – reirab Jan 09 '20 at 22:57
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    @reirab I suppose I should not be surprised that Ofcom has such a view. They are, after all, effectively the UK's censorship agency. At least I learned something new today. – Michael Hampton Jan 10 '20 at 01:54
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    @MichaelHampton Yeah, personally I find OFCOM's position to be totally insane, but it's their position nonetheless. If someone wants a transmission to be 'private' in 2020, they're not going to use in-the-clear narrow-band AM... For that matter, if someone wanted a communication to be private in 1950, they would not have used in-the-clear narrowband AM. – reirab Jan 10 '20 at 05:53
  • @reirab The same applies in Germany: listening to ATC is not allowed to the public. But possible... – PerlDuck Jan 10 '20 at 07:46
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    @reirab I mean it's not really Ofcom's view that matters here; it's the law. The law says you're not allowed to receive radio signals for which you're not the intended recipient. This law dates back to when encryption was impractical for most users, but it hasn't been changed. – Muzer Jan 10 '20 at 10:00
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    @Muzer It's up to OFCOM to interpret and enforce it, though, no? If one wanted to be that literal about the meaning of "intended recipient," the other aircraft on frequency are also breaking the law when they listen to ATC's instructions for another aircraft. That being said, I've read official statements from OFCOM saying that they support the absurdly outdated law in its current form and its continued enforcement. That's more the part that I consider insane. – reirab Jan 10 '20 at 16:08
  • @reirab fair enough then! Ultimately enforcement for personal use is likely to be nonexistent (especially since there isn't really any technical way of detecting it). – Muzer Jan 10 '20 at 16:26
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    @Someone: In 2015, the threshold for "extreme poverty" was defined as "income of less than 1.90$ per day" by the World Bank. About 734 million people (or about 10% of the population) fell below this line. And note that while someone who earns 2$/d does not fall under this definition of extreme poverty, they are still pretty effing poor by most people's standards. So, for a significant portion of the world's population, 100$ is a pretty major investment, indeed. It is the difference between their whole family having food for weeks or even months or all of them starving to death. – Jörg W Mittag Jan 10 '20 at 20:35
  • @PerlDuck But doesn't a cleartext broadcast signal literally match the description of publicly accessible information of Art. 5 GG? – Hagen von Eitzen Jan 10 '20 at 21:19
  • @reirab Obvious workaround: get your pilot's license so that you can run your ADS-B station. Alternately, get a patch of grass in a field and call it a "private helipad". ;) – nick012000 Jan 11 '20 at 14:59
  • @Muzer the data appearing on a tracking website would be PROOF that SOMEONE is receiving and processing it illicitly. Openly colluding with such an operator could have severe consequences for the website operator, depending on where they are running that website from.... especially since it could be argued that they are undermining aviation safety! – rackandboneman Jan 11 '20 at 20:18
  • @nick012000 how would that authorize you to share that data with the general public? – rackandboneman Jan 11 '20 at 20:19