[HN Gopher] Somebody used spoofed ADSB signals to raster the mem...
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Somebody used spoofed ADSB signals to raster the meme of JD Vance
https://archive.ph/VrEtg
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=adfdf9&lat=26.678&lon=-...
Author : wubin
Score : 125 points
Date : 2026-01-28 21:50 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (alecmuffett.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (alecmuffett.com)
| sammy2255 wrote:
| This has gotta be some sort of federal crime
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Doubt it did anything in RF, only sent packets to
| adsbexchange's web service that its volunteers feed it.
|
| Also Adsbexchange has had some... history:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ADSB/comments/10l2euc/adsb_exchange...
|
| https://hackaday.com/2023/01/26/ads-b-exchange-sells-up-cont...
| HNisCIS wrote:
| ADSB sites aren't any sort of official thing. You can send
| whatever data you want to them. Just because it's there doesn't
| mean it ever went over the air as an ADSB broadcast.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| An interesting question.
|
| Assuming the FAA has the authority to enforce ADSB requirements
| (an open question post-Chevron), I can't find any regulation
| saying non-aircrafts cannot transmit ADSB. Only ones saying
| aircrafts in certain categories must.
|
| There's probably some non-interference requirement somewhere
| (FCC spectrum licensing perhaps), but I'm not seeing it
| immediately.
|
| All this is in the hypothetical that RF was transmitted, which
| as others point out it probably wasn't.
| 15155 wrote:
| (Assuming this were actually RF)
|
| This is easily-prosecutable willful interference or possibly
| aircraft sabotage: ADS-B operates in licensed bands and uses
| an already highly-contended modulation scheme and
| transmission protocol.
| esseph wrote:
| No reason to believe RF when you can just upload whatever
| data you want
| fragmede wrote:
| They'll probably try and make a case of wire fraud and CFAA
| as the usual go tos if it wasn't in RF.
| pear01 wrote:
| I believe this was "spoofed" only in the sense that a
| particular provider/online platform accepted data via an API
| that was abused to draw this on that platform only. Searching
| around it seems it was not found if you looked on other
| platforms, so it might not even have been a crime. I believe
| they didn't emit any real "signals" just took advantage of an
| API that should probably be better secured.
| observationist wrote:
| At worst it'd be a violation of the site ToS - it's a
| crowdsourced community data based system, and not any sort of
| an official, important system. The account doesn't seem to
| have been banned, so maybe the admins are just rolling with
| the joke.
| advisedwang wrote:
| It's almost certainly a violation of the Computer Fraud and
| Abuse Act because it's an extremely broad law.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Can someone explain what this means? Where would this have been
| seen?
| JasonADrury wrote:
| > Where would this have been seen?
|
| on HN, mostly
| burkaman wrote:
| Most planes broadcast their position using ADS-B, and some
| websites collect these signals and visualize them so you can
| track flight paths. Somebody broadcast a fake flight path that
| draws a picture of JD Vance on these sites:
| https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=adfdf9&lat=26.678&lon=-...
| HNisCIS wrote:
| No, someone probably setup a fake feeder pretending to be an
| ADSB receiver.
| JasonADrury wrote:
| > Somebody broadcast a fake flight path
|
| They didn't actually "broadcast" anything. This was created
| by uploading fake data to absexchange.
| zeeZ wrote:
| To expand on that, those websites mostly operate on random
| volunteers self hosting a (starting price) fairly cheap
| receiver and antenna with an open source stack that feeds the
| ADS-B data to the website operator in exchange for nothing or
| free "premium" benefits.
|
| The spoofer could have just sent them fake location
| information drawing an image using latitude, longitude and
| altitude for color (in the default view flight paths have
| different colors based on the altitude of the plane at that
| point in time).
|
| They could have built an antenna and actually broadcast this
| data, but that would be a lot more effort and most likely
| some form of crime.
| dpe82 wrote:
| As a pilot I _really_ hope it 's the former. Broadcasting
| spoofed traffic at minimum would be confusing and
| distracting to both pilots and ATC.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) is a
| protocol for planes to publish their positions, so help with
| the whole "not crashing into each other" thing. The data is
| mostly for pilots and air traffic control, but it is publicly
| available, and there's a number of sites that track the data so
| that you can see what planes are overhead or whatever.
|
| Someone spoofed Airforce One's transponder, had it declare
| itself as "VANCE 1", and then fly a pattern to display the
| meme. Or lied to one or more of the major sites, pretending to
| be listening in on the ADS-B signals. It's unclear. Regardless,
| it's a very funny hack.
| esseph wrote:
| Pilots and nerds that watch airplane traffic
|
| Viewable on FlightRadar24, etc
| guerrilla wrote:
| For those wondering, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jd-vance-
| edited-face-photosho...
| deevus wrote:
| I had a few chuckles reading that. Thanks.
| eep_social wrote:
| edit: op also has this, disregard
|
| hugged but someone caught it: https://archive.is/VrEtg
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's still there as of now:
|
| https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=adfdf9&lat=26.678&lon=-...
| belter wrote:
| Maybe next they can do the picture of Trump and Putin that he
| just hang in the White House:
|
| https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...
| jacquesm wrote:
| No way... wtf?
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Please explain the tech.
| sneak wrote:
| ADS-B is packet data telemetry broadcast unencrypted and
| unauthenticated by aircraft on 1090MHz.
|
| Anyone can receive it, and many do. FlightRadar and others have
| networks of people with receivers that forward all received
| packets to central servers.
|
| The aircraft self-report location, heading, altitude, etc, so
| anyone can transmit packets making ghost planes.
|
| I am somewhat surprised nobody has stashed an ADS-B spoofer
| near ATL or AMS that just broadcasts tracks of A380 tail
| numbers crossing the runways perpendicular at 500 ft AGL or
| something. They have primary radar, sure, but I imagine there
| would still be a temporary disruption until people figured out
| what was going on.
|
| I think this is the first case I've seen of ADS-B spoofing in
| the wild.
|
| EDIT: this was spoofed reports to the data aggregators via the
| internet, not broadcast on radio waves. I've still never seen
| or heard tell of RF ADS-B spoofing.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Fake signals are not uncommon, but mostly accidental. They
| are dealt with very quickly when causing traffic control
| problems
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(page generated 2026-01-28 23:00 UTC)