Andrew Logan: Tracking “Ghost” Military Helicopters over Washington, D.C.
A DEF CON 30 talk about efforts to make visible the flights of military and government helicopters over Washington, D.C., many of which do not appear in public flight-tracking systems.
Why are these flights so hard to track? Data is often hidden at the request of aircraft owners or never transmitted due to regulatory exemptions for “sensitive government missions.” In response, the talk proposes an alternative approach — crowdsourced helicopter tracking using photographs, radio communications analysis, and computer vision, turning aircraft spotting into an open and even gamified system built around Twitter.
Why are these flights so hard to track? Data is often hidden at the request of aircraft owners or never transmitted due to regulatory exemptions for “sensitive government missions.” In response, the talk proposes an alternative approach — crowdsourced helicopter tracking using photographs, radio communications analysis, and computer vision, turning aircraft spotting into an open and even gamified system built around Twitter.