I.
If you’re feeding ACARS messages to Airframes, know that the website appears to have a bug and does not currently honor the privacy settings you have applied to your profile. I created an account last week, after setting up a Raspberry Pi with two Airspy receivers to feed the ACARS Drama project, but paused once I realized my privacy settings were not sticking. I’ve tried to get in touch with Airframes via email, X, and Discord, but have yet to hear back.
II.
In more fun news, adsb.win has turned aircraft tracking into a game with collections, milestones and friendly competition. Feeding ADS-B data gives you access to the API, just like FlightAware and Flightradar24. (If you want to buy a flight tracker starter kit, check out PiAware.)
III.
Here’s another interesting presentation from the Hackers On Planet Earth conference in NYC last month: Jon Thompson demonstrated how North Korean citizens, along with a network of defectors and technologists, are circumventing censorship and surveillance using sneakernets, smuggled phones, and purpose-built tools.
IV.
Bellingcat spent more than a year investigating a decades-old cold case using open sources, freedom-of-information requests, newspaper archives, and interviews with investigators who worked on the case. Great read if you like investigative journalism, open source intelligence, and solving puzzles.
V.
A few years ago, I binged a podcast, articles, and a documentary about the mysterious death of an unidentified woman in Isdalen near Bergen, Norway in 1970. The police investigation turned up abandoned suitcases, coded notepads, and multiple identities. Some wondered if she’d been a Cold War spy. Records that I obtained from the FBI through FOIA show that the police in Oslo requested assistance in identifying the unmarked cosmetics found in the woman’s suitcase. The FBI interviewed employees at department stores in New York and Washington, D.C., but without getting any clear answers. You can read more about the documents and see the cosmetics here.