My point is that it would be much harder to know which airplane is Elon's jet if it weren't for the twitter account.
Which goes to the gp's point that even if the data is public, making it easily accessible increases Elon's personal safety risk.
That said, the NYT story does seem to make my point a bit moot. In any case, I wasn't aware of that story, and it didn't come up when I searched for "Elon Musk jet callsign".
Although I would guess a determined attacker could find it out given sufficient research.
> Although I would guess a determined attacker could find it out given sufficient research.
You don't have to be determined; a college freshman on a lark found Musk, Gates, etc. and made Twitter accounts. This information is intentionally public; you can browse recent plane registrations at https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/RecentRegist..., export it to CSV, with full name and address of each owner.
I get a text message whenever my dad is seen in the air.
@elonjet isn't the problem here. (IMO, there isn't a problem.)
Wow, ok. You really can search by people's first name and last name, and tail numbers come up. I'm surprised. I just assumed it was like license plate numbers; my bad.
Interesting. I am surprised there is a "name" field. It has some random holding company ... but if you're an individual not playing the shell game, are you required to put your actual name there? Or is there an option not to?
Yikes, people. I didn't say twitter should ban posting license plates and airplane tail numbers, I was just saying those things are pretty equivalent and there should be a clear policy on it that is followed consistently.
