DEF CON 30 - Andrew Logan - Tracking Military Ghost Helicopters over Washington DC

Рет қаралды 108,471

Жыл бұрын

There's a running joke around Washington D.C. that the "State Bird" is the helicopter. Yet 96% of helicopter noise complaints from 2018-2021 went unattributed: D.C. Residents can not tell a news helicopter from a black hawk. Flight tracking sites remove flights as a paid service to aircraft owners and government agencies; even in the best case these sites do not receive tracking information from most military helicopters due to a Code of Federal Regulations exemption for "sensitive government mission for national defense, homeland security, intelligence or law enforcement." This makes an enormous amount of helicopter flights untraceable even for the FAA and leaves residents in the dark.
What if we could help residents identify helicopters? What if we could crowd source helicopter tracking? What if we could collect images to identify helicopters using computer vision? What if we could make aircraft radio as accessible as reading a map? What if we could make spotting helicopters a game that appeals to the competitive spirit of Washingtonians? And what if we could do all of this... on Twitter?

Пікірлер: 121

@zeppelins4ever 10 ай бұрын

He really just made Pokemon GO for government aircrafts. That is glorious! Fantastic talk!

@jfwfreo Жыл бұрын

Its very cool to document all these flights over Washington DC. I read a story a while back about some guys who wanted to drive real fast who were using ADS-B and other detection to track law enforcement aircraft so they could identify if there was anything in the area that might be doing speed measurement...

@OEFarredondo 8 ай бұрын

Best way is to check the airport they fly out of lol

@alexfisher4009 7 ай бұрын

my late great aunt lived in a no fly zone in long island. she used to sit with binoculars and write down the Id numbers and report them weekly. her arch enemy was Matt Laur. she died before he was canceled but im sure she would have popped a bottle

@secretsauceskateboarding4337 9 ай бұрын

People are saying it's scary and dangerous how this guy's program is tracking military flights. Meanwhile, the fed gov tracks, listens to, and views you through your phone, computer, city cameras, and many other ways. I think I know which one is more dangerous.

@TankR 3 ай бұрын

Yeah! Drink that kool-ade!!!!

@davefoster7770 Жыл бұрын

In terms of ID'ing the helicopters, they also make quite distinctive noise. I live in a minimal helicopter area but I can tell you what's overhead by the noise. Cops have a Bell. Coast guard have a Huey looking thing {whap whap whap). Air Ambulance is a buzzy EC135. The fire dept. have a weird twin contra rotating twin rotor thing. "Shazam" the helicopters for ID too.

@helicoptersofdc Жыл бұрын

I've heard this theory a few times, and while I think alone audio quality and doppler effect would be a struggle, when users submit a video it would be an awesome result to give as an option particularly at night

@dinoscheidt Жыл бұрын

whap whap whap

@standardaussie 9 ай бұрын

@@dinoscheidtI knew exactly what they ment 🤷‍♂️ didn't you?

@Dwigt_Rortugal 8 ай бұрын

"Whap whap whap" = "Huey looking thing." 👍 If I saw and heard one, that's probably how I'd describe it, too!

@deekamikaze 8 ай бұрын

@@Dwigt_Rortugal it's either a uh60 Blackhawk or a as365 dauphin that the coast guard flies

@TheRealBanana Жыл бұрын

Very cool talk! I'm constantly entertained with a couple SDRs, one capturing ADSB and the other listening to ATC. One thing I would love to see applied elsewhere is Multilateration. Currently some aircraft that emit ADSB data do not actually emit GPS coordinates. By having a large network of time-synchronized receivers you can use time-difference of arrival to locate a signal source. This multilateration technique could be applied to other government vehicles such as police cars. These vehicles do not emit publicly accessible location data but they DO emit signals in the UHF range (700-800MHz). With a network of receivers you could accurately track the movements of police/government vehicles without needing to decrypt their comms at all.

@helicoptersofdc Жыл бұрын

@compucar03 debunked this two comments below because VHF has different characteristics, however much can be learned by radio patterns simply by looking at active frequencies at a given time.

@TheRealBanana Жыл бұрын

@@helicoptersofdc I was thinking more of the UHF P25 communications. Most of the police in my area use the 700-800mhz range. I'm not sure what he was implying in his post but multilateration is in use and working right now at UHF frequencies (978mhz and 1090mhz). Its not as accurate as actual radar but thats not really the point, Its accurate enough.

@andrewferguson6901 9 ай бұрын

In other words, it's free radar

@cyberbiosecurity 8 ай бұрын

so this is how they manage to avoid police to plant all these graffiti and shit

@TankR 3 ай бұрын

@@cyberbiosecurity And if yall think more organized levels of crime doesnt gather data on cops cell phone idents, or have networks of SDRs watching uplink frequency signal strengths (or at least a few near the stash houses), and have their own RFINT frameworks.....well then you slot right into the kind of chicken little paranoid googled just enough information to make wild accusations inciting fear and derision, but has not gained enough life experience to be granted the wisdom to realize how innocuous most of this shit really is type of person that is pretty stereotypical for these kinds of conversations. Of course Terry selling dime bags down the street doesnt have any of that, but Terry cant even spell SDR, so..... But hey, at least your regional coke distributor knows when to make their deliveries..... Now quick, one of yall needs to reassert your alpha can call me a boot licker!

@Embassy_of_Jupiter Жыл бұрын

This poor guy probably gets so much hate mail

@xn40sarethebest Жыл бұрын

ha ha ha right

@bbuggediffy Жыл бұрын

Why?

@tonyvelasquez6776 9 ай бұрын

@bbuggediffy when every 1 start clap I got so excited I strip my pant n start yanking my johhny hose

@tonyvelasquez6776 9 ай бұрын

@@bbuggediffydeer above

@Mr0rris0 9 ай бұрын

@@bbuggediffyso the gubamint can pay 60 bucks for 20 dollar stamps. But they probably didn't even think of that and have been sending emails. By the way I'm looking for work Specialize in dabs and not finding aliens like seti the egyptian god

@tylerfarrell8748 Жыл бұрын

audio mutes at 4:20. I wonder why

@andrewferguson6901 9 ай бұрын

High pass filter

@swcoonce Жыл бұрын

Love it, Andrew!! Great work!

@Moppup 9 ай бұрын

Fantastic audio!

@trixter192 Жыл бұрын

What happened at 4:17?

@helicoptersofdc Жыл бұрын

What is Def Con hiding!? 🧐

@ryanwolfe2219 Жыл бұрын

The quote is on the slide, but I think it's probably censored to prevent YT auto flags.

@chartphred1 9 ай бұрын

Cool talk, and nice podium dance as well 😂

@nivonis393 8 ай бұрын

Oof. I've lived next to forthood for most of my life. I straight up don't hear helicopters unless they are very close ontop of me. Oblivious I swear. This impressive

@marianaldenhoevel7240 Жыл бұрын

What a cool open-source-intelligence-fusion project. If that is a word. Nosy question: Is listening in to ATC covered by the journalist privilege in the USA? Where I come from you need to be actively participating in air traffic to legally receive ATC communications. So it is limited to pilots, controllers, ground crew etc. while on active duty only. I do not, however, know of any case where a violation of this law has been prosecuted. Transmitting requires training, a personal license and certified equipment.

@djcfrompt Жыл бұрын

I believe it's understood that there is no expectation of privacy on unencrypted airwaves in the US. There are entire websites devoted to passively listening to ATC communications at airports across the country. If someone wants their radio traffic to remain private, they need to encrypt it.

@cd5433 Жыл бұрын

You can buy a atc receiver in the USA . Your not supposed to transmit

@TankR 3 ай бұрын

@@djcfrompt Yes and no. There is some technical language in the laws, that along with situational aspects, that effectively boil down to you cannot decode any transmission not intended for you. ie, the hospital pager data you can easily pick up with an SDR around 928MHz. Even though it is in clear text (HIPAA anyone?!? Like seriously....names, ailments, and treatments all over the place!) since you have to decode it (with a simple program like mulitimon-ng) you had to DO something to the transmitted data to make it human readable, thus it is some level of 'invasive'. However, as ATC, and typically fire department comms, are considered 'public safety communications' on top of them being transmitted entirely analog (IIRC, air radio traffic is even modulated in AM still because of how well it carries through the atmosphere) they can freely be listened to by anyone. If you want your voice transmissions to remain legally private, you just have to use a digital radio transmitter like the quintessential motorola DMR type walkies. No implicit need for encryption at all. Of course if you EXPECT privacy, then yes, definitely encrypt. With a decent schema. Because there are quite a few decoder projects out there ;)

@steingat Жыл бұрын

If you had 3 SDR's in a triangle, I wounder if you could pinpoint the source of ATC transmissions based on signal strengh

@helicoptersofdc Жыл бұрын

I have theorized this as well, though it may be crossing a line for our project but it's a cool concept

@compucar03 Жыл бұрын

@@helicoptersofdc UHF radio is not evenly and isotropically radiated out with no reflections, so probably not. Usually the next thought people have is time of arrival, but that suffers from similar problems + time sync challenges. If it was possible, we wouldnt need primary and secondary radar.

@helicoptersofdc Жыл бұрын

@@compucar03 what I have considered is using metadata from encrypted radio frequencies to determine which service is active at a given time.

@compucar03 Жыл бұрын

@@helicoptersofdc Interesting, what metadata? Got any papers or videos on that? The idea being they might emit some constant ID number and you build a database overtime of human spots to ID numbers? Kinda reminds me of this: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hL1dnbWDubanpas.html

@helicoptersofdc Жыл бұрын

@@compucar03 just correlating time and transmission frequency with sightings to be able to say which agency is operating at night (the radio community seems to have identified different frequencies for each military branch)

@mikehibbett3301 5 ай бұрын

Awesome, thankyou

@StormBurnX Жыл бұрын

Amazing!

@Johnnyfittt 8 ай бұрын

I see them all the time in Dallas,Tx

@badlesbian1983 8 ай бұрын

Helicopters are my special interest and so is getting into ethical hacking - so this vid is great!!!!! Thanks so much ! :)

@loudounfisher9135 8 ай бұрын

All these flights are still using transponders, just not in mode-S. Newflash, there are other modes! Look up mode 3.

@nighthawkviper6791 8 ай бұрын

Not sure if he's worried about IMSI Catching or Bluetooth Mesh Mapping, or thinks Camero Tech Phased Array MRI tech is being deployed on civilians but really I didn't think this was such a hot topic. Kind of a waste of time.

@helicoptersofdc 6 ай бұрын

It's actually not that relevant to the project: if a helicopter is circling your house MLAT tracks from Mode S transponders won't give you any identifying information about the operator unlike the methods described in the talk.

@TankR 3 ай бұрын

@@helicoptersofdc If they're circling your house at 2AM and only being picked up MLAT, Im betting you have a pretty good idea who they are and why they're there. At the very least youll be finding out real soon..... [FBI_WE_HAVE_A_WARENT.gif] Although I do agree, much like the cops that abused flipping the lights on to roll through an intersection thing so much they get in deep doo doo if they do now (at least where Im at, and I mean like office workplace deep doo doo, not the deep doo doo most people jerk off to imagining cops getting), the blatant abuse of the transponder exception should be addressed as a matter of conduct. But, its DC.....What do you expect? Everyone operating up there for the government thinks they're hot shit in a champagne glass....

@mariarahelvarnhagen2729 10 ай бұрын

That's Always Our Good Man Imhoff

@mariarahelvarnhagen2729 10 ай бұрын

His Bureau Respects A Drone With A Swish & Not One With Chaps

@mariarahelvarnhagen2729 10 ай бұрын

His Most Operational Manned Vehicle Is Quite Literally The Oscar Meyer Weinermobile That Was Built From The Chassis Of The First Volkswagon Bus

@liquidsonly 8 ай бұрын

Didn't WindyTan do this a while back?

@filanfyretracker 9 ай бұрын

I do wonder how do news helicopters link back to the station? Is it something directional? is it satellite? or are they cellular now. That is, do they broadcast back to the TV station in anything that is also interceptable for grabbing the raw video for analyzing.

@andrewferguson6901 9 ай бұрын

Radio?

@beatsbyandrew 9 ай бұрын

LiveU, we have the ip of a few of the DC ones! They can easily encrypt but don't

@grantwiersum7394 7 ай бұрын

The guitarist from El Ten Eleven claims to be able to ID helicopters by their sound. Mics are even easier to deploy than camerasor SDRs. A ML classifier would make a cool weekend project. Oh, I just got there...

@TankR 3 ай бұрын

Due to how blade length, count, rotor RPM, AOA, tail boom design/main rotor spacing, and engine type as well as exhaust design all contribute to the sound profile of helis, its not too far of a leap to believe someone has the experience to know various choppers by their racket. Ive often thought about using old phones as security cameras around my house, on the four corners, but also integrate the microphones into a kind of sound direction of arrival system....I get as far as looking at the ODAS documentation every now and then, and then give up the idea once my brains starts hurting....again....

@cyberbiosecurity 7 ай бұрын

Enemy chopper identified! 😮

@ashleigh. 9 ай бұрын

Does anyone know what was censored at 4:20?

@roidroid 9 ай бұрын

he's reading what's written on the screen.

@helicoptersofdc 9 ай бұрын

@@roidroid the audio muted in the room to, as an audio guy: I suspect someone hit the mute momentarily by accident

@fmobus Жыл бұрын

I've heard Ukrainians have been doing some sort of crowdsourcing wrt Russian planes. I wonder how much of that could be automated

@Tattlebot 8 ай бұрын

They get it all from JSTARS flying in Poland. That makes American staff a part of the kill chain for shootdowns.

@TrabberShir 7 ай бұрын

@@Tattlebot "all" is very incorrect. The kill chain can get really long and complicated. Also, on the last count I saw, less than half the kill chains of Russian aircraft that can be known with relatively high confidence included NATO assets. Which is surprising considering that most of the sources used for determining kill chains are NATO assets implying we were probably under counting shoot downs that did not involve NATO assets even more than we realized. Russian military personnel on telegram seem to be the best spotters Ukraine could have ever hoped for.

@Tattlebot 7 ай бұрын

@@TrabberShir every SA-6 was more or less getting live air traffic for popout attacks. This intel gave the Ukrainian systems persistence of deterrence, which is more valuable than shootdowns.

@Twitchy228 Жыл бұрын

We don't talk about it out in the open. Flying squirrels. =) some on the ground sometimes. lol

@nanky432 8 ай бұрын

And we are all now on a no fly lists.

@user-ew5lq1er3v Жыл бұрын

Ive been seeing military helicopters over boston pretty regularly

@jamestaylor5372 9 ай бұрын

a hero. nothing less

@Gunbudder 7 ай бұрын

i live out near an area where some people train and i have some pretty hilarious shots of helicopter pilots really hotdogging it down the ravine about 100 feet off the deck. just with my phone i got a clear picture of the pilots face and the door "gunner" (he didn't have a gun for the training they were doing). i know their training schedule so i don't really care when they fly over at 2am. if they trained at random times, it would drive me insane though. and its interesting to see when they turn on or off their ADS-B lol

@talwu628 8 ай бұрын

I tried to do something similar with potholes in my city. Y’know, so they could be fixed. There was not as much interest. Wasn’t called an anarchist, was called a spook.

@sunnindawg 8 ай бұрын

15:35 cool

@LarsLarsen77 8 ай бұрын

LOL, so you can just fly a helicopter around DC and they'll assume it's legit? That's insane.

@cyberbiosecurity 7 ай бұрын

Hostile slick inbound!

@seththebeatmxchine 9 ай бұрын

11:50 😮😳 that comment aged well

@helicoptersofdc 9 ай бұрын

hate to see it

@cyberbiosecurity 8 ай бұрын

Вижу вертушку противника!

@cyberbiosecurity 7 ай бұрын

я попал под серьёзное дерьмо!

@cyberbiosecurity 7 ай бұрын

I've got eyes on hostile helicopter, do you copy 😧

@cyberbiosecurity 7 ай бұрын

do you have oculographic apparatus equipped in order for anti air strike assistance to be done? otherwise your words are useless boy.

@melltelae3557 8 ай бұрын

...must ...teabag

@sr707ca8 8 ай бұрын

I find this topic amusing like watching people who find out how hot dogs are made, the training these men and women who train daily all over our great nation is what keeps our country ready for mass protests to rescue and fire what ever the situation needs be flying low is very dangerous if not trained, helicopters are nothing more then flying trucks most carry people or supplies the smaller ones are used for scouting only a handful of helicopters types are used by the Gov-miliatary dont think you need a website or app to tell you i can say two main helicopters used are your huey and Blackhawks with 3-4 other models and thats it i saw this kind of reaction to helicopter training in the 90's with people fearing the Blackhawk

@brianbush3366 7 ай бұрын

This shit is ridiculous, I can understand the interest in aviation and different models of aircraft but when your interests progresses into obsession with tracking or attempting to track the military and various government agencies logistics , that’s just not smart . Mind your business . If u have nothing to hide then don’t worry about wtf is going on with things above your head

@helicoptersofdc 6 ай бұрын

Thanks for the comment!

@PRAIRIEGH0ST 9 ай бұрын

just remember that this is the only country on the planet where this shit goes on

@helicoptersofdc 9 ай бұрын

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

@jamescollier3 8 ай бұрын

you think it would be safer with adsb on

@TankR 3 ай бұрын

@@jamescollier3 1) VFR. 2) they have transponders, they're just not using ADSB mode S.

@TankR 3 ай бұрын

HAHAAHAHAHAHA HEY EVERYONE! CHECK OUT THE EDGELORD THROWING SHADE ON THE US! LIKE NO ONE HAS EVER DONE THAT BEFORE! AND APPARENTLY THINKS WERE ALL NAIVE ENOUGH TO BELIEVE THIS IS THE OOOOOONNNNNLLLLLLYYYYYY COUNTRY........ON THE WHOLE PLANET........WHERE SHADY HELI TRAFFIC EXISTS!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Seriously, what are you, like 12? 🤣🤣🤣

@FainTMako 9 ай бұрын

Okay and dude really tried to act like their chopter spotter thing could help ergonomics? This guy has been drinking his own diy kool aid for a LONG time.

@Chuck8541 8 ай бұрын

George Floyd "protests" were peaceful? lol

@VACatholic 8 ай бұрын

Unironically pro george floyd and thinks twitter was better before Musk. How far the hacker world has fallen.

@helicoptersofdc 8 ай бұрын

pro first amendment, anti abuse of power, not sure what hacker world you thought existed that doesn't support those.

@VACatholic 8 ай бұрын

@@helicoptersofdc First, there's more free speech and less abuse of power with Musk as head of twitter (and even now it's still not good). Second, George Floyd was a degenerate criminal. Hackers used to be able to see through the government psyops, not work with them.

@schizophrenicgaming365 8 ай бұрын

@@helicoptersofdctwitter hasn't been 1A compliant since like 2012, don't be so delusional. If you want a real abuse of power google "duncan lemp"

@TankR 3 ай бұрын

Bruh....you think 'hackers' universally like musk, the bullshit he talks, the sycophants that get high off his farts, appreciate what he did to twitter, and would be unironically for standing on someones neck after they've been detained? You been drinkin the wrong punch, homie....