科技创新！
Creator of the Twitter account @ElonJet gets take
Elon Musk slipped into the DMs of the creator of the Twitter bot @ElonJet last month.
That was the start of a drawn-out conversation between Jack Sweeney, 19, a college freshman at the University of Central Florida, and Tesla CEO billionaire Musk.
Musk started the conversation by asking a small favor: Would Sweeney take down the bot that posted his private plane's whereabouts? And, to sweeten the deal: What if he threw in $5,000?
@ElonJet tracks the whereabouts of Musk's private jet. Sweeney, a flight tracking whiz who utilizes publicly available data that comes from the Federal Aviation Administration, has set up 15 other jet trackers for SpaceX planes, celebrity-toting jets, and aircraft from other big names like Jeff Bezos. @ElonJet was the most popular tracking bot in Sweeney's collection, but it only had about 83,000 followers at the time this all started. Now it's up to over 241,000.
In a phone call with Mashable last week, Sweeney went through his ongoing saga with Musk.
Sweeney countered Musk's offer by asking for a more substantial $50,000. Or what about a Tesla Model 3? After all, he's a college kid who invested a lot of time and effort into setting up the account. Musk, one of the richest people in the world, said he'd consider it, but didn't follow up again.
Sweeney reached out again about two weeks ago with his last ask: an internship at one of Musk's companies, like SpaceX or Tesla. Radio silence. Then he was blocked by the active Twitter user sometime over the weekend.
As the tech publication Protocol reported last week, Musk reached out to Sweeney in December even though @ElonJet has been posting take-off and landing info since June 2020.
Sweeney explained to Musk how he set up the account using ADS-B Exchange data, and even offered advice to Musk. He suggested a free information-blocking program offered through the FAA, which Musk (or likely someone on his team) set up. As the FAA website explained, "Limiting aircraft data from the FAA data systems will limit flight tracking information transmitted over the Internet." However, Sweeney's @ElonJet continued to function despite the more limited data.
Musk went a step further after Protocol's initial report about the take-down drama was published last week, enabling a second data-blocking method that acts as another layer of privacy but still isn't impenetrable. These blocks would deter the average person from tracking this particular plane. But Sweeney's father is in the airline industry, as Protocol reported, and the college student knew where to find less-accessible databases. He figured out how to continue accessing the publicly available (but now much more buried) flight info that he could plug into the bot.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
"He probably will be mad now that I know it’s completely working," Sweeney said once the account tracked the flight path despite the new hiccup.
As to why Musk is suddenly concerned with the tracking bot and the perceived security risk, Sweeney is just as confused as we are. He said in the 1.5 years @ElonJet's been in operation, neither Musk nor anyone from his companies have reached out.
"There were some people saying stop following this account," Sweeney said of the Musk fans urging him to take down @ElonJet, but the bot is still going, with negotiations seemingly stalled for good now that all of Sweeney's accounts are blocked. Sweeney said he would take it down if that internship — or electric car — materialized.
Musk's plane most recently landed in Harlingen, Texas.
Featured Video For You
Elon Musk's worst tweets of all time (so far)
文章
88
浏览
8263
获赞
8216
热门推荐
Prince Harry is 'over the moon' after Meghan Markle gives birth to a baby boy
The royal family has officially welcomed a new member.On Monday, the @sussexroyal Instagram accountFat bears of Alaska are already really fat, footage shows
This is what a flourishing wilderness looks like.The internet-famous fat bears of Katmai National PaWebb telescope just found the most ancient galaxies anyone's ever seen
The James Webb Space Telescopejust looked back in time a whopping 13.4 billion years. You read thatMore KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut locations will get AI
You might want to become familiar with the Taco Bell mobile app.That's because parent company Yum! BWhat to expect at WWDC 2020: Plenty of new features across all Apple devices
On June 22, Apple will hold is annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). But rather than gatheWWF wants citizen scientists to count walruses from space
Walrus detectives are being recruited in the fight to save the marine mammals from the reality of thAre More RAM Modules Better for Gaming? 4 x 4GB vs. 2 x 8GB
It's not unusual to have this kind of question debated in tech forums, so today we're having a lookNASA picked its Artemis moon astronauts. Here's what they'll do.
The four astronauts just named to the Artemis II mission are the first crew who will test-drive theGoogle Assistant can now use your voice to verify purchases
Making purchases with your voice is convenient, but it's far from secure. Google is attempting to chWebb finds a molecule made by microbial life in another world
While the James Webb Space Telescope observed the atmosphere of an alien world 120 light-years away,Webb telescope just found the most ancient galaxies anyone's ever seen
The James Webb Space Telescopejust looked back in time a whopping 13.4 billion years. You read thatAmazon Spring Sale 2025: Save $30 on Apple Pencil Pro
SAVE $30:As of March 28, the Apple Pencil Pro is on sale for $99 in the Amazon Spring Sale. That's aDr. Dre, a big USC donor, says his daughter got into USC 'on her own'
Dr. Dre wrote that his daughter Truly was accepted to the University of Southern California "all onTech giants rush shipments before tariff deadlines
In a last-minute scramble, tech heavyweights like Apple, Dell, and Microsoft have been fast-trackingHow reptiles took over the world
Climate change is shaping the way animals evolve, be it the way they lookor behave. Similarly, clima