What happened with FlightAware and DOTCOMs?

Fearless Tower

Fearless Tower

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Fearless Tower
Literally overnight all the DOTCOMs went silent on FlightAware.

It used to be you had to specifically request to be blocked. Now all DCM call signs are blocked.

Anyone know what changed?
 
I dunno why they'd bother, since the DCMs were already masking other flight numbers, so I would have to think they'd be randomly assigned. "OMG, there goes... Someone who doesn't want to be watched."

I suppose maybe some people started "spying" on those flights when they landed at local airports or something, but it still seems like overkill. "I'm not even going to tell you my alias."
 
Of course they'll all still be 100% visible thanks to the pond-scum at ADSB Exchange.
 
denverpilot said:
DOTCOM callsign. It’s owned by FltPlan.com and you can buy use of it to hide your tail number, etc. Numerous bizjets flying around using the callsign.
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So, since the DCMs are owned by Fltplan, it seems the issue is that FltPlan has stopped sharing the info with FlightAware.

When you log into Fltplan, there is an announcement at the top. You can still track them, but you have to do it through the Fltplan.com tracker and not FA.


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flyingcheesehead said:
I suppose maybe some people started "spying" on those flights when they landed at local airports or something, but it still seems like overkill. "I'm not even going to tell you my alias."
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Funny story about that actually. A few years back, there was a DCM flight that was Enroute from somewhere in SC, I don’t recall now. It was a King Air 90 for what it’s worth. I had flightaware open and saw the DCM aircraft Enroute to the airport one evening that I happened to be walking the ramp. Decided to stay around and catch it land. Well it landed and dropped some passengers off and then fired back up to Knoxville. I got the tail number for the aircraft and punched it in and what’d ya know? It comes up, ‘this tail number is blocked from public tracking per request of the owner.’ So what’s the point of having a DCM? If they would’ve skipped the DCM callsign I wouldn’t have know they were coming, but since they had it I was able to track them.. :rofl:
 
Ryanb said:
Funny story about that actually. A few years back, there was a DCM flight that was Enroute from somewhere in SC, I don’t recall now. It was a King Air 90 for what it’s worth. I had flightaware open and saw the DCM aircraft Enroute to the airport one evening that I happened to be walking the ramp. Decided to stay around and catch it land. Well it landed and dropped some passengers off and then fired back up to Knoxville. I got the tail number for the aircraft and punched it in and what’d ya know? It comes up, ‘this tail number is blocked from public tracking per request of the owner.’ So what’s the point of having a DCM? If they would’ve skipped the DCM callsign I wouldn’t have know they were coming, but since they had it I was able to track them.. :rofl:
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That’s interesting. I wonder if the airplane was ADS-B?

Normally, if they filed with the DCM callsign, the flight would not show up in FlightAware under the tail#, even if you knew the number.


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Fearless Tower said:
That’s interesting. I wonder if the airplane was ADS-B?

Normally, if they filed with the DCM callsign, the flight would not show up in FlightAware under the tail#, even if you knew the number.


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The only thing that showed on FlightAware was DCMxxx, no tail number. I just grabbed the tail number once they landed and plugged that into FlightAware but it came back as untraceable. So, they basically made themselves visible by having the DCM appear on FlightAware, rather than not carrying the DCM callsign and not appearing online at all. Catch my drift?
 
Katamarino said:
Of course they'll all still be 100% visible thanks to the pond-scum at ADSB Exchange.
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What did the ADSB exchange do?

Anyone with a $50 home made receiver can watch them too

If you want to point a finger it's the governments poorly implemented attempt to track all aircraft movements in the sky, too bad there wasn't more push back to stop the ADSB nonsense, I mean heck not only is it very unconstitutional (4a), it's also a obvious security concern and does nothing for safety to send out the N number hex, dumb dumb dumb

Ryanb said:
The only thing that showed on FlightAware was DCMxxx, no tail number. I just grabbed the tail number once they landed and plugged that into FlightAware but it came back as untraceable. So, they basically made themselves visible by having the DCM appear on FlightAware, rather than not carrying the DCM callsign and not appearing online at all. Catch my drift?
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You can still trace a blocked tail number, the other part is the N number wouldn't be recorded/heard in any ATC tapes or in the handoffs if you used DCM.

The planes I've owned I always had blocked, even before the ADSB thing
 
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So, THAT's how come fltplanGO is free to use!!! Thanks Elon Musk, Srgy Brin, BIll Gates, etc.
 
James331 said:
What did the ADSB exchange do?

Anyone with a $50 home made receiver can watch them too

The planes I've owned I always had blocked, even before the ADSB thing
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They decided to aggregate all the data, put it all online, and tell anyone with privacy concerns that they can suck it. Want your tail number blocked? You can forget it now these tools are on the scene. Yes, the government is to blame for mandating a terrible system, but people like ADSB Exchange are equally culpable for collecting the data that people are now mandated to share and broadcasting it all to the whole world online.
 
Katamarino said:
They decided to aggregate all the data, put it all online, and tell anyone with privacy concerns that they can suck it. Want your tail number blocked? You can forget it now these tools are on the scene. Yes, the government is to blame for mandating a terrible system, but people like ADSB Exchange are equally culpable for collecting the data that people are now mandated to share and broadcasting it all to the whole world online.
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I block all my tailnumbers, and as most here can attest to, I prefer my privacy, that said I have very issue with ADSB exchange, and since you can also track government types, that's about the only sliver of light in the whole ADSB sending N number hexes out.
 
Any plane that it's owner doesn't want tracked is owned by ''Wells Fargo Bank NA SLC, Trustee' and by the ever popular 'Registration Pending'.
 
Ryanb said:
The only thing that showed on FlightAware was DCMxxx, no tail number. I just grabbed the tail number once they landed and plugged that into FlightAware but it came back as untraceable. So, they basically made themselves visible by having the DCM appear on FlightAware, rather than not carrying the DCM callsign and not appearing online at all. Catch my drift?
Click to expand...

I think origin of using the alternate callsign was to keep paparazzi from using a $10 garage sale scanner to listen for the aircraft arrival or departure on the radio, before ADS-B was a thing.

If they don’t use a callsign they had to use the tail number on the air back then.

“Enthusiasts” would simply keep lists of tail numbers, even if they were blocked, since you have to repaint the aircraft to change them. :)
 
denverpilot said:
“Enthusiasts” would simply keep lists of tail numbers, even if they were blocked, since you have to repaint the aircraft to change them. :)
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If someone truly doesn't want the plane to be trackable they just use foil based numbers and move the plane 'non-arms-length' from one trust to the other twice a year (similar to how Steve Jobs never had license plates on his SL).
 
weilke said:
If someone truly doesn't want the plane to be trackable they just use foil based numbers and move the plane 'non-arms-length' from one trust to the other twice a year (similar to how Steve Jobs never had license plates on his SL).
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Doesn’t help in the slightest if the enthusiasts know the tail number and have a scanner or LiveATC at the field. They know who flies on what and they want photos. All it takes is the N number. If the aircraft uses the N number talking to approach, whatever shell company that they set up is useless once the ownership of the aircraft is known and it’s not a fractional.

Numerous jet places have installed those garage like things to pull under and they’re not just for weather. They’re blocking long range lens views of who’s getting on and off at public airports.

It isn’t just celebs either. Execs don’t want people to know they’re in town negotiating buy out deals, athletes don’t want the press knowing they’re negotiating with a team, etc. (We see quite a bit of the athletics thing at KAPA with all our teams here and Bronco’s HQ being literally one minute from the airport.)

There’s nowhere for anyone to hide on a public airport unless there’s a pull in hangar or they tow it inside without deplaning, which they do here sometimes and pull the car with tinted windows in the hangar also.
 
Ryanb said:
Funny story about that actually. A few years back, there was a DCM flight that was Enroute from somewhere in SC, I don’t recall now. It was a King Air 90 for what it’s worth. I had flightaware open and saw the DCM aircraft Enroute to the airport one evening that I happened to be walking the ramp. Decided to stay around and catch it land. Well it landed and dropped some passengers off and then fired back up to Knoxville. I got the tail number for the aircraft and punched it in and what’d ya know? It comes up, ‘this tail number is blocked from public tracking per request of the owner.’ So what’s the point of having a DCM? If they would’ve skipped the DCM callsign I wouldn’t have know they were coming, but since they had it I was able to track them.. :rofl:
Click to expand...

Hah! That's pretty funny.

Should thy wish to manipulate a system, thou shalt first learn how that system works...
 
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