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Comment by melony | Hacker News Reader

>The first thing that pops into your head when reading "private vehicle's location need not be streamed to government" is: why would it?

Wait till you hear about "airplanes".

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AIS[1] is basically an airplane transponder, but for vessels and I think it broadcasts position along with identification. For safety alone, seems to me that any commercial vessel carrying paid passengers should have one.

But the Reason article is so vague I literally can't tell if they are talking about AIS, or some other bespoke system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_syste...

They really don't explain the difference well.

AIS is a local broadcast. It's like having a number plate that's visible from 10 miles away.

VMS is 'phone home' system. It's like having a gps tracker with cellular connectivity on your car, reporting into a federal agency (not hyperbole, that's the design goal.)

At least for airplanes you don't have to transmit the position when the plane does not fly. The article says the boats must do it 24x7.

There's a power-down exemption for boats which are continuously out of the water or in port for more than 72 consecutive hours. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-50/chapter-VI/part-622/su... .

Well with airplanes, there is a real justification for it: safety. They're moving fast and have to make sure they don't collide.

But you don't have to broadcast your tail number to prevent a collision. It makes tracking by ATC easier since the tail number can be traced back to a flight plan, but if the sole reason is to prevent in-air collision, a radio beacon without tail number could achieve that.

A tail number also makes it easier for ATC to know who to give runway landing clearance to, doesn't it? They can't just say "you airplane over there, yes you, you're clear to land".

Whats broadcast is not the tail number but a ICAO ID assigned to the aircraft, that database is public. The FAA can assign anonymous IDs to aircraft that need privacy for some reason and still be able to identify which aircraft it is in their systems.

"Randomized identifier XYZZY, you are cleared to land"

Not when it is mandatory for small and slow planes where the system cost is a big problem.

Small and slow airplanes can still hit things and kill people.

Boats also hit things and kill people.

Cars kill way more people than small planes.

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