3.2 hours of audio is enough to acoustically geolocate a random American via ADS-B
AndrewM_Webb · x · 2026-11-03
Researcher AndrewMWebb demonstrated an acoustic geolocation technique: record continuous ambient audio long enough to capture sounds from at least two aircraft with public ADS-B data, match the sounds to public flight trackers, and you can infer the recording location.
A histogram shows the median recording time needed for a randomly selected person in the US is 3.2 hours; 32% of cases need under 2 hours, while 17% need over a day, and some areas aren't viable at all. High population density areas are also high aircraft density areas, making the method more effective in cities.
Related event: Acoustic Localization From Ambient Audio Raises Privacy Concerns(2 posts)→
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