At the end of January, we told you the story of Jack Sweeney, this American student who had found a way to follow the movements of the private jets of great fortunes like Elon Musk, Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. At the time, the young man had created several Twitter accounts which relayed each trip of businessmen, which had greatly upset Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla. Now, however, the 19-year-old student has other targets: Russian President Vladimir Putin and a dozen Russian oligarchs.
Two days following Russia invaded Ukraine, the student announced that he had put the Twitter account @PutinJet online, supposed to follow the movements of the Russian president. “Don’t expect it to be very precise,” however warned the young man. “There are a dozen Russian VIP planes, and the ADS-B coverage is not very good.”
However, this did not prevent him, the next day, from creating the @RUOligarchJets account which, for its part, follows the movements of twelve large Russian fortunes, close to power.
As a reminder, the young man managed to follow these planes by compiling several public data, but also thanks to his good knowledge of the aeronautical sector. If he does not obtain this data illegally, this still raises ethical questions.
Interviewed by Bloomberg, Jack Sweeney explains that he decided to create these new accounts “following multiple requests from Internet users”. If he had mainly followed private jets until now, the student was impressed by the private planes of the Russian oligarchs. “Their planes are completely crazy. They are huge compared to other jets,” he continues, adding that some of them traveled on commercial-size planes like an Airbus A319 or a Boeing 737.
Remember, however, that Elon Musk had recently managed to thwart the vigilance of the software by appearing several times thousands of kilometers from the position indicated by the student’s Twitter account. Eventually, everyone might do the same. “I can follow the plane, not who is in it,” the youngster said at the time.
