
Twitter bot is tracking dictators' flights in and out of Geneva - jonbaer
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/13/13243072/twitter-bot-tracks-dictator-planes-geneva-gva-tracker?href=
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mc32
Apropos of this I just heard on the radio about the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery
initiative[1] which tries to recover "misappropriated" funds from corrupt
officials who primarily launder money by buying real estate in the US through
off shore shell companies.

[1][http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/10/13/497706638/w...](http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/10/13/497706638/when-
kleptocrats-bring-money-into-the-u-s-theres-now-a-plan-to-seize-it)

~~~
agumonkey
And now I wonder if bitcoin like moneys have a real advantage against this..

~~~
rz2k
There are advantages to arms length transactions, and ownership that is
determined by possession as much as records held somewhere. It's nice to be
able to escape your country with some of the wealth your family has built up
when a dictator takes over. Or maybe, it is only necessary to shelter that
wealth for a short time during a period of relative political insanity.

Of course those same abilities enable organized crime, and the ability of
dictators to destroy their own countries, then live decadent lives in a
country that wasn't ruined by people like themselves.

~~~
agumonkey
Sounds similar to "right to be forgotten" in web index.

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ihsw
The list of planes can be found on GitHub[1].

It seems to be heavily focused on governments residing in the MENA region and
Central Asia.

Notably missing is Ethiopia[2], but it seems the repo is open to pull-
requests.

[1] [https://github.com/lefranz/geneva-
dictators/blob/master/arag...](https://github.com/lefranz/geneva-
dictators/blob/master/aragge.js#L85)

[2]
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/12/ethiop...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/12/ethiopia-
state-of-emergency-protests-corruption)

~~~
donkeyd
"Who's a dictator? We're now exclusively following jets used by "authoritarian
regimes" according to the 2015 Democracy Index by @TheEIU"

That's what the list is based on according to their Twitter.

~~~
cdubzzz
And Ethiopia is on the Index[0] as "Authoritarian", so should be included if
the information can be found.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index)

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snake_plissken
Reminds me of the scene from Wall Street where Charlie Sheen asks the airport
worker where a private jet is heading, and then deduces which company is being
targeted for an acquisition.

~~~
saryant
When Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglass, executives would fly to two
unrelated cities and then drive to the actual meeting place for negotiations,
specifically to foil this sort of surveillance.

~~~
eps
I remember reading how people would keep track of if/where a CEO of larger
company would fly prior to a quarterly report. Apparently there was a strong
correlation between short trips to holiday places and good earnings reports.

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bogomipz
I'm curious how they are ascertaining whether a dictator is on board since I
don't think a flight manifest would be available, so while tracking the tail
numbers lets you know what country and might not always tell you who is on
board.

This brings up an interesting question though, if it is not a dictator but
rather a rank file U.N envoy why are they traveling by private jet?

Anyway I think this project is neat and worthwhile. There was someone a while
back that was doing something similar, albeit without a twitter bot, that was
tracking the CIA's rendition flights using similar tactics.

~~~
umeshunni
They cannot know if the dictator is on board, of course, but it could just be
one of their lackeys flying to Geneva with a suitcase full of cash to deposit
in a Swiss bank account.

~~~
bogomipz
Agreed, that's kind of what I was getting at is that it raises questions
either way.

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joeyspn
So, according to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index)
(source for this bot), China is an authoritarian regime and Xi Jinping is a
"dictator"?

[https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102387539239021](https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102387539239021)

~~~
24gttghh
What am I missing here? Yes, China is considered Authoritarian because they
are a one-party-state...

~~~
pabloski
Then Russia is a democracy. Agree? Because, you know, there are many more
parties than in the US.

Oh wait, they say Russia is a dictatorship. Oh yeah, in fact in Russia you
have international observers during elections, in the US not. In Russia you
have 4 parties in the Duma, in the US just two. In Russia you have a pletora
of parties in the elections, in the US just two.

I am seriously angry they didn't add the biggest dictatorship in the world,
the American Empire!

~~~
1024core
> In Russia you have a pletora of parties in the elections, in the US just
> two.

Nit: in the US, there are dozens of parties. Most don't get the votes to win,
but they exist: Greens, Independent, Libertarian, etc. etc. Bernie Sanders was
of neither party.

~~~
mveety
Most of those parties don't get a platform, which is a lot of the reason they
don't get votes. The Republicans and Democrats control the debates, how to
register as a candidate, etc and the media has failed by perpetuating the "two
party system" myth.

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_nedR
Why don't they track the comings and going of non-dictators?

Why not expose wrong-doings of leaders whose people actually have an ability
to right the wrong?

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eps
Tracking Putin's plane flying to Geneva to attend to Putin's tax evasion needs
- that's just comically silly.

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rbcgerard
So now they have to charter a jet or use a fractional when they fly to gva,
how will they cope?

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wrong_variable
Very cool !

Has anything actionable being done using this ?

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mxuribe
This is very cool!

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InclinedPlane
Why is this political stuff on HN? I thought this site was supposed to be
apolitical.

/s

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iso-8859-1
A small codebase like this could make a good example of async/await which is
now available in Node 7 [1] with the --harmony_async_await flag. Since it is
not even using Promises but simple callbacks instead, massive improvement is
possible.

[1]:
[https://nodejs.org/download/test/v7.0.0-test201610107f7d1d38...](https://nodejs.org/download/test/v7.0.0-test201610107f7d1d385d/)

