Widgetheads.Net Down?
 

Widgetheads.net is down. Any ideas on what is happening?

Page says the account has been suspended.

Great website with lots of neat information.

Delta is having an issue with the use of it's logo, etc.

I saw this on Saturday on airliners...but it says it was back up already saturday afternoon.

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo....main/4616278/

Looks like maybe it was taken down again...as the current message is the same message as it was on saturday when i looked.

Hopefully it'll be up and running again soon. Great resource.

I would guess that the DL lawyers put in a DMCA notice to the hosting company. According to the other thread they pulled the objected to logos, but the initial request may have put into action a bunch red tape that will keep the site down for a couple days.

Initially the dispute was over the use of the Delta logos, and they were subsequently removed. However, last night the site went down again and Justin (the site's operator) posted the legal problems had grown much larger - to the point where they objected to all of the content on the site and even the domain name. The full posting can be found here: http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo....main/4618753/ .

I'm hopeful he can work everything out and have the site up again, but it looks to be an uphill battle.

If I were him I would get the help from a specialist in this area:

Electronic Frontier Foundation
454 Shotwell Street
San Francisco CA 94110-1914 USA
Phone: +1 415 436 9333
Fax: +1 415 436 9993

This is bullsh**. Why on earth would Delta want to attack the website of one of their greatest enthusiasts?!

Sad. Very sad.

Might not be an executive business decision, but an internal bureaucratic machine that thinks it's doing it's job.

I too think it's a shame that the company is trying to shut the kid down. He clearly means no harm. Also, a lot of his information comes from the airline itself, on the DL Blog.

Problem is, the Widgetheads kid seems to have access to even more detailed information (which ships are being painted in which bays, etc) which is, in fact, of a proprietary nature. He clearly has someone on the inside, who isn't authorized to release this stuff.

Sure, it poses no corporate risk if people know that ship 665 is being painted in "Bay 3." But If I were DL, I'd worry about what other information this kid could have access to. There's certainly a slew of fleet plans that are not public for competitive reasons. To be honest, I've been amazed the site wasn't shut down earlier.

What's really unfortunate is that DL hasn't decided to go after the source of the information, rather than the nice kid who's little more than a fan.

Corporate lawyers run amuck
 

Unbelievable. This site is a great resource for those of us who are both fans of the airline AND loyal Delta customers -- In fact, it's the availability of this "proprietary information" (which, really, if anyone can get the information freely on the internet, it isn't proprietary) that adds to my desire to fly Delta in the first place. :td:

I bet they want to find out who the leak is.

You can't fault them for wanting to know and it can be a security risk imo for the public to know what bay an airplane is being painted in.

We live in a day and age where you can never be too secure.

Delta should do with him what Microsoft did with the MikroSoft kid.

Why would there have to be a leak? All you need is a zealous group of plane watchers with cameras.

Unless that kid gets the EFF to take his case pro bono he's in for hard lesson on Civil procedures. It doesn't matter if the law is on your side, it matters if you have the money to defend yourself. Maybe if he lives in a SLAPP state like California he might get lucky. His chances aren't good and Delta could decide to bankrupt the kid if they so desire.

I'm pretty sure the post he made "I have details that DL has bought CZ MD-90s and will release them when I'm allowed to" probably didn't help him, either.

The site was harmless, but even I was wondering how in the hell he's gotten all that propietary information.

I'd put $$ down that they found him through the "leak".....

IIRC, he has a family member that works for DL.

I bet that family member no longer does after this.

BTW what we may consider harmless info may be worth gold to the competition.

I bet it was the CZ MD-90 post that broke the camel's back.

DL has not publicly made any announcement regarding the deal for the additional MD-90's. At the last quarterly earnings call they mentioned the 3 coming from the Greek airline but not these Chinese aircraft.

That is information that investors would be all over and make a big stink about, such as purchasing capacity, and could have implications on other deals.

That was definetely insider information that has NOT be publicly announced and probably was set the DL legal department into action.

Have you seen the information he had on that site? It certainly isn't info you can glean by taxiing by TOC on the way to the runway.

Not only did he have info on which plane is in which bay and FOR WHAT, but he also had projected dates when the work would be done. He knew which specific ship numbers were as far away as HKG for maintenance. No way a random enthusiast could come across that level of detail without someone on the inside.

I enjoyed reading this information, and I'm 100% for a free and fair press. I always prefer more information being released than less. But the fact is much of this information (especially the MD90 information) is proprietary and confidential. You can't fault DL for clamping down.

I'm just surprised it took them this long.

It's all over a popular forum for DL pilots...

Are you even surprised? It's another attempt of Delta to drive every customer away. If there is something I hate about this airline it's their management

A lot of his information comes from internal Delta sources which is clearly marked Proprietary/Confidential.

and which major U.S. airline do u like the management?
US Parker
AA Aprey
UA Tilton


It is like voting for president of the U.S.

I was satisfied with NWA's management and I can say the same for AA.. for some reason I am just so infuriated with the way Delta is screwing up the merger. I think they have made everything more expensive since the merger for practically the same product, if not worse (such as the new SkyClub)

+1 the CZ Mad Dog news was quite old when he posted.

It was rumored for a long time, but never set in stone that a deal was done. He even had a post that said along the lines "I've gotten word that the deal is done and DL is acquiring 9 more MD-90s."

And as harmless as it is knowing which NW planes are getting repainted, it still is not something that could easily be known. Someone was giving him information..he even knew when planes would be going in the hangar in advanced.

He also knew what planes were in storage like DC-9-30s and if they were sold ( and those are VERY hard to keep track of)

I've been keeping track of the Northwest repaints and have even supplied Widgetheads with some of the information. All of my information comes from public sources, as I have no connections with Delta or anyone on the inside at Delta. Here's the process for anyone interested.

1. Watch FlightAware for NW repositioning flights to GLH or VCV.
2. Check ACARS reporting sites (acardsd.org or libhomeradar.org) for registration numbers.
a. If the repositioning flight is listed in ACARS, it's easy to know which plane is being repainted.
b. If the flight isn't listed, wait 3 days or so and check which aircraft has been inactive on ACARS since the date of the repositioning flight. After the suspected aircraft repositions back into service, verify it is back on regular flights using ACARS.

The system isn't 100% accurate, but I've only run across 3 or 4 aircraft that had been incorrectly identified over the history of the repaint program.

Hey guys, Justin here...

I just wanted to inform you that I'm still waiting to hear back from the lawyers regarding if we can work out a deal to keep the site up under a terms of agreement.

While I can't comment too much about what you've all been talking about, I will say that almost all of my info is readily available online on other websites. Also, the MD-90 info was posted before I posted it on Widgetheads.net. I had the list a while ago, but kept it secret, as instructed to do so by my source(s).

Please keep an eye on the Anet post, as that is where I will post the updates.

Take care,
Justin

Site back up!
 

Looks like the site is back up!

Congrats, Justin...Hope it stays up for good this time around!

Yes, it is. The Fleet Viewer is up, which is ^^^!

There's nothing on the Mod List. While it was a great tool, this feature was probably more responsible for the Almighty Hammer of Litigiousness than any other.

Yep, his website is back online now. I'm glad to hear from him. He had already approved from his lawyers to get his agreements of terms with his website. I will looking forward to it. I can see where DL will continuation to see his progress. I can see DL will have repainted new livery scheme.

I am totally new to widgetheads.net

Is there any way to view which planes and how many have WiFi and Seat Power?

Yes. Follow the link in my post above. There are lots of search options, so you'll just have to root around until you find the ones for Power Port and WiFi. It's not as complicated as it looks, and there's a lot of information there.

neat!

WiFi - 263 aircraft found

F/J seats with power - 309 aircraft found

I didn't even realize this thread was alive again. It is true - Widgetheads has been up and running for a few weeks now. It's taking some time to get all the data caught up. Especially since I've been on vacation for the past week. But hopefully soon the site will return to the state it was before going offline.

This is completely incorrect. Please note that there has been no approval given by DL's lawyers to allow Widgetheads to run again. I had sent many emails to the lawyer with no response. So I convinced my host to turn the site back on without their approval. I've yet to hear form the lawyer since the site has come back.

Please note these numbers are quite out-of-date. I should have more accurate numbers within a month or so.