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ShadowBroker aggregates publicly available global telemetry — aircraft ADS-B broadcasts, maritime AIS signals, satellite orbital data, seismic sensors, conflict event feeds, and more — into a single dark-ops map interface. It is designed for analysts, researchers, and enthusiasts who want a single-pane-of-glass view of global activity. A surprising amount of global intelligence is already public. It is scattered across dozens of APIs and tools. ShadowBroker brings it together.
ShadowBroker is built entirely on publicly available, open-source intelligence (OSINT) data. No classified, restricted, or non-public data sources are used. No user data is collected or transmitted — the dashboard runs entirely in your browser against a self-hosted backend.

Why it exists

The following signals are freely available on the public internet:
  • Aircraft ADS-B position broadcasts
  • Maritime AIS vessel positions
  • Satellite orbital elements (TLE data)
  • USGS earthquake feeds
  • GDELT global conflict event aggregation
  • Environmental monitoring networks
ShadowBroker does not introduce new surveillance capabilities. It aggregates and visualizes existing public datasets in a single interface. The project is fully open-source so anyone can audit exactly what data is accessed and how.

Key use cases

  • Track commercial airlines, private jets, and military aircraft in real time
  • Monitor US Navy carrier strike group positions using OSINT-estimated coordinates
  • Watch satellites passing overhead and identify them by mission type
  • Detect GPS jamming zones from NAC-P degradation in ADS-B data
  • Follow earthquake and fire activity from NASA and USGS feeds
  • Monitor regional internet outages via Georgia Tech IODA
  • Browse 2,000+ live CCTV feeds from cities worldwide
  • Listen to public SDR radio receivers via the embedded KiwiSDR tuner

Supported data layers

Aviation

Commercial, private, military, and tracked aircraft via ADS-B. Includes holding-pattern detection, flight trail accumulation, and shape-accurate SVG icons.

Maritime

25,000+ vessels via AIS WebSocket stream. Includes carrier strike group tracker, superyacht monitoring, and clustered map rendering.

Satellites

2,000+ orbital assets with real-time SGP4 propagation from CelesTrak TLE data. Color-coded by mission type: recon, SAR, SIGINT, navigation, and more.

Geopolitics

GDELT conflict events (last 8 hours), live Ukraine frontline from DeepState Map, and right-click region intelligence dossiers.

Signal intelligence

GPS jamming zone detection using aircraft NAC-P degradation analysis. Grid-based aggregation with severity labels.

Environmental

NASA FIRMS fire hotspots (NOAA-20 VIIRS), NOAA space weather Kp index, IODA internet outage alerts, and USGS earthquakes.

Satellite imagery

NASA GIBS MODIS Terra daily imagery with 30-day time slider, Esri sub-meter basemap, and on-demand Sentinel-2 intel cards.

SDR radio

500+ KiwiSDR public receivers plotted worldwide. Click any node to open an embedded live SDR tuner in the SIGINT panel.

Surveillance

2,000+ CCTV feeds from Transport for London, NYC DOT, TxDOT Austin, Singapore LTA, and custom URL sources.

Technology stack

LayerTechnology
Frontend frameworkNext.js 16 + React 19
Map renderingMapLibre GL 4 (WebGL)
Backend frameworkFastAPI + Python
Background schedulerAPScheduler
Satellite propagationSGP4 + CelesTrak TLE
Container runtimeDocker / Podman
Kubernetes deploymentHelm (bjw-s-labs app-template)
The backend runs a recurring data scheduler that fetches, normalizes, and caches data from all sources. The frontend polls the backend via a compressed REST API (gzip ~92% reduction) and renders data imperatively on the map, bypassing React reconciliation for high-volume layers.

Next steps

Quickstart

Deploy ShadowBroker in under 5 minutes with Docker or Podman.

Architecture

Understand how the backend scheduler and frontend map renderer work together.

Data layers

Full reference for all 20+ intelligence layers and their data sources.

Configuration

Set API keys and configure environment variables for your deployment.

License

ShadowBroker is released under the AGPL-3.0 license. It is intended for educational and personal research use. Review individual API provider terms of service for data usage restrictions.

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