Decentralizing AIS: Trustless Maritime Tracking with SDR
Recently, Owen Taylor, the CEO of WAKE (Worldwide AIS Network), wrote in to us asking if they could promote their project, which is a decentralized AIS aggregation network based on receivers like RTL-SDR. The twist compared to existing aggregators like marinetraffic.com is that WAKE aims to reward users via a crypto token and simultaneously solve the distributed verification problem to avoid problems like spoofing and poor transparency.
The post below is their own words, and we note that we are not affiliated with WAKE.
Every second, ships transmit short bursts of data over VHF, broadcasting their position, speed, course, and identity. This is AIS (Automatic Identification System), an open, unencrypted protocol that lets vessels, ports, and coastal authorities maintain a shared picture of maritime traffic. Beyond collision avoidance, AIS feeds into port logistics, environmental monitoring, search and rescue operations, and even the financial analysis that drives global commodities trading.
For years, much of this coverage has been built on a mix of official receivers, satellites and a scattered network of volunteers, many of them SDR hobbyists streaming data from antennas on rooftops and coastal hills.
This model works, until it doesn’t. AIS has a well-known weakness: there’s no built-in authentication. Anyone can transmit a valid-looking AIS message. That opens the door to errors and deliberate spoofing, and right now there’s no universal method for verifying what’s real.
How AIS Works
AIS operates on two dedicated VHF channels, 161.975 MHz and 162.025 MHz, using 9600 bps Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) modulation. Transmissions follow a self-organizing time division multiple access (SOTDMA) scheme, where each station selects its own time slots to avoid collisions.
An AIS message can carry vessel identity (MMSI), position (latitude, longitude), speed over ground (SOG), course over ground (COG), navigational status, and other voyage data. Ships transmit at intervals from every few seconds (for fast-moving craft) to every few minutes (for anchored vessels).
For terrestrial reception, the chain looks familiar to any SDR operator:
Antenna → RTL-SDR (or similar) → AIS decoder software → Data feed.
Noise floor, antenna gain, and local RF environment all influence range, which for a coastal VHF station is typically 20–40 nautical miles. Higher elevations and directional antennas can stretch this significantly.
The Current Aggregation Model
Global AIS coverage today comes from a mix of satellite AIS for open-ocean tracking and terrestrial AIS for coastal areas, ports, and choke points. The terrestrial component is heavily dependent on a patchwork of volunteer-operated receivers, often nothing more than a VHF antenna, an RTL-SDR, and a small computer feeding data into a central platform.
Commercial services like MarineTraffic (now owned by Kpler), VesselFinder, and AISHub aggregate these feeds into global datasets that are then resold to shipping companies, commodity traders, insurers, and governments. The scale is impressive, but it comes at a cost to transparency.
In a recent video circulating on Reddit, the CEO of Kpler openly described their “monopoly” on maritime data, built on the volunteers giving up their data for free. While this may be good for their commercial positioning, it also highlights the underlying issue: a small number of companies effectively control access to AIS data, much of which was gathered for free from hobbyists.
From a technical perspective, the aggregation model has another weakness: it is built on trust. If a feed sends false data, whether through AIS spoofing, misconfigured hardware, or bad GPS input, that information can still enter the global record. Most platforms only filter out data that is obviously invalid, and there is no universal multi-source verification or cryptographic proof of authenticity in the AIS ecosystem.
The Data Integrity Problem
AIS is intentionally open and unencrypted to encourage wide adoption and interoperability. The downside is that nothing stops someone from transmitting a false position for a real ship or inventing an entirely fake vessel.
Spoofing incidents have been documented around the world. “Ghost ships” have appeared hundreds of miles inland. Vessel positions have been falsified to hide illegal fishing or smuggling. In some regions, ships broadcast fake locations to evade sanctions or mislead competitors.
Because AIS is used for everything from traffic management to environmental compliance, bad data has real consequences. It can mislead port authorities, disrupt logistics chains, and undermine safety systems that depend on knowing exactly who is nearby.
Distributed Verification
When we talk about “distributed” in this context, we mean a network of many independent AIS receivers, owned and operated by different people in different locations, all working together to validate the same signals. No single entity has control over the data pipeline, and no single point of failure can compromise the entire dataset.
This approach aligns with what’s known as DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks). In a DePIN, real-world hardware, in this case, AIS receiving stations powered by RTL-SDR dongles, is deployed by a distributed community, and the data it produces is aggregated, validated, and made available on a blockchain. Contributors are often incentivized for their role in maintaining the physical infrastructure and supplying high-quality data.
Applied to AIS, DePIN solves the monopoly and trust problem by creating:
- Redundancy — multiple stations cover the same area, making spoofing and errors easier to detect.
- Transparency — all verification events can be independently audited.
- Resilience — coverage doesn’t vanish if one provider shuts down or changes terms.
From a technical perspective, defeating AIS spoofing requires proving that a received message is both authentic and physically plausible. A distributed verification system can achieve this by:
- Time of Arrival (TOA) Checks
Comparing reception timestamps across geographically separated receivers. A false signal transmitted from shore will produce a different TOA pattern than one from a vessel at sea.
- Motion Consistency
Checking positions against realistic limits for speed, acceleration, and turn rate. If a ship appears to jump 50 nautical miles in a minute, it fails.
- Cross-Coverage Triangulation
Using relative signal strength and geometry between receivers to estimate origin and compare it to the reported position.
- Peer Agreement
Looking for identical messages confirmed by several uncorrelated receivers. Messages verified by multiple independent nodes have a much higher trust score.
Once these checks are complete, the verification results, not necessarily the raw AIS payload, can be recorded on a tamper-proof, public ledger (such as a blockchain). This creates a permanent, auditable history of which AIS messages passed validation and when, allowing anyone to verify the integrity of past data without relying on a single company’s database.
Incentivizing a Trustless AIS Network
WAKE (Worldwide AIS Network) applies distributed verification principles to AIS in a way that directly involves and rewards the SDR community. At its core, WAKE is a decentralized network of independently operated AIS receivers, often built around RTL-SDRs or similar hardware, working together to validate and record maritime data in a public, tamper-proof ledger.
In the WAKE model, contributors run AIS stations that submit decoded messages to the network. These messages are cross-checked against others received in the same geographic area. A message is only accepted if it passes both multi-receiver consensus and physics-based checks such as motion consistency and TOA analysis. This ensures that false or spoofed data is rejected before it ever reaches the historical record.
For the SDR community, this represents an evolution of an existing role. Many hobbyists already contribute AIS feeds without recognition or compensation. In WAKE, you’re not just relaying what you receive, you’re part of a validation mesh that makes AIS data more secure and tamper-resistant.
Because WAKE is built on a trustless model, no single operator, including WAKE itself can alter or suppress verified data. The integrity of the maritime picture is maintained collectively, with every contributor helping to keep it honest.
For SDR operators, the incentive is clear: you can keep doing what you already do best, running reliable receivers with clean reception and precise timing, but now with direct rewards for your contribution and the satisfaction of helping build a more open, diverse, and verifiable AIS data ecosystem.
You can learn more about WAKE Here.
Closing Thoughts
AIS has transformed maritime safety and logistics, but it was designed for trust, not for security. That’s fine when all players are honest, but as spoofing incidents have shown, trust alone isn’t enough.
A verification layer built on distributed SDR receivers is one of the most promising paths toward a tamper-proof global AIS dataset. It’s not about replacing the existing AIS ecosystem, but strengthening it.
The SDR community is uniquely positioned to lead that shift. By participating in networks that focus on data integrity, you can help ensure the maritime picture is as accurate tomorrow as it was yesterday, and maybe even fill in the parts of the map no one else can see.
As seen on the screenshot above, the “Reward issued” goes down day by day…
Hi James, thanks for noticing that. Just to clarify, what you are looking at is a test account that began with no other users on the system. In reality, rewards are issued at a fixed annual emission rate of around 1% of the total supply. The actual share any single station receives depends on how many contributors are active compared to the optimal number of stations on the network.
So when there are very few users (as in the test setup), the early account may appear to receive higher rewards. As more stations come online, those rewards are naturally shared across the network. This is by design, to keep the system fair, sustainable, and well-distributed over time.
So it’s like the helium network then, which has fallen apart in recent years because rewards drop below the cost to even keep the receiver on.
I am currently feeding Marine Traffic. Their is all ready considerable overlap in my coverage area. These coverage overlaps are common all over the world. Therefore Marine Traffic must receive millions (if not billions) of duplicate data points daily, worldwide. MT must have been doing data reconciliation, validation and ranking for years at their data centers.
What sounds new is that data validation would be become of a function of network feeders. So you want to pay me for running some extra software on my raspberry pi and process local duplicate data.
It appears that WAKEs model differs from MT (for now) and would bring them several benefits over the old model:
1) They would have less centralized computer infrastructure to maintain.
2) A distributed network would be more robust than a centralized system
3) Data volume sent to HQ would be less if it is locally reconciled.
Send me a feeder in the mail.
Hi Bruce, thanks for the thoughtful comment, you’ve summed it up well. You’re right that MarineTraffic and similar platforms have been handling reconciliation centrally for years, which requires significant infrastructure on their side. WAKE takes a different approach by moving part of that validation logic out to the edges of the network.
Yes, the idea is that contributors like you can run lightweight software on a Raspberry Pi (or similar setup) and play an active role in validating data locally. By doing this in a distributed way, the system gains several advantages:
On top of that, contributors are actually compensated for their role in maintaining coverage and data quality, rather than just providing the raw feed for free. That’s the shift we’re aiming for: a fairer system where the community benefits from the value their data creates.
And yes, we’d love to get you set up with a feeder.
I’m very disappointed to see RTL-SDR give these folks the space to push this rot.
Very glad to see that all the commenters see through it.
It was a horrible idea with Helium (LoRaWAN), ADSB, and it is a horrible idea for AIS.
This is NOT the way to foster and build a community.
Be better. Do better.
I appreciate your passion for the SDR community, but I’d encourage keeping an open mind. Every new idea looks “wrong” to some people in the beginning, that was true for AIS itself, for ADS-B hobby networks, and even for SDR as a concept. What seems like “rot” to one person can turn into a foundation for something new if it’s given space to evolve.
WAKE isn’t just copying Helium or LoRaWAN. The system is designed specifically around maritime data, with validation, fairness, and long-term sustainability built in. The aim is not to exploit the community, but to reward contributors for the value they create, instead of leaving all the benefits with centralized platforms.
Healthy debate is good, but writing off innovation before it’s tested risks shutting down opportunities that could make the ecosystem stronger for everyone.
Thanks for responding to my frustration. It has been a LOT of work over the past 7 years building a global network of satcom and VHF/HF ground stations. Building a community is hard work. It’s tough to see you guys flex and think you can bribe your way in. My snarky comment reflected a LOT of history you will never appreciate.
I’m glad to see you admit that WAKE, helium, and wingbits are all in the same bucket.
Pitching to convince hobbiests that they can not just cover the costs of running their stations, but actually make money, is just the burn on the con.
We do it for the challenge, the passion, the knowledge gained from community feedback…. Just because YOU are motivated by greed, projecting that into the world and thinking everyone else must be the same is not a good look.
I have a very open mind and welcome new ways to look at improving the setups we have, but I don’t see any of that from your post here or your website messaging. I just see the desire to fracture and isolate feeders from the communities that already exist because your way is the only way.
Closing _your_ mind to the good investigative journalism that has been done on spoofed AIS (and other such data like ADSB etc) was telling to me that you have just come out guns blazing, thinking you have some golden solution to the world’s data problems. There is no talk of how you plan to open the data and feed it back to the people who can make good use of it.
I humbly suggest that your messaging and ideas of community building need a rethink.
Interesting idea. But the ‘trust vs security’ is still vague. I can understand why a legitimate vessel might want to spoof its AIS data—whether to protect against piracy off the Horn of Africa, terrorism, privacy concerns, or even to evade customs and port authorities. But what I don’t understand is why a hobbyist at home with an RTL-SDR and a Raspberry Pi would intentionally feed false data into the network? TOA would require a GPS receiver and accurate reference clock (something most AIS hobbyists don’t have or need).
Are insurance companies actually being defrauded through AIS spoofing? Would customs and port authorities gain anything from this compared to the systems they already rely on? And how exactly would this system prevent false or spoofed data from being reported? If a vessel is transmitting spoofed AIS signals, every receiving station is picking up the same false broadcast.
From the contributors perspective, it seems that a receiving station near a major port—or with wide area coverage—would stand to benefit far more under this model than someone located in a rural area. Could this realistically become a viable side business for hobbyists who are currently giving away valuable AIS data for free?
Would an average feeder receive enough tokens to access the aggregated data at rate that’s reasonable for an individual doing personal research type stuff? You guys need to make that crystal clear before I would even consider setting up a feeder.
Hey Hugh, I think you are absolutely right. Would you be able to send me an email about your project to [email protected] and we can talk further.
its all just advertising
also still milking the crypto scam, kek
Same thing happened to ADS-B – wingbits, but still they didn’t launched Mainnet.
Hi, I just wanted to note that Worldwide AIS Network is not affiliated with Wingbits, so o cannot comment on their timelines.
We are expecting to launch our main net in Q1 2026.