A joke domain purchase turned in geopolitical warfare

SondeHub launched in May 2018 as a redirect to Habhub, then became a proxy that ingested radiosonde data, stored it in its own OpenSearch cluster, and provided open APIs and live feeds via websockets and MQTT. By 2021 its reverse-prediction tool could back-track balloon trajectories, exposing artillery sites and naval vessels, leading to military-sensitive data handling. Later ARDC grant funding allowed SondeHub to run an independent amateur-balloon service.