AirFrance jet lost on way from Rio to Paris

[Don Corleone]

we do have that...that´s what the airplane transponder is for.

Yes, I know. In a previous incarnation of my job, I helped design components for them.

Now perhaps you can explain to me why the French government asked the NSA to help track down the transponder signal. Not that the French government was wrong to ask... I'm railing against the poorly designed emergency transponder system itself.

Wouldn't you think we'd design those things to be the proverbial sore-thumb of the radio-frequency domain?