944
After seeing Wi-Fi network named “STINKY,” Navy found hidden Starlink dish on US warship
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
944 points (99.2% liked)
Technology
58072 readers
4131 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That seems like a significant security risk
Probably not for the reason you think.
Like, it wouldn't be patched into anything official
But it means Musk knew where that ship was 24/7, and I'm pretty sure that's why Ukraine's military stopped using it. Musk tipped off Putin to troop movements.
It's emmitting radio signals that an enemy could use to help locate the ship.
What?
Surface ships are in constant communication with stuff...
You can't just find a signal in the middle of the ocean. Musk can find a starlink signal tho, because he can see what Starlink connects to and it's gps location.
Yeah but if they go on mission and “go dark” then you still have this starlink thing that may or may not be disabled by the person smuggling it on board. It may also be connected to official things if the owner has bad intentions, or if someone else who does finds it and co-opts it.
There is a lot that could go wrong with unauthorized radio transmission equipment on a warship, and not all of it is obvious.
You can't connect a star link to siprnet.
The worst a bad actor could do is constantly transmitting location and other combat data.
Can you connect a computer? Because if so, that same computer can then be connected to the starlink, no?
I know absolutely nothing about secure government networking, I'm just kind of assuming that something has to be able to connect to both individually and also simultaneously.
sipr is very strict about what it is letting connect to it. Which is why you rarely hear about breaches. Notable incidents like Manning or Snowden both involved usage of physical media, which has been severely restricted since. Plus Snowden was an admin, and not on SIPRNet, but some NSA systems.
To add, SIPRNet is entirely isolated from NIPRNet or the Internet.
Well, the Starlink could be connected by an admin to a computer that is connected to SIPRNet, right? It exposes itself as just a router.
I mean, assuming the Starlink was brought on board by someone with authorization to be on board, any possible adversarial situation would necessarily be an internal issue to begin with.
Personally, I think the most likely answer involves an Xbox.
Nothing Sipr is going to have a wi-fi. At least, not at the tactical level. God knows what goes on with secure cellphones and stuff. However a Sipr computer is still a computer and if you hook in the wrong cable then you've breached the network. Any bad actor knowing where the ship is and with sufficient information is going to try and drop malware to the router. That malware would load to any computer attached and if it happens to find itself on a secure computer it then attempts to phone home or cause havoc.
Which is why hooking a green cable into a red computer usually means you unhook it, power it down, cart it off to IT, and then hope the punishment isn't too bad. (Ranges from push ups to half pay for an honest mistake.)
It's as easy as plugging in the wrong cable.
Not always
Ships absolutely practice turning everything off.
Depends on where your sensors are and how much dispersion the dish has. If you are flying a surveillance plane into the "beam" then you can passively spot the ship.
You say that like Elon is personally looking at that information.
Presumably, there would be a large number of people at the company with access to that information, all of whom could be bribed or otherwise persuaded to share it.
Uh, this was the primary way the Allies defeated the U-Boats in WWII.
No they actually do go dark sometimes for exactly this reason. Of course there's always some signal source but it's the difference between lighting up like a Christmas tree and running a single IR light.
Wait he did? Can you provide a source for this? I can only find information about him stopping starlink service in crimea
They can't, because it doesn't exist.
Which also doesn’t definitely mean it didn’t happen.
That doesn't matter. What even is your point?
The reason I think is because any unofficial and potentially unsecured communications access point seems like a vulnerability. If some moron posts a picture using that unofficial access point I’d be worried it could be traced to the ship’s location.
Everybody knew were the ship was, because at that time star link usage by area was shown publicly. There was map online that showed all clients online.
It wouldn't be... Until it is.
Yeah with how many leaks come from war thunder players... lol
We need to insert egregiously wrong Russian hardware into War Thunder so the real specs will be leaked
Next up: somebody installs unauthorized Starlink on warship so they can play War Thunder on deployment.
I'm not convinced that's not exactly what this particular starlink device was for
No it just wouldn't.
Like, are you imagining a modern US warship doesn't have internet 24/7?
This was for porn and maybe streaming services and social media, but mostly porn.
It wasn't for any official use, because they have that covered.
You're acting like surface ships are submarines....
last I checked, no, they don't. they had shitty service while in port, and not much else.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2023/12/29/new-in-2024-better-wi-fi-for-sailors/
fuck mate they only recently started giving their people access ON SHORE.
https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2024-01-25/navy-free-wi-fi-pilot-program-12796438.html
so no, I don't think for the average sailor a US warship provides internet access 24/7
That article is about wifi for personal use...
And the second one is about it being free and you're acting like they didn't have Internet before then?
Yeah man, you have zero idea what people are talking about about.
do you think the starlink terminal in the OP article was for military use?? bwahahaha
ok buddy, have a nice life.
I said:
And on your second reply you said:
I stand by my original assessment after your first comment:
Because you literally don't understand the conversation
The article I read explicitly says they don't have Internet access while at sea.
yeah I don't understand it either, but if he's going to be a dick I'm happy to block and drive on with life
Such a strange person, I'm not sure what point they're arguing, but they're definitely determined to argue it.
spin it however you like, this statement:
is not correct. gonna block you now, you're a waste of time.
Yes...
The ship has Internet...
For official business.
That's not the same as everyone having wifi for anything.
For fucks sake, how can you not understand this? It's really not that difficult...
What exactly are you on about? I honestly can't tell what point you're trying to argue.
Are you ever not a dickhead?
Whether they have wifi on ship or not isn't the issue. Sometimes, when a ship goes into an operation, they will turn off all signals except passive or directed signals so that they can't easily be detected. Having a communications signal that isn't under the control of the ship's officers is a huge security risk during operations.
Someone is going to be court martialed over this.
When did they stop using starlink?
They didn’t, the commenter is making things up.
It was exactly the reason I was thinking
I'm sorry, this made me laugh. Is that a widely accepted conspiracy theory in this community? That Elon Musk is a Russian spy?
Did you miss the part where he sent a militarized Cyber Truck to a Russian war criminal, or are you conveniently ignoring it?
The Russian war criminal stated he got it from musk but that hasn't been confirmed and I don't think we should be taking Kadyrov's word as truth on anything he's a literal war criminal.
What about the Russian oligarchs backing twitter?
If Musk isn't a Russian asset, it's only because he's a Saudi asset. And there's no reason he can't be both.
I feel like every military is full of technological babies acting out security theatre with each other while everything is totally hacked.