• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          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.

          • 4am@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            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.

            • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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              2 months ago

              You can’t connect a star link to siprnet.

              The worst a bad actor could do is constantly transmitting location and other combat data.

              • ggppjj@lemmy.world
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                You can’t connect a star link to siprnet.

                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.

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                  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.

          • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            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.

          • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            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.

          • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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            You can’t just find a signal in the middle of the ocean.

            Uh, this was the primary way the Allies defeated the U-Boats in WWII.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            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.

      • potentiallynotfelix@lemdro.id
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        2 months ago

        Musk tipped off Putin to troop movements

        Wait he did? Can you provide a source for this? I can only find information about him stopping starlink service in crimea

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        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.

      • Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz
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        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.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          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…

          • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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            Like, are you imagining a modern US warship doesn’t have internet 24/7?

            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

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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              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?

              so no, I don’t think for the average sailor a US warship provides internet access 24/7

              Yeah man, you have zero idea what people are talking about about.

              • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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                That article is about wifi for personal use…

                do you think the starlink terminal in the OP article was for military use?? bwahahaha

                Yeah man, you have zero idea what people are talking about about.

                ok buddy, have a nice life.

                • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  I said:

                  This was for porn and maybe streaming services and social media, but mostly porn.

                  And on your second reply you said:

                  do you think the starlink terminal in the OP article was for military use?? bwahahaha

                  I stand by my original assessment after your first comment:

                  Yeah man, you have zero idea what people are talking about

                  Because you literally don’t understand the conversation

          • vortic@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            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.

      • realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club
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        2 months ago

        Musk tipped off Putin to troop movements.

        I’m sorry, this made me laugh. Is that a widely accepted conspiracy theory in this community? That Elon Musk is a Russian spy?

        • Cadeillac@lemmy.world
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          Did you miss the part where he sent a militarized Cyber Truck to a Russian war criminal, or are you conveniently ignoring it?

          • BestTestInTheWest@lemmy.world
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            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.

    • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I feel like every military is full of technological babies acting out security theatre with each other while everything is totally hacked.

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    And I’m sure whoever put it there faced way more harsher penalties than a certain someone who willfully hid highly classified documents in his bathroom for months and lied about it to investigators.

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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      Just like a certain someone who had classified documents that they weren’t even supposed to have without a handler!

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      According to Navy Times, reduction in rank. According to my experience, likely going to be told they can’t re-enlist after the end of their current term. Likely shipped stateside and in charge of mowing the lawn somewhere.

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    The source story is worth a read.

    Marrero’s background is in Navy intelligence, and she earned a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in information security and digital management

    Incredible.

    she soon changed the “STINKY” Wi-Fi network name to another moniker that looked like a wireless printer — even though no such general-use wireless printers were present on the ship

    Why not just switch off broadcasting the SSID?

    [The CO and XO] then conducted another sweep inside the ship. Although the network that appeared to be a wireless printer appeared on their personal devices during their search, neither made additional inquiries regarding that network

    No-one’s coming out of this looking good.

    Marrero’s secret Starlink dish was removed the same day, and Marrero told another unidentified crew member the next day that it was authorized for in-port use — prompting sailors to re-install the illegal Starlink.

    It just keeps going!

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      To be fair, if the lead NCO of a unit is just going to flat out lie then a lot of people are going to believe it. I can’t imagine being a lower NCO or enlisted and thinking command actually authorized the chiefs to break operational security for entertainment, but only them. Every chief in that crew should be busted and flagged against promotion again. The investigation was completely right to say if they didn’t know, they should have.

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        I may have missed it in this article, though I believe I read elsewhere, that she got busted down one rank and that’s it. I know military in general is having retention and recruitment issues, but to me this is more than just a busting down offense. That the senior enlisted on a ship would so nonchalantly disregard OPSEC demonstrates either a clear lack of understanding, or worse, something more nefarious.

        We saw a naval officer relieved of command for having the scope backwards on his rifle. This, to me, rises to a much higher level.

        • flyingchaucer@lemmy.sdf.org
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          We saw a naval officer relieved of command for having the scope backwards on his rifle.

          Well in that case, it was just a matter of bad optics.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          There’s a lot of punishment that doesn’t show up in the top line in the military. She may be flagged to lose her security clearance, (dishonesty, incompetence, and corruption) which would be the end of her career. They may also outright flag her as not eligible for re-enlistment. She’s certainly not ever going to live that down and it’s not a counseling form that disappears in six months. I’d be very surprised if she ever promotes again.

          All that said, where I was, in the infantry, lying to your commander like that, while endangering the unit, would be either an Other Than Honorable discharge or a Big Chicken Dinner. (Bad Conduct discharge, do not pass go, do not bother with the VA, do not collect retirement, hope future employers never ask about your discharge)

        • CptEnder@lemmy.world
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          Yeah and that destroyer CO relieved of command for letting his sailors get treatment for COVID (before we had a vaccine) but this sailor just gets busted a rank for breaching OPSEC?! It’s not like she did it for fun, she’s probably compromised by some foreign actor. I’ve heard stories of the military making dumb decisions but damn.

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      First thought I had after read through, how much did that masters cost and you didn’t learn that you can turn off the broadcast name so only people who know it’s there can connect? Probably not even a real degree, freakonomjcs did an episode maybe 10 years ago that said probably 5% of degrees are fake, bet it’s 20% now, lying is culturally through the roof.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        Having an understanding of technology generically and knowing how specific technologies work are vastly different things. The first takes great effort. The second is done by a nerd who can’t sleep and is curious. If you didn’t do the second then you don’t know anything about that specific thing.

        • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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          Exactly, and very often the only difference between BS level courses and MS level were the need to write extra papers and get better grades. And almost all of it was theoretical.

          • stoly@lemmy.world
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            On the other hand, what bothers me in industry is when people are like “these damned kids don’t know nothing” when in reality you are talking about VERY motivated people who are highly intelligent but without experience. They just need direction and the chance to build confidence.

    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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      Can’t speak to starlink specifically, but I know some shittier router brands would often reset to factory defaults every time you updated the firmware. Can easily see starlink doing that with a pushed firmware with the expectation some additional cell phone app would restore the correct settings.

      So they very well might have turned off broadcasting but it got popped back on while they were on shift and it was detected.

    • tyler@programming.dev
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      Hmm I got Starlink earlier this year and I don’t remember it having a default. I think it asked me to set the ssid immediately.

  • return2ozma@lemmy.worldOP
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    To make matters even worse…

    The chiefs found that the Wi-Fi signal coming off the Starlink satellite transceiver couldn’t cover the entire ship, so during a stop in Pearl Harbor, they bought “signal repeaters and cable” to extend coverage.

    • doctortran@lemm.ee
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      This many chiefs (not rank-and-file, chiefs), putting this much effort into breaking Navy protocol, together, is crazy. And for what? Memes?

      I know deployment at sea can be boring but Jesus fucking Christ, read a damn book or something.

  • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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    Dude isn’t American. More money than a sovereign nation. Space level ballistic capabilities. Openly aligned with our enemies and their values.

    How the fuck does he have a penny of my federal fucking tax dollars? We’re funding fucking terrorists that don’t even need the subsidies.

      • stephen01king@lemmy.zip
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        Lemmy, where you get downvoted for being confused and asking for clarification. Good job everyone.

        • imaqtpie@lemmy.myserv.one
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          It’s baffling how people on Lemmy hate Musk so much and yet can’t stop mentioning him in every random, unrelated thread.

          The starlink was privately bought as per the article, it wasn’t officially procured using federal funds. So the comment I responded to doesn’t really make any sense in the context of this post.

          But it gets 50 upvotes because Musk is very bad man. I guess that answers my own question about why people can’t stop mentioning him on Lemmy: it’s free upvotes to shit on him. That’s fine I guess, but it can be annoying when it clogs up the discussion in unrelated threads.

          • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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            You got me. I don’t have a problem with him being given the security liabilities of a defense contractor and control over people’s Internet access. I posted for upvotes.

          • orrk@lemmy.world
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            you rage against people like musk because he is an evil person with a lot of power who gladly uses that power to push bad shit.

            I mean, I guess we could do the whole not speak about bad people bit, but then we end up back at praising literal Nazi collaborators caugh caugh ford

            • imaqtpie@lemmy.myserv.one
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              Rage against him when he does evil things, by all means. But when you start raging against him 24/7 for no particular reason, it serves no purpose. In fact, it lessens your ability to actually call him out when he does bad stuff, because you sound like the boy who cried wolf.

              And more importantly, it also affects the quality of discussion on Lemmy. One major advantage we have over reddit is that people tend to actually read the articles and make insightful comments that add to the discussion. “Hurr Durr Muskrat bad” is the opposite of that, it’s a reddit style pandering comment that ultimately has no substance or meaning. When these circlejerky comments become more common than good comments, the value of this site as a forum for legitimate discussion falls off a cliff.

              • orrk@lemmy.world
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                Rage against him when he does evil things

                that is 24/7 tho

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          It’s because no one ever reads the article they just read the headline and make up their own story.

          In this guy’s head Elon Musk personally did this.

        • lemmyingly@lemm.ee
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          I still use Lemmy and Reddit side by side. I find a lot of submissions and comments on Reddit downvoted, where they’re nothing burger contributions; some of the most non-divisive, non-offensive, and opinionless contributions I’ve come across.

          I don’t recall this behaviour when I first started using Reddit about 10 years ago. It makes me wonder if the world has become a lot more bitter in recent years since this type of behaviour is seen across platforms.

          • stephen01king@lemmy.zip
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            I just feel like people are just too quick to assume the question is asked with bad intentions nowadays. It might be more bitterness, as you said, and it could also be more cynicism from most people. All I know is that it makes a lot of platforms more unpleasant to participate in.

          • Case@lemmynsfw.com
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            We live in troubled times, the planet is overheating at a rate that it might affect my life more than being more uncomfortable in the summer. And that’s Texas summers at that.

            There is an island of plastic refuse in the ocean bigger than some countries.

            I saw the home computer come to the living room and the internet be birthed.

            If you were to ask if I was jaded as a kid, already? Yeah. Around 7 years old.

            It isn’t getting better. Corporations claw for more and more at the expense of the people and the planet.

            I hope the younger generations can lead the charge of change, but for me… I don’t have the time or energy to play games most days, let alone change the planet.

            And for those who will say, “Aren’t you just part of the problem then?” Sadly yes, I am. I try to make changes when I can, but I fear changing the small environment of my home will not be enough.

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      I mean, u know that SpaceXs main income is flying shit around for NASA? If that was unexpected for you, I have bad news.

  • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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    Here’s the meat and potatoes of the article.

    In 2023, they decided that the best way to deal with the problem was to secretly bolt a Starlink terminal to the “O-5 level weatherdeck” of a US warship.

    They called the resulting Wi-Fi network “STINKY”—and when officers on the ship heard rumors and began asking questions, the leader of the scheme brazenly lied about it. Then, when exposed, she went so far as to make up fake Starlink usage reports suggesting that the system had only been accessed while in port, where cybersecurity and espionage concerns were lower.

    Rather unsurprisingly, the story ends badly, with a full-on Navy investigation and court-martial.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      when officers on the ship heard rumors

      Lol not only is this an incredible violation of security, they couldn’t even keep their fucking mouths shut about it.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      Good. At a company, you get your ass fired if they catch you using non-approved equipment on company infrastructure. It can lead to leaks and infiltration, and lost of revenue.

      In the military, that’s people’s lives!

  • rekabis@lemmy.ca
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    Sailors on the ship then began finding the STINKY network and asking questions about it.

    Oh, c’mon. it is trivial to make an SSID “hidden” for any networking tech that you have administrative control over. That way, only those “in the know” will know the SSID name to type in, in order to access said wireless network. It would not be “discoverable” by standard wireless-connectivity gear such as the default wifi interface in mobile phones.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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      Hidden WiFi networks are not actually hidden in the literal sense. They still broadcast beacons that your wifi chip will see as basically “hidden network beacon lives here”. Your network connect interface just decides not to show you a list with a bunch of useless “(hidden)” entries you can’t do anything with.

      Also, when a new client wants to connect to the hidden network, the first thing it does is broadcast an unencrypted message saying “HEY, I’M LOOKING FOR [hidden network name]” so it’s completely trivial to unveil the name of hidden networks given enough time.

      • Thetimefarm@lemm.ee
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        I think it’d be more for obfuscation than completely hiding it. As long as there are other hidden networks on the ship you just name it something generic that blends in. I mean this whole thing is a really stupid idea, but naming it something like “COM.NAB_ISO:4133” would draw less attention.

        • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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          It’s absolutely mind-boggling that the existing WiFi infrastructure on the military ship didn’t trigger any alarms. This is the kind of thing that you can get from “pro-sumer” grade hardware/software like Ubiquiti, let alone corporate-grade or military-grade stuff. The feature is called “Rogue Access Point Detection” and it’s built into literally every WiFi solution on the market. Like, your local library is analyzing this stuff it’s that basic.

          Edit: To more directly address your point, the name shouldn’t matter at all. Rogue AP detection doesn’t give a shit about the display names of things, it looks at the actual hardware addresses and compares them to known things that are owned by your network.

          • antimongo@lemmy.world
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            Yup, I did some on-campus IT work while I was in college and it was super trivial to detect when people would have their own networks in the dorms

              • jmf@lemm.ee
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                At mine it was not. Hotspots and the like that stayed up for too long were flagged and action was taken to have them disabled and the student reprimanded.

                • lud@lemm.ee
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                  Well, I can understand that APs wouldn’t be allowed since having lots of APs in one space makes it worse for everyone.

                  Wired should be allowed though.

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        2 months ago

        That’s why I put that term in quotes, and was specific about default networking interfaces. I didn’t go into detail because that confuses a lot of people.

        Source: working with wireless networks professionally for pretty much the last quarter century.