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Comment by grog454 | Hacker News Reader

An excellent read but one thing caught my attention:

> The Navy did not withhold information on the detection for four days out of some concern for secrecy.

I think it's more likely than not that the statement is correct, but what gives the author the authority to make the claim so definitively? The author's bio indicates he's a consultant and there is no indication of direct involvement in this or any other SAR effort.

While the workings of the SOSUS and IUSS systems may be declassified, the deployments and capabilities (mostly range and computation related) of such systems most likely are not. And there is always the possibility that there is yet another system the author simply isn't aware of.

IMO, it isn't negligence to value the secrecy of systems used for defense above some number of lives, in some situations.

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Well, the clearest source is that no one claims the information was withheld, as far as I can tell that idea was just synthesized by podcasters and internet commenters. The Navy states, the WSJ reports (probably based on the Navy statement), and the Coast Guard mention that Navy intelligence reported the possible implosion almost immediately after it was discovered. The only thing that didn't happen until four days later was the release of that information to the public.

Many aspects of IUSS are still classified, and for example we can assume that the actual data will never be released because of sensitivity of the collection system. But the news that the Navy detected the implosion is nothing new, it would probably be more surprising if the Navy didn't (I don't know that the sound levels associated with a vessel of this type imploding are well known, maybe it could be explained away as the implosion having somehow produced almost no acoustic signature). We know that in the '60s the Navy detected submarine implosions (admittedly of larger submarines) further afield, and we also know that IUSS has seen major upgrades including new sensor arrays since then.

> As far as I can tell that idea was just synthesized by podcasters and internet commenters.

I don't use Twitter so can't confirm, but what I've heard in the news is that the OceanGate lawyer tweeted some vague, borderline conspiratorial stuff about not getting proper cooperation from the Coast Guard. I think the commentary people you refer to then boosted and expounded upon that idea.

ETA: Partial confirmation here https://nypost.com/2023/06/20/oceangate-adviser-rips-us-gove...

The statements quoted here don't match the description "vague and borderline conspiratorial," but they could be misinterpreted that way, and maybe there were others.

>While the workings of the SOSUS and IUSS systems may be declassified, the deployments and capabilities (mostly range and computation related) of such systems most likely are not. And there is always the possibility that there is yet another system the author simply isn't aware of.

But they confirmed it 4 days later - which would be admitting to its capabilities. The entire talk track of: "they kept it secret because of conspiracy theory X" makes no sense when they didn't actually keep it secret, they simply didn't make it public until AFTER the team was there to search - for the fairly obvious reasons the author stated. Mainly it creates unnecessary publicity that is hurtful to the relatives of the folks that are at the bottom of the ocean, and political pressure to "not spend money on the search" which was already coming from some circles even without the Navy's information.

And those are all valid reasons to delay release. My point is that they are not mutually exclusive with declassification, or verification that the information is OK to release publicly from a security standpoint. I'm not sure why secrecy automatically means "conspiracy theory".

>I'm not sure why secrecy automatically means "conspiracy theory".

It doesn't automatically, but literally everyone claiming the Navy was "hiding something" was going down the conspiracy theory route. I'm not talking about generalities, I'm talking about the specific situation in question which is the Titan sub.

>the information is OK to release publicly from a security standpoint.

What information are you referring to? It's already public that the navy has the system in question. It's already public that it is analyzing data realtime. Nothing about the system would have been compromised by publicly announcing they had detected an anomaly the day of the event vs 4 days later. The logical conclusion is that all of the aforementioned reasons are why they waited 4 days. You don't need clearance to get to the conclusion.

Releasing the information 4 days later implies it took 4 days to properly process and categorize. It probably did take some time to properly process and categorize it, because anomalous sounds happen underwater all the time, and unless it's a subsea nuclear detonation or a Russian propeller screw then it's going to go into the "figure it out later" bucket.

So what we know is it took no more then 4 days to categorize it. We don't know whether or not the system flagged it immediately, or flagged it as part of background process, or how long that took.

Joe Internet-Commentator looks at that and says "oh it was totally instant, probably".

Bill Submarine-Commander for a Hostile Power on the other hand is very interested in exactly how quick any particular detection was, to what resolution, and what implied noise-cutoffs of the network. What sort of sonic events are handled in real time vs. handled in later analysis. Because for Bill the question is "how long before I'm detected and surface ships start dropping buoys, depth charges and torpedos to kill me".

>Joe Internet-Commentator looks at that and says "oh it was totally instant, probably".

Kind of, yeah. There is a good timeline on when the ship was in water, when an event would have occurred, plus a very narrow geographical search area. That is significantly more information than is ever available when chasing ghost submarines.

It is difficult for me to imagine some bored analyst did not pop open a graph of activity within a 30 minute window of suspected loss of contact time for the area. If detectable, a ship implosion is likely a pretty aberrant signal in the data.

But why precisely does the sloppy sub operator or the mass media audience deserve the information their tax dollars are paying an analyst staff to harvest? Your idea still seems to me like potential question-begging; the fact that the habit would be of interest to people and save lives at some point is not surprising, but lifesaving is not the nature of the pointed interest of most OceanGater polemics in the first place...

I never said it had to be shared. Just that I think it incredibly likely that if a Naval sensor did detect the event, it would have been identified in short order. Potentially not definitively as an implosion, but that the Navy could have rapidly pinpointed the event in the data.

I am not qualified to state what was the appropriate timeline to give a public response nor it if should have been made.

That's fair. I apologize for my tone.

Sure, but literally everything they're looking at is classified capability or may include classified capability. They don't have permission to just post a hot-take on Twitter, and definitely don't have permission to unilaterally release supporting data.

All of that has to run through the chain of command and declassification process.

Adding another thing of interest for Bill the Hostile Power Submarine Commander - do the Navy sonar analysts stick to protocol, or are they neglectful of their duty to the point of posting hot takes on Twitter "just because" it's a civilian matter that's trending on social media?

On that note, I wonder if they have the "loose tweets sink fleets" poster put up somewhere. Apparently, Royal Navy did this officially[0] (I may be wrong, but I thought this was an Internet meme before the official poster).

[0] - https://www.businessinsider.com/royal-navy-updates-loose-lip...

This seems most plausible. The whole thing has an air of being carefully stage managed. Lots of showing off of general capability without much detail. Lots of international cooperation noise. Etc etc. It feels like the audience was not the general public, but I'm sure a bit of general distraction from other stuff happening didn't hurt.

> Nothing about the system would have been compromised by publicly announcing they had detected an anomaly the day of the event vs 4 days later.

Have you worked on classified detection systems? Actions and conclusions don't always appear to follow logic when your priors are wrong.

The author could have friends in high places, for all we know.

What could also be possible is that US has improved its sensory technology, and while its known that the US is capable of listening to the sea, they may have some new edge they want to keep obscured from the likes of russia.

I’m just some guy, but it struck me as a possible way for the US to flex on the russians, especially right now when Putin is threatening to use nukes, and the US, by the book wouldnt want to because the US may not know where all of russias nuclear subs are supposed to be. It was a great opportunity for the US military apparatus to turn on a sort of fog of war machine… for all we know intelligence may have told the likes of James Cameron and Rob Ballard to say they got early news from their navy friends.

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