Navy chiefs conspired to get themselves illegal warship Wi-Fi

I've been stationed in a lot of places with no or little internet access, and it does suck. I'm sure it's worse for people that weren't used to circa 2003 internet...

but the hubris here. Getting caught then just lying and saying the system was only used in port and HAVING IT RE-INSTALLED. I can't even imagine that. The fact that the rest of them just got NJP too... this reads to me like a command failure.

> This is insane yet not shocking. I can’t imagine throwing away my entire career, and possibly more, over this.

Has she thrown away her career? She was demoted from Senior Chief Petty Office to Chief Petty Officer, a demotion of one rank, which at least on paper doesn't seem to be too bad.

Or will this being on her record mean that she won't get any future promotions, nor any of the more desirable assignments that a Chief Petter Officer might get, making it unlikely that she will reenlist whenever her current enlistment ends?

Here's her bio [1]. I'm surprised the punishment wasn't much more severe. I could see being lenient if this was some relatively inexperienced sailor who had not been in the Navy a long time.

But she's been in the Navy for just over 22 years, and based on this

> Marrero first served at Submarine Group Eight, followed by U.S. Second Fleet as the afloat Flag communicator. She was Sailor of the Year at Combat Direction Systems Activity Dam Neck, completed two combat deployments with Mobile Communications Team attached to SEAL Team Two, and held multiple positions in the joint intelligence and operations departments at U.S. Southern Command.

it looks like she had experience in communication and intelligence, so really should have known that unauthorized communication channels can be very risky.

[1] https://www.surfpac.navy.mil/Leaders/Biography/Article/31526...

Given how easy it is to deploy Starlink, I am actually surprised this is the first time this has been tried. Or perhaps this is the first time it came out publicly.

While iPhones (will be able to) do that, you have to point them at the satellite. So if anyone is around to watch it might look kind of suspicious.

This all reminds me of when users of when users of Strava were accidentally mapping out military bases for anyone who wanted to see.

https://www.wired.com/story/strava-heat-map-military-bases-f...

Yes, it's pretty trivially easy to detect, even without fancy EW equipment. At one point I admin'd a college dorm's network, wifi/wired, and we didn't allow personal APs for interference reasons (you could run your own switch or router as long as it wasn't a WAP). Our run-of-the-mill networking hardware could find signals and triangulate them down to a couple of feet. A couple residents were flummoxed to learn that the "hidden network" thing doesn't actually do anything, which was hopefully at least a useful educational moment.

Any decent SDR can notice such things, presumably not to mention actual EW equipment. It's only really with sub-noise-floor gold code type stuff where a signal doesn't jump out on a waterfall spectrum chart, and even then it's generally fairly obvious at close range. I can only speculate as to why that didn't actually happen here.

Boats typically don't scan local RF unless they need to for the simple reason that boats - especially LARGE boats - are absolutely godawful environments for wifi.

Metal panels between each deck and most of the walls, instruments and engines and microwave ovens running at all different times every shift generating RF noise... you almost need an extra repeater/access point for EVERY SINGLE ROOM and running on separate channels if you want it to be at all reliable.

Cisco Wifi Equipment has long had the ability to detect, and even "block", what they define as "Rogue" Wireless Networks. In fact, one of their clients landed in legal trouble for using such[1], and they have since dialed back said features to make it less misusable.

I'm surprised that on Navy Ships, they're not using something of the sort, if only of the "Stalker Prevention" variety; Their EWAR systems should be scanning for APs that show up for more than a few consecutive days when not in port.

[1] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-15-146A1_Rcd.pdf

I would think that there is some radio officer on a ship That would in their normal day-to-day business find errant radio signals.

> Sounds like the Navy needs to provide better wifi before people get desperate like this and screw up their electronic warfare

"Desperate" is a strong word. The point is that there should be no wifi at all during these deployments, and there are reasonable operational security reasons for that ban. This isn't a "fix" to a problem, it's directly disobeying an order.

Those very same electronic-warfare concerns might be what's preventing that, barring something really fancy like hyper-directed satellite communication using lasers etc.

Considering that "streaming movies" figured prominently in the illicit data stream, I would strategically reframe the problem like so:

"America's excessively-restrictive copyright laws are putting our troops in danger!!!1"

Clearly, the only possible choice is for Congress to make explicit and broad copyright exemptions for public libraries, and then put one on the ship. :D

Related: The US Navy Is Going All In on Starlink https://www.wired.com/story/us-navy-starlink-sea2/

Meanwhile, second paragraph of the article:

> For a variety of reasons, including operational security, a crew’s internet access is regularly restricted while underway, to preserve bandwidth for the mission and to keep their ship safe from nefarious online attacks.

This is not a case of failing to serve a fucking market. Holy shit.

Hidden SSIDs are a hack on the wifi protocol and don’t really do anything. Windows 11 just shows ‘Hidden Network’ for example.

I would hope that our warships have sophisticated enough counter signals intelligence systems to detect the presence of rogue transmitters regardless of if they are broadcasting an SSID or not. Even a run of the mill corporate security setup will pick up rogue wifi networks on premises and pinpoint their location.

Given a naval ships radar systems power output can be 200,000x (or much higher) than your WiFi access point.. no. Also there is absolutely no chance WiFi could ignite munitions.

You realize Starlink Tx power is 0.5W right? It's less than a wifi AP: https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/ndh92t/dishy_rf_o...