this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
665 points (98.3% liked)

Technology

58108 readers
3888 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

A U.S. Navy chief who wanted the internet so she and other enlisted officers could scroll social media, check sports scores and watch movies while deployed had an unauthorized Starlink satellite dish installed on a warship and lied to her commanding officer to keep it secret, according to investigators.

Internet access is restricted while a ship is underway to maintain bandwidth for military operations and to protect against cybersecurity threats.

The Navy quietly relieved Grisel Marrero, a command senior chief of the littoral combat ship USS Manchester, in August or September 2023, and released information on parts of the investigation this week.

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 150 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Good that’s a severe risk she* put everyone and the ship in. It was 17 officers in total and they attempted cover up

[–] [email protected] 117 points 1 week ago (9 children)

First off, not an officer, a high ranking enlisted(E-8) personal was the culprit.

Second, she was a Information systems technician. She literally dealt with making sure communication was safe and secure.

I know congress has to be involved to knock her down below E-7 but they need to get on that.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 week ago (3 children)

So she was an NCO and the writter was clueless. Ok.

And for that kind of opsec fuckup there really shouldn't there be discharge/prison time ?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

First off, not an officer, a high ranking enlisted(E-8) personal was the culprit.

Typically, anything E-4 or higher is considered a Non-Commisioned Officer.

EDIT further clarification: from my experience in the Canadian Army, what "Officers" means depends on context. Most often (and what [email protected] probably meant) it means just Commissioned Officers. Other times, it's anyone in leadership, including NCOs.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I totally understand where you're coming from. It's absolutely not uncommon to casually refer to high-rank NCOs as Officers (in Canada at least)

[Source: Family in CAF and RCMP]

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 96 points 1 week ago (2 children)

How the fuck did she think this was anything close to a good idea?! This shows a profound lack of good judgement, and a huge failure of both respect for her job and for the safety of the crew.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago

Yeah true, but tiktok

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Many people are bad at delayed gratification and long term thinking.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Chiefs are enlisted, not officers. C'mon, AP, this is like day one stuff. Despite the name "petty officer" and term "non-commissioned officer", there's no such thing as an "enlisted officer".

Also, "stinky" was the default SSID on Starlink, not a secret code word they came up with.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Was gonna call you out for messing that up; warrant officers are officers, they just started out as enlisted men.

Then I realized we are talking navy ranks, and my best knowledge of that is from halo.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (10 children)

Enlisted dont even have ranks, they have rates. They also have a rating, which refers to your role, I.e the job you do.

load more comments (10 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'd be curious to see the dish install. It's hard to imagine how someone would think it'd go unnoticed, on a warship, no less.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 week ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Ship officers heard the scuttlebutt about STINKY, of course, and they began asking questions and doing inspections, but they never found the concealed device. On August 18, though, a civilian worker from the Naval Information Warfare Center was installing an authorized SpaceX "Starshield" device and came across the unauthorized SpaceX device hidden on the weatherdeck.

Heh.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Why the F were they broadcasting the SSID on a "secret" wifi network? That's just asking to get caught. If they had hidden the SSID most people would never have known about it.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You're expecting intelligence and competence from these people? The ones who thought it would be a good idea to violate a half dozen regulations to even install it in the first place?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Extra fun is that the head chief never gave anyone else the password. She logged into each of the other chiefs devices.

She could have 100% also typed in the ssid at the time. It would have taken almost no extra effort.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (4 children)

You can view WiFi passwords for saved networks on pretty much every OS. There's no reason to be secretive about entering WiFi passwords, at least to the people whose devices you're entering the password on.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ugh, Elon continues to have the absolute most inane sense of humor on the planet. I'm not sure if it's him or Zuck who are more clearly aliens wearing human skin

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's Zuck. Elon is just a perpetual 13yo. TBH, he's not entirely unlike Peter Pan (from the book).

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 6 days ago

To be fair, I also try to be closer to 13yo than my actual age, I think that makes life more fun. But I'm also not the CEO of multiple large organizations, and I would adjust how I behave if I was in that role.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago

Multiple people were involved, and it was probably mounted in a location where other people were unlikely to know that it was out of place.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah, same. It's not like there were windows they could point it out of, so it would have to be exposed and somehow disguised.

Lol, in college, some guy on my floor wasn't happy with the dorm's cable TV because it didn't have NFL Sunday Ticket and brought his DirecTV dish/receiver from home. His room was facing the right way, so he was able to set the dish up in the room next to the window. This sortof reminds me of that but without the national security implications.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

Imagine being such a selfish piece (s) of shit that you put the operational security of every single one of your crewmates in jeopardy ~~for social media~~.

Every single person involved in this needs to stand tall before the man.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] Reverendender 11 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Serious question: Was this actually a likely or possible security risk?

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes, it is a likely risk. Having an unauthorized broadcast signal is a security risk because it can be used to locate and target the ship, allows for crew to communicate with the outside world without the oversight that they would normally have, and is outside the control of the ship's command.

There are many valid reasons for the military to be limited to authorized channels for communication.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (4 children)

And we know that Elmo probably reports directly to Putin, insane that they got such a highly placed asset who's also the richest man in the world

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Very yes. They could reveal their location for starters, which could spoil a mission and put lives at risk, but if they use the same device on both this and the ships network, you risk compromising the ship's network or even the Navy itself, giving our enemies all kinds of sensitive info.

We are in the midst of a world war being waged in cyberspace and the US is losing. Incidents like this are a genuine threat.

load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›