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Navy officer lost job for secretly installing internet on warship to check social media (fortune.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

148 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 months ago (26 children)

There's a much bigger story here.
Think about how hard it was to discover this access point. Even after it was reported and there was a known wi-fi network and the access point was known to be on a single ship, it took the Navy months to find it.

Starlink devices are cheap and it will be nearly impossible to detect them at scale. That means that anyone can get around censors. If the user turns off wi-fi, they'll be nearly impossible to detect. If they leave wi-fi on in an area with a lot of wi-fi networks it will also be nearly impossible to detect. A random farmer could have Starlink in their hut. A dissident (of any nation) could hide the dish behind their toilet.

As competing networks are launched, users will be able to choose from the least restricted network for any given topic.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (7 children)

it took the Navy months to find it.

I'm surprised they didn't hide the SSID... It's likely nobody would have even found the network then.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (4 children)

You could easily scan for hidden SSIDs. It might not show up in your phone's wifi list, but that's by design. The traffic is still there and discoverable. Even with an app like WiFiman (made by Ubiquiti).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Disabling the wifi SSID broadcast might even increase the number of communication attempts between devices. Because all devices then must actively search for the network.

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