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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 399 points 1 week ago

That seems like a significant security risk

[-] [email protected] 248 points 1 week 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.

[-] [email protected] 123 points 1 week ago

It's emmitting radio signals that an enemy could use to help locate the ship.

[-] [email protected] 18 points 1 week 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.

[-] [email protected] 98 points 1 week 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.

[-] [email protected] -3 points 1 week 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.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Well, the Starlink could be connected by an admin to a computer that is connected to SIPRNet, right? It exposes itself as just a router.

I mean, assuming the Starlink was brought on board by someone with authorization to be on board, any possible adversarial situation would necessarily be an internal issue to begin with.

Personally, I think the most likely answer involves an Xbox.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Nothing Sipr is going to have a wi-fi. At least, not at the tactical level. God knows what goes on with secure cellphones and stuff. However a Sipr computer is still a computer and if you hook in the wrong cable then you've breached the network. Any bad actor knowing where the ship is and with sufficient information is going to try and drop malware to the router. That malware would load to any computer attached and if it happens to find itself on a secure computer it then attempts to phone home or cause havoc.

Which is why hooking a green cable into a red computer usually means you unhook it, power it down, cart it off to IT, and then hope the punishment isn't too bad. (Ranges from push ups to half pay for an honest mistake.)

[-] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago

It's as easy as plugging in the wrong cable.

[-] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago

Not always

Ships absolutely practice turning everything off.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 week 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.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 week 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.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 55 points 1 week 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

[-] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago

They can't, because it doesn't exist.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Which also doesn’t definitely mean it didn’t happen.

[-] [email protected] -2 points 1 week ago

That doesn't matter. What even is your point?

[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

It wouldn't be... Until it is.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Yeah with how many leaks come from war thunder players... lol

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

We need to insert egregiously wrong Russian hardware into War Thunder so the real specs will be leaked

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Next up: somebody installs unauthorized Starlink on warship so they can play War Thunder on deployment.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I'm not convinced that's not exactly what this particular starlink device was for

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

When did they stop using starlink?

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

They didn’t, the commenter is making things up.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

It was exactly the reason I was thinking

[-] [email protected] -4 points 1 week 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?

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Did you miss the part where he sent a militarized Cyber Truck to a Russian war criminal, or are you conveniently ignoring it?

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

What about the Russian oligarchs backing twitter?

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

If Musk isn't a Russian asset, it's only because he's a Saudi asset. And there's no reason he can't be both.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I feel like every military is full of technological babies acting out security theatre with each other while everything is totally hacked.

this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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