That seems like a significant security risk
I feel like every military is full of technological babies acting out security theatre with each other while everything is totally hacked.
And I’m sure whoever put it there faced way more harsher penalties than a certain someone who willfully hid highly classified documents in his bathroom for months and lied about it to investigators.
Just like a certain someone who had classified documents that they weren’t even supposed to have without a handler!
According to Navy Times, reduction in rank. According to my experience, likely going to be told they can’t re-enlist after the end of their current term. Likely shipped stateside and in charge of mowing the lawn somewhere.
The source story is worth a read.
Marrero’s background is in Navy intelligence, and she earned a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in information security and digital management
Incredible.
she soon changed the “STINKY” Wi-Fi network name to another moniker that looked like a wireless printer — even though no such general-use wireless printers were present on the ship
Why not just switch off broadcasting the SSID?
[The CO and XO] then conducted another sweep inside the ship. Although the network that appeared to be a wireless printer appeared on their personal devices during their search, neither made additional inquiries regarding that network
No-one’s coming out of this looking good.
Marrero’s secret Starlink dish was removed the same day, and Marrero told another unidentified crew member the next day that it was authorized for in-port use — prompting sailors to re-install the illegal Starlink.
It just keeps going!
To be fair, if the lead NCO of a unit is just going to flat out lie then a lot of people are going to believe it. I can’t imagine being a lower NCO or enlisted and thinking command actually authorized the chiefs to break operational security for entertainment, but only them. Every chief in that crew should be busted and flagged against promotion again. The investigation was completely right to say if they didn’t know, they should have.
I may have missed it in this article, though I believe I read elsewhere, that she got busted down one rank and that’s it. I know military in general is having retention and recruitment issues, but to me this is more than just a busting down offense. That the senior enlisted on a ship would so nonchalantly disregard OPSEC demonstrates either a clear lack of understanding, or worse, something more nefarious.
We saw a naval officer relieved of command for having the scope backwards on his rifle. This, to me, rises to a much higher level.
We saw a naval officer relieved of command for having the scope backwards on his rifle.
Well in that case, it was just a matter of bad optics.
Take my upvote and get out of my sight.
Didn’t spot that one coming
Gotta keep your eye on the target
The door is over there, good day Sir.
There’s a lot of punishment that doesn’t show up in the top line in the military. She may be flagged to lose her security clearance, (dishonesty, incompetence, and corruption) which would be the end of her career. They may also outright flag her as not eligible for re-enlistment. She’s certainly not ever going to live that down and it’s not a counseling form that disappears in six months. I’d be very surprised if she ever promotes again.
All that said, where I was, in the infantry, lying to your commander like that, while endangering the unit, would be either an Other Than Honorable discharge or a Big Chicken Dinner. (Bad Conduct discharge, do not pass go, do not bother with the VA, do not collect retirement, hope future employers never ask about your discharge)
Yeah and that destroyer CO relieved of command for letting his sailors get treatment for COVID (before we had a vaccine) but this sailor just gets busted a rank for breaching OPSEC?! It’s not like she did it for fun, she’s probably compromised by some foreign actor. I’ve heard stories of the military making dumb decisions but damn.
First thought I had after read through, how much did that masters cost and you didn’t learn that you can turn off the broadcast name so only people who know it’s there can connect? Probably not even a real degree, freakonomjcs did an episode maybe 10 years ago that said probably 5% of degrees are fake, bet it’s 20% now, lying is culturally through the roof.
MBAs should be renamed Master’s in Bullshit Administration.
Mostly Bad Answers
Having an understanding of technology generically and knowing how specific technologies work are vastly different things. The first takes great effort. The second is done by a nerd who can’t sleep and is curious. If you didn’t do the second then you don’t know anything about that specific thing.
Exactly, and very often the only difference between BS level courses and MS level were the need to write extra papers and get better grades. And almost all of it was theoretical.
On the other hand, what bothers me in industry is when people are like “these damned kids don’t know nothing” when in reality you are talking about VERY motivated people who are highly intelligent but without experience. They just need direction and the chance to build confidence.
I have a general understanding of tech without a degree tho.
So you complied with the second part of my statement.
Woah, i missed the second part somehow!
The levels of incompetence.
What’s better is that, thanks to Elon Musk, “STINKY” is the default name for its Starlink wifi. These people didn’t even change that.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-starlink-wifi-stinky
Don’t worry! I’m sure the default username and password didn’t get changed either.
They did, because they were charging people for access to it.
He’s so weirdly childish.
He’s so weird
ly childish.
Can’t speak to starlink specifically, but I know some shittier router brands would often reset to factory defaults every time you updated the firmware. Can easily see starlink doing that with a pushed firmware with the expectation some additional cell phone app would restore the correct settings.
So they very well might have turned off broadcasting but it got popped back on while they were on shift and it was detected.
Nah, Starlink doesn’t reset the Wi-Fi SSID for a firmware update.
Hmm I got Starlink earlier this year and I don’t remember it having a default. I think it asked me to set the ssid immediately.
To make matters even worse…
The chiefs found that the Wi-Fi signal coming off the Starlink satellite transceiver couldn’t cover the entire ship, so during a stop in Pearl Harbor, they bought “signal repeaters and cable” to extend coverage.
This many chiefs (not rank-and-file, chiefs), putting this much effort into breaking Navy protocol, together, is crazy. And for what? Memes?
I know deployment at sea can be boring but Jesus fucking Christ, read a damn book or something.
Here’s the meat and potatoes of the article.
In 2023, they decided that the best way to deal with the problem was to secretly bolt a Starlink terminal to the “O-5 level weatherdeck” of a US warship.
They called the resulting Wi-Fi network “STINKY”—and when officers on the ship heard rumors and began asking questions, the leader of the scheme brazenly lied about it. Then, when exposed, she went so far as to make up fake Starlink usage reports suggesting that the system had only been accessed while in port, where cybersecurity and espionage concerns were lower.
Rather unsurprisingly, the story ends badly, with a full-on Navy investigation and court-martial.
when officers on the ship heard rumors
Lol not only is this an incredible violation of security, they couldn’t even keep their fucking mouths shut about it.
average starlink user, worse than arch users
Good. At a company, you get your ass fired if they catch you using non-approved equipment on company infrastructure. It can lead to leaks and infiltration, and lost of revenue.
In the military, that’s people’s lives!
Dude isn’t American. More money than a sovereign nation. Space level ballistic capabilities. Openly aligned with our enemies and their values.
How the fuck does he have a penny of my federal fucking tax dollars? We’re funding fucking terrorists that don’t even need the subsidies.
What dude are you referring to? I’m confused how your comment relates to the article.
Lemmy, where you get downvoted for being confused and asking for clarification. Good job everyone.
It’s baffling how people on Lemmy hate Musk so much and yet can’t stop mentioning him in every random, unrelated thread.
The starlink was privately bought as per the article, it wasn’t officially procured using federal funds. So the comment I responded to doesn’t really make any sense in the context of this post.
But it gets 50 upvotes because Musk is very bad man. I guess that answers my own question about why people can’t stop mentioning him on Lemmy: it’s free upvotes to shit on him. That’s fine I guess, but it can be annoying when it clogs up the discussion in unrelated threads.
You got me. I don’t have a problem with him being given the security liabilities of a defense contractor and control over people’s Internet access. I posted for upvotes.
you rage against people like musk because he is an evil person with a lot of power who gladly uses that power to push bad shit.
I mean, I guess we could do the whole not speak about bad people bit, but then we end up back at praising literal Nazi collaborators caugh caugh ford
Rage against him when he does evil things, by all means. But when you start raging against him 24/7 for no particular reason, it serves no purpose. In fact, it lessens your ability to actually call him out when he does bad stuff, because you sound like the boy who cried wolf.
And more importantly, it also affects the quality of discussion on Lemmy. One major advantage we have over reddit is that people tend to actually read the articles and make insightful comments that add to the discussion. “Hurr Durr Muskrat bad” is the opposite of that, it’s a reddit style pandering comment that ultimately has no substance or meaning. When these circlejerky comments become more common than good comments, the value of this site as a forum for legitimate discussion falls off a cliff.
Rage against him when he does evil things
that is 24/7 tho
It’s because no one ever reads the article they just read the headline and make up their own story.
In this guy’s head Elon Musk personally did this.
How was that implied by the comment? Tell me what’s in my head please.
I still use Lemmy and Reddit side by side. I find a lot of submissions and comments on Reddit downvoted, where they’re nothing burger contributions; some of the most non-divisive, non-offensive, and opinionless contributions I’ve come across.
I don’t recall this behaviour when I first started using Reddit about 10 years ago. It makes me wonder if the world has become a lot more bitter in recent years since this type of behaviour is seen across platforms.
I just feel like people are just too quick to assume the question is asked with bad intentions nowadays. It might be more bitterness, as you said, and it could also be more cynicism from most people. All I know is that it makes a lot of platforms more unpleasant to participate in.
We live in troubled times, the planet is overheating at a rate that it might affect my life more than being more uncomfortable in the summer. And that’s Texas summers at that.
There is an island of plastic refuse in the ocean bigger than some countries.
I saw the home computer come to the living room and the internet be birthed.
If you were to ask if I was jaded as a kid, already? Yeah. Around 7 years old.
It isn’t getting better. Corporations claw for more and more at the expense of the people and the planet.
I hope the younger generations can lead the charge of change, but for me… I don’t have the time or energy to play games most days, let alone change the planet.
And for those who will say, “Aren’t you just part of the problem then?” Sadly yes, I am. I try to make changes when I can, but I fear changing the small environment of my home will not be enough.
Elon Musk
I mean, u know that SpaceXs main income is flying shit around for NASA? If that was unexpected for you, I have bad news.
Unexpected? Did my comment convey surprise? I think I’m upset bc I’m informed.
Read the article
What? Why is my comment invalid in the context.
No it isn’t because Elon Musk has nothing to do with this receiver so having to go at him for this is stupid.
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Sailors on the ship then began finding the STINKY network and asking questions about it.
Oh, c’mon. it is trivial to make an SSID “hidden” for any networking tech that you have administrative control over. That way, only those “in the know” will know the SSID name to type in, in order to access said wireless network. It would not be “discoverable” by standard wireless-connectivity gear such as the default wifi interface in mobile phones.
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Reminds me of Sgt Bilko.
What really surprises me is that the ships equipment never picked up on those unauthorized signals. Hell they can pick up pavarotti in pearl harbour on their sonar. (Red oktober reference) . but they cant pick up multiple unknown signals in the 2.4 and 5 GHz band
Command Senior Chief
The person who came up with the scheme is also the most senior NCO on the ship. All the enlisted people in charge of monitoring that activity knew, they just knew not to ask questions.You would be surprised how much pull an E-8 or E-9 has in the military.
Can confirm was an O-3 to O-5 and if an E-5 or above was talking, I shut up and listened. Those guys get shit done.
Yeah, my dad eventually found himself as an E-9 in the USAF. He spent the latter portion of his career, which was jet engine mechanic, originally, going to different NATO countries and training people on equipment they were buying from the US, consulting them on opening, and operating, engine rooms, and hangars, and implementation of these roles in bases on foreign land, and in FOB situations. He said it was hard not to suffer imposter syndrome when you are routinely in board rooms filled with top brass, from around the world, and they are listening TO YOU. It stressed him out, a lot.
Believe me, being an officer from the ages of 20-24 there was a fuckton of imposter syndrome. I’m still shocked that they gave me the job they did. The stress was one of the reasons I left.
Yeah, same with my dad. Since he had enlisted he had gotten a masters, so they wanted to make him an officer, starting at some decent rank. However they wanted him to continue on with the types of locations he was being stationed at. He did a lot of work on test, and spy, aircraft, and did all that consulting travel. So they kept putting him in basically the middle of nowhere, but locations that either had a lot of traffic for things like spy aircraft, or they were geographically kinda centered, to travel between a number of locations, to work at, with that place being home base. He said he would do it if they sent him back to Vegas, or put him in Hawaii, or Edwards in southern California, or one of the major spots in Virginia, something other than arctic outposts, and a super rural areas. At the time we were stationed at Mountain Home AFB in Idaho… He hated it. But no, they wanted him to stay there for a few years, then get moved a rather remote location in the midwest. So he retired after 22 years.
and you had wished he owned a Starlink beacon?
This was the 80s, my guy
And this situation shows an inherent weakness of a military culture which demands one pretend a dumbass isn’t a dumbass just because of their badge collection.
That movie is not very realistic.
Are you telling me that some things do react well to bullets?
It’s a very subjective question. Arguably some people do. That’s why we make bullets and the devices for sending them.
You’re telling me that Sean Connery isn’t Russian? He was so convincing in the role.
If only they didn’t make them speak broken Russian (I suppose they used a dictionary with simplified transcriptions and maybe even a phrasebook). All the effort to do it with the less than satisfactory result could have been avoided. Even SG-1 aliens speak English.
As a Russian speaker, I wonder if there’s a version with only those parts dubbed to Russian.
Even SG-1 aliens speak English.
Yeah and then they had counselor troi pretend to be a Russian.
One ping only.
Wow just wow. Mind is blown. If thats your response you probably have no idea what my point was
the ship’s* equipment
*skiff
Between Trump stealing national security secrets and shit like this, it’s honestly shocking the USA hasn’t already become a full-fledged fascist hell-hole. It’s currently only half-fledged.
But seriously, it must be fucking child’s play for other nations to spy on us with dumb fucking shit like this happening.
Hey, give us a chance. We have another election right around the corner and things are really looking good for a solid commitment to fully flegged hell-holism.
The weakest link is always the lowest common denominator. I’m pretty sure that the other armies around the world have their fair share of idiots too.
Ya mean like ppl using classified information in World of Tanks forums to prove a point… more than once?
Oh it’s the same with other countries too. We all regularly have breaches due to the dumbest shit. Just ask the War Thunder community. It’s about time for them to have another one.
i was wondering why would you choose such a stupid WiFi access point name, then I read that it was Elon musk that decided that the default starlink AP name has to be that stupid so people would change it
My ISP gave me an access point called CSP218891F Which I’m rather worried about.
The fact that they didn’t even try to hide their ssid (or at least, the report doesn’t say they did) shows how stupid people can be with cybersecurity.
Apparently “STINKY” is the default StarLink SSID (Another Musk joke), so yeah…
To be fair, this is a navy ship. If they got the sniffers out and found a hidden one then the officers would be tearing the ship apart to find it right then and there. Hiding in plain view was the better choice.
To be mean, because these chiefs deserve it, Stinky is apparently the default name. These fucking geniuses left the default name up rather than try to camouflage it as a legitimate network. So I’m pretty sure none of the top part went through their smooth brains. They just assumed it would go unnoticed. Then they assumed they had enough privilege to make the enlisted think this was proper. Forgetting just how pugnacious the middle enlisted can be when they feel something is both unfair and know it’s against regs. (They will make it their life’s mission to humble a leader, and they win more often than not)
can we just fucking all take a break for a month? just have things go to being boring?
I attended a fucking ethics of ai talk at my work, only to run into a fucking knockoff nazi complaining about the founding fathers images being generated with black people, and talking about how silicon valley is too left wing.
either you’re so stupid that you don’t understand it’s a fucking alt-right dog whistle, or you’re a fucking nazi who gets very, very upset if you see a black person in any context. Either way, just shut the fuck up.
Still, the ambassador had nothing on senior enlisted crew members of the littoral combat ship USS Manchester, who didn’t like the Navy’s restriction of onboard Internet access. In 2023, they decided that the best way to deal with the problem was to secretly bolt a Starlink terminal to the “O-5 level weatherdeck” of a US warship. They called the resulting Wi-Fi network “STINKY”—and when officers on the ship heard rumors and began asking questions, the leader of the scheme brazenly lied about it. Then, when exposed, she went so far as to make up fake Starlink usage reports suggesting that the system had only been accessed while in port, where cybersecurity and espionage concerns were lower. Rather unsurprisingly, the story ends badly, with a full-on Navy investigation and court-martial. Still, for half a year, life aboard the Manchester must have been one hell of a ride.
But wait! There’s more!
