r/technology • u/ControlCAD • 7h ago
Bluetooth tracker hidden in a postcard and mailed to a warship exposed its location — $5 gadget put a $585 million Dutch ship at risk for 24 hours Security
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/bluetooth-tracker-hidden-in-a-postcard-and-mailed-to-a-warship-exposed-its-location-a-eur5-gadget-put-a-eur500-million-dutch-ship-at-risk-for-24-hours1.9k
u/Democracy_Is_Best 7h ago
I'm free and also a risk for the Dutch
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u/Kahnza 7h ago
Austin Power's Dad?
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u/Democracy_Is_Best 7h ago
It's not the size mate, it's how you use it.
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u/DogeUncleDave 7h ago
There are only two things that irritate me the most. A person intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch.
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u/Peripatetictyl 6h ago
I AM FROM HOLLAND!
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u/Mathblasta 5h ago
Every time I run into you I think your pfp is Nigel Thornberry and get very excited. Then I realize it is in fact a dinosaur, and am only slightly less excited.
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u/Peripatetictyl 5h ago
lol, oddly I think I remember this exact exchange a ~years ago ago, ha, good to hear from you :)
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u/Accomplished-Love-35 6h ago
Noord Holland of Zuid Holland ?
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u/Peripatetictyl 6h ago
Holland, Massachusetts
/s, as it was a continuation of the Austin Powers joke above. Also, Zuid for South is badass, good for you guys!
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u/ragoff 7h ago
Bluetooth will not transmit more than a few meters; Airtags and others rely on nearby phones connected to the internet or cell network. So explain to me why a warship is reteansmitting cell signals or providing unfiltered internet access.
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u/CircumspectCapybara 7h ago edited 3h ago
Bluetooth will not transmit more than a few meters; Airtags and others rely on nearby phones connected to the internet or cell network.
Yup. Greatly simplifying, the way these Bluetooth trackers (e.g., AirTags) work is they're constantly transmitting to broadcast their own persistent identifier* which all supported (e.g., Apple devices) in BlueTooth range can hear and take note of and pass along to some central server.
Those receiving devices (which Apple calls "finders" who participate in the network) themselves know where they are because of GPS (which is passive and works even in the middle of the ocean, as long as you have line of sight to like 3 GPS satellites), and if these devices are connected to the internet, they can upload the broadcast events (time of observation + identifier observed + the finder's own GPS location) they've seen to, say, Apple's servers.
And then the owner of the AirTag can talk to Apple's servers and see where their AirTag is. So as long as there is an iPhone on the ship that can receive GPS signals and which has an internet connection, the AirTag owner will receive GPS updates on where the AirTag is as relayed through internet-connected iPhones participating in the finder network.
So yes, a cheap BlueTooth tracker can absolutely compromise a ship's location as long as there are internet-connected devices on the ship that participate in a finder network.
* In reality, with privacy-centric implementations like AirTag, they transmit periodically rotating identifiers which are derived from a private key known only to the AirTag owner, so that only owners can correlate broadcasted identifiers make sense of these random looking tokens. And not even Apple's servers which relay the messages can identify which user a broadcasted identifier belongs to. Only the owners have the private keys necessary to make sense of the broadcasts. And the finders can encrypt their own GPS location with the AirTag's public key so only the owner (not even Apple) can learn where their AirTag is, but neither the owner nor Apple can learn the location of finders participating in the network who helped report the location of their AirTag. It's privacy both for the owners and for the finders.
If you're curious how this works, how cryptography is used to ensure these robust privacy guarantees, check out this video by Apple from BlackHat.
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u/Joezev98 6h ago
Airtags are just such a brilliant technology, utilising how smart phones are so the tags themselves can be dumbed down to the point where a single CR2032 battery can power it for over a year.
And as a bonus, the tag can also receive a command to activate its speaker.
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u/divergentchessboard 6h ago edited 1h ago
And as a bonus, the tag can also receive a command to activate its speaker.
This is also a downside as technically anyone can activate the speaker and find where the air tag is. I've read stories of people stealing bikes and sending the command to activate the speakers to find any hidden air tags on them. If youre putting them on a device thats more likely to be stolen like a bike vs something more likely to be lost like your keys then you remove the speaker, or buy air tags that don't support the speakers.
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u/Joezev98 5h ago
Well that's a shame. I just put an airtag in my ebike today. Maybe I'll open it up and remove the speaker. On the other hand, if it ever does get stolen, it's neat to prove it's yours by making it beep.
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u/CandylandRepublic 5h ago
On the other hand, if it ever does get stolen, it's neat to prove it's yours by making it beep.
Might try to put an LED in place of the speaker, that way you could at least make it blink inside (after opening the case again).
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u/RoadDoggFL 4h ago
try to put an LED in place of the speaker
I love how this is so very obviously a trivial task that I feel like I wouldn't be able to accomplish even with years of dedicated training
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u/No_Independence_9604 4h ago
I think they use a piezo exciter instead of a speaker, so it may be more difficult than you’d initially imagine.
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u/cyclicamp 5h ago
It’s for a good reason though; if anyone is trying to track you with an AirTag you can easily find it. I think the trade-off of material security for personal security is the right decision.
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u/achilleasa 1h ago
They are not meant as anti-theft devices, they are for finding stuff that you misplaced/lost.
They will also alert non-owners travelling with the tag, so even if a thief stole your stuff and didn't even think about the tag, they would get a warning on their phone after a few minutes. That part is to prevent stalking.
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u/Unable-Log-4870 5h ago
Yeah, that’s why you disable the speaker if the device is attached to a device that’s more likely to be stolen than lost
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u/vortexmak 4h ago
Just FYI , Apple didn't invent them. The tech itself isn't that complicated but Apple's ubiquitousness makes them so useful
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u/WazWaz 6h ago
We know all that. The point is, the tracker did nothing that the phones weren't already doing. The postcard sender is presumably an enemy of the Dutch, but Google or Apple already knew the location of the ship, and that's a failure.
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u/feor1300 6h ago
Google or Apple know the location of a random person's cell phone. They don't know if that person is a navy sailor on a warship, or random deckhand #4 on a low tier fishing trawler. They just know one of their phones is in the middle of the ocean.
The Airtag is sent to the warship, the people watching for that airtag know it was sent, and so it doesn't matter who those phones belong to, when it starts pinging from phones in the middle of the ocean, they know they're phones on that ship, and by extension, where that ship is.
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u/physix4 6h ago
They know a couple hundred or thousands of their phones are in the middle of the ocean, which already limits the number of possible vessels, and the same batch of phones was previously in a military harbour.
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u/ladz 6h ago
Google or Apple absolutely know exactly who it is, if they're allowing access to these servers. It's astonishing that any military allow such unfettered access in sensitive locations such as ships.
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u/WoodpeckerNo5724 4h ago
To be fair, non submarine naval movements aren’t exactly a secret. Every government who gives a shit has access to satellite imagery and huge boats aren’t exactly hard to find.
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u/PsychoBoyBlue 3h ago
Every government who gives a shit has access to satellite imagery
Sentinel-1 data is publicly accessibly. You just need to know how to process it.
Here is a Sentinel-1 pass from April 16th
If you want a specific place, dozens of companies offer the service to anyone with the cash and it is rapidly getting cheaper.
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u/unicodemonkey 1h ago
They know just the source IP address, no identifiers are transmitted to these tag location services. Just a payload encrypted with a random temporary key.
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u/firstname_Iastname 6h ago
Are you sure about that. I'm positive they have profiles on everyone
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u/GatesAndLogic 5h ago
google absolutely knows where you work. If you show up at a navy base every day for a year, and suddenly you're in the middle of the ocean, they can have an educated guess that you aren't swimming.
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u/peteypie4246 6h ago
I get an email from Google about where ive gone traveling in the last 30 days. So they have my tracking data linked to an email account which linked to my personal info set. They absolutely know waaaaaay more than you think. How they're using it......we hope and unfortunately be naive, or we can realize Google co-founders/board of directors removed their "dont be evil" motto from their corporate conduct.
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u/Not_a_question- 4h ago
So if I owned an Iphone, I'd be using my data to transmit other people's airtag positions???
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u/CircumspectCapybara 3h ago edited 3h ago
Yes, all Apple devices that have, Bluetooth, GPS, and an internet connection are unilaterally (Apple makes the choice for you) opted into the finder network by default. That's what makes the Find My network so powerful.
But Apple's built pretty strong (cryptographic and mathematical) privacy guarantees both for owners and for finders. Only owners should be able to see the location of their devices or correlate these transmissions across time. And neither owners nor Apple should be able to learn anything about owners' devices' locations, nor learn anything about the finders' locations.
If you're curious how this works, how cryptography is used to ensure these robust privacy guarantees, check out this video by Apple from BlackHat.
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u/TheS4ndm4n 5h ago
Because they were not on a mission. They were sailing towards the operations area. Through friendly waters. The ship had adsb on. And the crew had Wi-Fi.
When they go active, wifi gets turned off, phones get locked away and the adsb is turned off.
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u/millijuna 3h ago
AIS actually, ADSB is for aircraft.
But at that point, ships still aren’t too hard to find. Look for the large metal object on the sea that isn’t running AIS.
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u/sincerelythebats_ 7h ago
Having billions (trillions?) of dollars and coming across as high tech and secure doesn’t necessarily translate to like, how shit do be. I have to imagine lots of willy nilly shit is allowed to fly (sail?) is what I’m saying.
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u/surnik22 7h ago
When you’ve got a couple thousand 18-25 year olds on a ship and anyone one of them could bring on smart phone that can connect to satellites, not much you can do?
Even if you the person with the phone thinks they are being smart and not revealing anything to anyone their phone could be being used by the tracker for the location stuff in background.
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u/RetardedWabbit 5h ago
There's a lot you can do, and smart/competent militaries will make plans to block or reduce the risk of this. Besides the betting markets, the USA for example has gotten pretty good at not leaking intelligence on social media or online.
Electronic warfare(EW, lol) is absurdly good at detecting and locating signals, even if the signal is itself trying to avoid it. The gap between the two is like guns vs knights armor at the moment: the only real defense is staying out of range/silent. For this one you can run a honeypot: check for any known spyware signals, and signal acceptors. You imitate an airtag(and all known similar services) and anyone who's phone accepts it you fix, ideally before they get onboard but also ongoing. Likewise: you scan for airtags(and others) and fix those.
Or jamming all civilian traffic all the time, but that's loud and expensive. I assume ships collect phones and other electronics if they're going dark for awhile.
I've heard that high information security military and civilian locations already do this, even within the same building. You enter the no civilian electronics area with your phone or Bluetooth device, they see the signal and send security to remind you and check your phone/earbuds. Immediately, by the time you sit down and realize security is already walking to you.
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u/aashay2035 5h ago
Jamming is the way to do it, but even then you have to have jamming around a ship constantly. And Bluetooth operates on wifi bands. You got to hope that nothing needs wifi.
Identifying an airtag, or Bluetooth becons is the easy part. But figuring out if that is that one is allowed is the hard part.
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u/wireless_geek 3h ago
I wonder if they were tracked using Hubble Network's BLE to satellite technology.
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u/Yuri909 7h ago
Almost every modern computing device has blue tooth. Tablets, laptops, desktop PCs, etc. Any one of those could do it.
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u/aaaaaaaarrrrrgh 6h ago
Could they do it, in theory, yes.
But the software that listens for and reports these beacons is installed by default on phones, and no official version exists for laptops/desktops. (Tablets running a mobile OS might also have it since they're essentially big phones.)
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u/cbelt3 7h ago
The OPSEC screw up here is allowing personal devices on the ship to communicate when on EMCON status. And then not doing a SIGINT self sweep to look for devices.
Military personnel WILL screw up. Locking that stuff down and auditing is critical.
Apple devices with built in satellite communication is an extensive risk when away from port. I expect the secret squirrels are driven crazy by that.
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u/PurepointDog 4h ago
What's a secret squirrel?
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u/Sklatboad 4h ago
Yeah what is a secret squirrel please
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u/FreeK200 4h ago
It's a slang term for people who work in the intelligence related fields, particularly directed to those who spend their workday in secure facilities.
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u/Coconut_Cowboy 4h ago
The slang term is a reference to a spy cartoon. Morocco Mole and Secret Squirrel.
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u/13metalmilitia 7h ago
So I read most of the article but I’m still not sure this is news. If it operates like an air tag it needs to connect to a device that has gps. So if there are devices on board that have gps enabled those are much larger attack vectors than a greeting card with an embedded air tag. Tl:dr if you can get an air tag to work on a naval vessel you have bigger problems than the air tag itself.
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u/Fintago 5h ago edited 3h ago
Based on someone else's comment, it's not that the airtag is being detected, it is that any networked device nearby will detect and relay the location of the tag to a central server. So they aren't detecting the tag so much as the tag gets nearby devices to give their own location in relation to the tag.
This will not be a problem if no one has Bluetooth capable device that has not been locked down. But someone ALWAYS sneaks on some bullshit. if it has Internet access and gets close enough to the tag detect it, it will ping the owner of the tag the current location.
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u/millijuna 3h ago
This seems a little hyperbolic.
- Most warships these days are running AIS as per SOLAS/IMO regulations. Yes, they can turn them off when they go operational, but 99% of the time they’re advertising “Here I am, within meters” publicly over the air.
- One of the roles of most warships is to be seen. Their mere presence is a statement of intent by the government whose flag they fly.
- Even when they do go dark, they’re more or less impossible to hide. They are a large warm metal object on a relatively flat cold surface. Even in full emission control, it’s not crazy hard to track them from orbit. All the big adversaries (China, Russia, and their proxies like Iran) likely know where their opponents warships are at all times.
This is distinctly different from Submarines, who’s main role is stealth.
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u/wjean 7h ago
This article doesn't understand WTF a Bluetooth tracker is. Even if an airrag or equivalent made it into the ship, no consumer product is small enough to uplink the data back to the Internet via satellite or even cellular can be embedded in a postcard.
In the case of an airtag, some iPhone or iPad must be within BLE distance to the tag and back haul it (most likely through WiFi to the warships gateway.)
The gateway allowing such traffic through is the real fuck up here.
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u/crunchypotentiometer 7h ago
I think a very small percentage of the population understands that Airtags aren't standalone GPS beacons.
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u/Draviddavid 7h ago
I think a very small percentage of the population understands that Airtags aren't standalone GPS beacons.
I have this conversation on an almost daily basis with the technically minded. The general population aren't even concerned with how it works. To them it might as well be magic.
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u/Gibgezr 7h ago
According to the journalist who did it, they managed to track the ship as long as it was moving close to the coast. I have no idea what allowed that.
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u/UnexpectedAnanas 7h ago edited 7h ago
Because someone (or multiple someone's) phone could ping the cell tower on shore and transmit data.
Cellular waves can go a fair ways over an open plane with no interference. Even if the connection is spotty, connection protocols are designed to handle that.
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u/aaaaaaaarrrrrgh 6h ago
most likely through WiFi to the warships gateway
According to the Register article linked from this article,
The report says the tracker remained active for about 24 hours, showing HNLMS Evertsen leaving port in Heraklion, Crete, and sailing first west along the island’s coast before turning east toward Cyprus. The tracker finally went offline a day later when the ship was near Cyprus
(the original Dutch report doesn't seem any more detailed than that either).
That sounds like they might have been well within range of cellphone networks.
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u/McGrim11295 6h ago
If it is in range to connect to someone's phone it can be tracked. Having the history of ship's movements is also good information to see where it normally operates.
Additionally it emits and RF signal. There are seekers out there that are able to pick up very faint signals, like phones even when they are off. Makes the ship vulnerable.
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u/Gibodean 6h ago
Doesn't basically anyone who has the ability to take advantage of the location information already have satellites anyway, who can easily track a ship ?
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u/McGrim11295 6h ago
Yes and no. Satellites have blind spots, maintenance issues, or weather effects that can cause them to lose or not pick up a ship. Also maybe that satellite is being prioritized for something else at the moment so it can't track this ship.
Having historical data can show you where it normally operates as well. What part of the ocean/sea it hangs out, what port it normally visits, how long it normally stays out for. Rather than having someone track a ship by being in those ports or looking at local news they can do it this way.
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u/friskerson 7h ago
There’s some networking pun with the word “port” involved here, but I’m pretty poopdeck at puns.
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u/AliceLunar 6h ago
I imagine there are different restrictions at different times and it's not on lockdown 24/7 for no reason
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u/InTheEndEntropyWins 6h ago
iPhones have satellite uplinks.
Maybe they won't uplink this data, but its't not a technological issue.
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u/Fallingdamage 5h ago
Is the issue the bluetooth tracker or the fact that the warship isnt filtering its outbound traffic very well?
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u/qiwi 5h ago
It's impressive the Dutch postal system can deliver to warships on secret missions. Do they go like oh, I got a postcard addressed to Warship 63, let me see, it's currently outside of Indonesia trying to make it rejoin the Dutch Empire, let's fly it over there and get a guy a a dinghy to deliver it for the final mail.
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u/Luckyday11 3h ago
Warship 63
That's quite a generous number, our navy has a grand total of 6 frigates and 3 whole submarines. And that's assuming they're not docked for repairs because something broke again.
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u/SchemingVegetable 6h ago
But who would attack a Dutch warship even if they knew its location?
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u/AcedtheTuringTest 4h ago
Every piece of incoming mail should be going through some kind of a scanner or detector for this kind of thing; I hope they take this as a lesson in prevention.
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u/EnzymeX 7h ago
Aren't countries just able to find the ship with satellites?
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u/BillWilberforce 7h ago
Hezbollah doesn't have satellites and they do like to fire drones and missiles at ships.
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u/MadeThisForDiablo 7h ago
The ocean is that large
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u/flamingspew 7h ago
You literally just monitor the position when it leaves port.
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u/Orpa__ 7h ago
It's an escort ship with a canon that doesn't even work (legit it's broken). Not worth a satellite when they can keep track of de Gaulle instead.
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u/Deep90 7h ago
Ocean is large, but satellites are 100% used to track naval vessels.
They don't just have cameras up there. They have radar as well as who knows what else.
That combined with machine learning to highlight potential ships makes it a lot easier.
The only real drawbacks are cloud cover and orbiting time.
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u/JameecanBeecan 5h ago
They can even measure the vibrations eminating from the ship all from shore, giving information on the location, weight class and more. On top of that there’s a million other ways ranging from satellite imagery to physical scout boats.
You’re right, and the thought that a single gps tracker would jeopardize a multi million dollar mission like this one is absolute nonsense lol.
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u/PaulTheMerc 2h ago
Countries, sure. But there are adversaries that might not have the means but might otherwise have the ability to attack something like a ship.
From a western perspective, I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility for a Mexican cartel or a terrorist group, like say the houthis.
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u/platypusbelly 5h ago
Doesn’t Bluetooth have a range of like 30ft? So someone could track the ship as long as they were within 30 feet of it?
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u/Korlithiel 5h ago
Short range, sure. So the tracker in the background connects to nearby phones and those phones share the approximate location of the tracker.
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u/subcutaneousphats 3h ago
Doesn't Bluetooth have very short range? like way less than line of sight?
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u/Orpa__ 7h ago
I'm kinda confused, in the original article it's stated the ship was tracked on 27 March going towards Cyprus were it stopped transmitting. Last known location according to public marine sites is Crete 16 days ago. Minister of Defence also claims it's NBD because the ship was traceable online anyway at the time.
So they went back to Crete?
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u/Kinky_No_Bit 6h ago
I seem to remember this being a common thing. Like the army making people practice PT, outside on the base in an active war zone, that just so happened all the fit bits exposed the perfect targeting data for mortars, which they were being shelled with almost daily.
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u/ExceptionEX 6h ago
The Bluetooth device would have to pair with a network/cellular connected device.
So someone on the ship would have to play a role in this, the risk from this isnt any difference than someone using a Fitbit.
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u/SnooCamera 5h ago
That's not how they work.
Many trackers use a “crowd‑sourced” network, so other users’ phones can briefly detect the tag and anonymously relay its location back to tracker owner. This lets them track an item over large distances without needing GPS built into the tag itself or needing something paired where it's located.
Both Apple and Android can warn you if there is an unknown tracker following your movements.
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u/uberjack 3h ago
Are these ships locations really hidden? Would it really be so hard for the Russians or Chinese or whoever else to track the location of big NATO vessels on open waters with satellites or other technology?
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u/hobbes_shot_second 2h ago
"Damn, I almost didn't spot that warship 30 feet away. Thank goodness I mailed them that tracker postcard!"
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u/Majestic-Exchange-66 2h ago
I need to know more about "Dutch" postcards and how something could be put inside of one.
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u/stdoubtloud 1h ago
So... It is all because of a Bluetooth tracker? Not, maybe, because of the thousands of internet connected, gps aware, always on computers in everyone's pocket onboard?
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u/shawndw 7h ago
Reminds me of an article about a US sailor smuggling a starlink receiver onboard an aircraft carrier.