On Monday, the USS John S. McCain crashed into an oil tanker near Singapore. 10 sailors are missing after the incident, and a number of others wounded. Pentagon officials have not ruled on what happened, but have said they are leaning toward human error.
The problem is, Navy Chief Admiral John Richardson indicated that the Navy is going to “consider all possibilities.” It didn’t take long for people to jump from that to speculation that the boat was hacked, though Richardson conceded there were “no indications” that this was the case.
Itay Glick, a former employee of the Israeli cyber-warfare unit, said he doesn’t believe it’s a coincidence that this is the second boat in the US 7th Fleet to have a deadly crash in the last three months, saying “there may be a connection.”
US ships in the Pacific have been struggling not to smack into things all year, and the USS McCain is actually the fourth such incident. The USS Antietam was the first to run into such a problem, running aground in Tokyo Bay.
The Navy seems to be losing patience, and on Tuesday night announced that they are removing Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, the commander of the 7th fleet,from duty. With other commanders also relieved over these incidents, the Navy seems to believe these to be simple leadership failures.
I guess it was just a matter of time for someone to cry that the Russians did it. Just like silly little kids, always blaming someone else, never accepting accountability let alone responsibility. A government job–get paid tons of money to screw around and never have to answer for anything.
They wish it was some deep dark plot. It is a much better explanation than utter inability to navigate a ship. How did the lookouts (there were lookouts?) eyeballs get hacked?
>Itay Glick, a former employee of the Israeli cyber-warfare unit, said he doesn’t believe it’s a coincidence that this is the second boat in the US 7th Fleet to have a deadly crash in the last three months, saying “there may be a connection.”<
Well, the US 7th Fleet is a connection.
I have read several news accounts that the ship lost its steering control just prior to the collision.
Track277s
Yes, did you know Tesla, when he invented remote frequency control in 1898, demonstrated at sea with a four-foot steel boat, used waves which override mechanical controls ? Not only do the scalar waves override mechanical controls, but they also shut down the communication of remote control signals. For example, a ship that is targeted by Tesla technology (which has been black since the 1940s) will move to its directed route, simply because it is made of steel – it is the steel itself that responds to the magnetic force of the waves, not the electronic commands. Think “Magneto” of X-Men.
It just doesn’t make any sense. This latest ship is small enough to outmaneuver an imminent collision. Unless surface radars were functionless, they would know such an event was likely and would have changed course to avoid it. Either the radars were inaccurate or the ship losing its ability to change course seem to be more likely explanations than everyone one on the bridge being totally incompetent.
The Navy knows their radar systems are null against electromagnetic interference. The Russians have demonstrated their superiority in the EM department many times. GPS spoofing cannot explain what has happened to American vessels in the Pacific. EM warfare is the new frontier, and the US lags far behind. It is inexpensive but extremely effective. Radar and GPS can be completely shut down and/or fed false information. It has absolutely nothing to do with “hacking” or computers.
We’re talking about magnetic fields, not computer networks.
This slant is long overdue. But come on they’re going to have to do better than Russians taking over the GPS satellites and changing the World Clock so that only two vessels at sea notice it enough to run into each other.
“Putin did it.” still plays at the food court.
Hacking? Really? I don’t care how good you are with computers or how powerful the tools are you have, there’s no way you can outsmart someone’s eyes. No lookouts? No deck officers? No one lounging around topside? If a surface ship sneaks up on a US Naval vessel we have something seriously broken in the way we do business at sea.
For all we know they coud have been enveloped in fog. Itwas dark. But what about radar? GPS? Satellite telemetry?
“On Monday, the USS John S. McCain crashed into an oil tanker near Singapore.” Really?
It looks to me that the oil tanker crashed into the USA boat. Why report it the other way around?
It looks to me like the tanker was a tanker, large and slow and going straight. For a very sophisticated, heavily manned, highly maneuverable super-destroyer to get rammed by it requires some considerable messing up.
There have been four incidents in the last year, all involving this same class of sophisticated destroyer. It specializes in situational awareness, from ballistic missiles to supersonic cruise missiles popping up with almost no warning to lurking submarines. Yes the class ran into two large slow merchant ships, hit a fishing boat, and ran aground entering its own harbor.
Something is very wrong. That is not to say hacking. It could be a training issue. It could be overstretch of forces. It could be any of what is likely a long list of things I have not thought of. But there is something very wrong.
Once is an accident. Maybe twice is a coincidence, though I don’t believe much in those. Four times? No, that is a problem of some considerable scale.
That is no doubt why the Admiral was relieved a month early to get a fresh team up and running, the whole fleet stood down, and a huge shake up is ongoing. Good. Those are the right things to do.
Good points. What puzzles me is that the automatic backup steering control didn’t work either.
They’re coming up with this “hacking” nonsense just to avoid losing a lot of admirals and ship captains for utter incompetence.
If there IS any hacking involved, this is what you get when you run ships using Microsoft Windows. The submarine service uses UNIX/Linux.
The latest British warship is still running Windows XP, an obsolete version of Windows which is completely vulnerable to hacking.
But I view this “hacking” story as a way to deflect from the real problems, whatever they may be, by capitalizing on the current media frenzy over (unproven) “Russian hacking.”
This is more likely the case. LOL
Didn’t hear about this one at the time. Are there more?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2958143/US-pays-Philippines-compensation-warship-reef-damage.html
This “hacking explanation” is ridiculous. In crowded areas, all ships rely on a very experienced pilot to oversee direction of the ship. Also in entering/leaving ports, each ship has a special detail of senior crewmen who man the steering etc. In my day it was called the “Sea and Anchor Detail”. Anyone who thinks that the ship is on some kind of remote control, susceptible to hacking, in crowded areas, just has no clue. Of course, that definition applies to a lot of folks, these days
*facepalm
Here we go with that meaningless euphemism again.
That “H” word is annoying.
Really folks. Someone with Naval IT experience needs to speak up here. From where I sit, that H word is for Horsesh1t