Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Monday August 19 2019, @04:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the jam-this! dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Why the Navy Is Relying on WWII-Era Communications

The U.S. Navy, anticipating a future when a high-tech enemy could read its electronic communications, is going back to a hack-proof means of sending messages between ships: bean bags. Weighted bags with messages inside are passed among ships at sea by helicopters.

In a future conflict with a tech-savvy opponent, the U.S. military could discover even its most advanced, secure communications penetrated by the enemy. Secure digital messaging, voice communications, video conferencing, and even chats could be intercepted and decrypted for its intelligence value. This could give enemy forces an unimaginable advantage, seemingly predicting the moves and actions of the fleets at sea with uncanny accuracy.

Last week, a MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter delivered a message from the commander of an amphibious squadron to the captain of the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer. The helicopter didn’t even land to deliver it, dropping it from a hovering position before flying away. The message was contained in a bean bag dropped on the Boxer’s flight deck.

The bean bag system, as Military.com explains it, is nearly eight decades old. The system dates back to April 1942, when a SBD Dauntless dive bomber assigned to the USS Enterprise was flying a scouting mission ahead of the USS Hornet. Hornet, about to launch sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers on a raid against Japan, was traveling in extreme secrecy to preserve the element of surprise. The Dauntless pilot encountered a Japanese civilian ship and, fearing he had been spotted, dropped a message in a bean bag on the deck of Hornet.

[...] Bean bags aren’t the only old tech the Navy is bringing back. In 2016, NPR reported that the service was reintroducing sextants as a navigational tool for officers. The U.S. armed services are heavily reliant on the satellite-based Global Positioning System for navigation, making jamming or spoofing GPS signals a major priority for adversaries. If they’re successful, the military must be able to navigate from Point A to Point B the old fashioned way—by sextant if necessary.


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @05:07PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @05:07PM (#882215)

    They should use the Celtic Cross (+ an accurate alamanac) used by the ancient Egyptians to find the longitude:

    http://rexresearch.com/millercelt/millercelt.htm [rexresearch.com]
    http://viewzone.com/crichton.html [viewzone.com]

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 19 2019, @06:25PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 19 2019, @06:25PM (#882252) Journal

      They could use LORAN.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @09:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @09:35PM (#882341)

      After reading the fine story I assumed the cross and garlic were to keep O365 away ..

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:46AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:46AM (#882433)

      But my bullshit senses are tingling with this one.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 19 2019, @05:13PM (11 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 19 2019, @05:13PM (#882219) Journal

    It's all about security and reliability. For every degree of complexity, you add ten degrees of vulnerability. For every ounce of hands-on control you remove, you gain a pound of unreliability. It's the same reason the Army resisted radio, and maintained landlines for so long - landlines have to be physically located, and then tapped, before communications are compromised. Any radio can be triangulated, as soon as it fires up. Given enough time, any encryption can be broken. Radio is not secure.

    Pretty much every author who has explored futuristic warfare has agreed on the vulnerability of satellites. The moment one side decides that the satellites puts him at a disadvantage, those satellites are coming down. They're easy to track, and they have no defenses.

    Surface-based navigation aids aren't much better. Again, anything that transmits can be triangulated, and targeted.

    It is past time that the Navy get back to basics, and stop dreaming of ultimate weapons and such silly whale shit. Men win wars, and men lose wars. You train the men to win, or you lose, it's really that simple. You can bet both cheeks of your ass that the Chinese (our most likely opponents in any near to mid term future war) are training their midshipmen to use centuries old technology. Alright, so beanbags may not be centuries old, but it is safe and reliable, so they are using it. Guarandamnteed!

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @05:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @05:23PM (#882226)

      "Superiority" by Arthur C Clarke:

      http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html [mayofamily.com]

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 19 2019, @05:59PM (7 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday August 19 2019, @05:59PM (#882240)

      For every ounce of hands-on control you remove, you gain a pound of unreliability.

      I find quite the opposite: things I have automated perform "in the wild" pretty much as they do at my desk.

      However, HIL (Human In the Loop) systems tend to demonstrate all kinds of novel, unanticipated behavior after leaving the development zone.

      On a system as large as a fleet of ships, your HIL elements need to be highly trained, ready with redundant replacements, vigilantly monitored and yanked offline at the first sign of unreliability.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 19 2019, @06:17PM (6 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 19 2019, @06:17PM (#882247) Journal

        True - as far as it goes. But, you have to admit that when the HIL bangs his head, or even his knuckles, once or twice, he moans, and complains, until someone gives him some attention, and corrects whatever his problem is. The robot? It will smash itself into an immovable object twenty thousand times, unless the HIL happens to notice that the robot is wrecking itself.

        I have sung the praises of robotics in the past. A robot doesn't get tired, or come to work pissed off at the spouse, or get high, or come to work drunk. The number of crashed molds in our plant has fallen dramatically since the robots were installed. But - robots DO crash, and they seldom alarm out, calling attention to themselves. (That last is a human fault, I think - the automation guy should be able to set up some alarms.)

        So, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

        However, in combat situations, you most definitely WANT your attention drawn to details that a robot may not notice. Humans are essential in maintaining a ship's combat readiness, because no programmer is god-like enough to anticipate every potential problem. In fact, I don't think that even the god of war could program good enough for a ship, or an infantry squad, or much of anything in warfare.

        • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday August 19 2019, @06:38PM

          by Gaaark (41) on Monday August 19 2019, @06:38PM (#882256) Journal

          Yup! Modern tech can be great: but if one EMP can take it all out and your ships have no fall-back tech (or it does, but your crew can't even use a fecking sextant let alone steer a ship manually or fire weapons on target manually), you. are. fucked.

          So yeah...new tech good. Old tech good if crew is trained. If not, the enemy could leave your ship as helpless as a sinking dinghy.

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 19 2019, @06:42PM (4 children)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday August 19 2019, @06:42PM (#882259)

          robots DO crash, and they seldom alarm out, calling attention to themselves. (That last is a human fault, I think - the automation guy should be able to set up some alarms

          Yeah, that's got a lot to do with design and management philosophy. When the engineers come to management and say: "You know that new $20M robotic system that's $5M over budget already? Yeah, ummm.... we've identified some failure modes that we could monitor and give early warning of component wear and probable impending failure. It's really cheap, only another $2M for the install, and it should reduce line-down time by more than 50% in the future, but... it will delay initial launch by another 5-6 weeks at least..."

          My personal favorite, and current daily grind, is the immutable launch date - set with total disregard for input from the implementing engineers, as if schedule estimates are a negotiation like the price of soybeans. So, after the arbitrary deadline has already passed, a slow trickle of "new feature requirements" starts to flow... Didn't want to freak anybody out before the deadline, but since YOU are late already...

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday August 19 2019, @07:26PM (3 children)

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 19 2019, @07:26PM (#882283) Journal

            Let me introduce you to Miss. Management. She has a long and vast career. She's worked her magic at countless organizations, especially the biggest ones.

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:31AM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:31AM (#882422)

              And, as usual, the fallout after Miss Management has squandered the funds, is the wrecked remains of the machinery that built the organization.

              I've lived through a couple of these, and in both cases, the Cascade failure to Oblivion was initiated by the sale of the company from a private individual to an investment entity .

              Lots of suits, ties, helicopters, private jets, and no knowledge of the details that made our stuff work. What they bought was our name and reputation, whisc was soon sullied.

              • (Score: 1) by Sally_G on Tuesday August 20 2019, @05:24AM (1 child)

                by Sally_G (8170) on Tuesday August 20 2019, @05:24AM (#882496)

                I understand all of that, but why blame it on some female? It's not like we get to make any decisions, beyond what to wear to work. Often enough, we don't even get that much choice in our lives.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @07:08AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @07:08AM (#882514)

                  I don't know; I've never seen that expression before.

                  However, in a few companies in which I've worked recently, the typical line engineer was male. Not all of them, but the vast majority. Also support, installation and to some extent sales.

                  And management was mostly female.

                  So were project managers, program managers and HR.

                  No, I'm not sure why, and I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out that if management is turning female to silence sex imbalance complaints, perhaps this is what we'll see more of in terms of stereotyping.

    • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday August 20 2019, @09:58AM (1 child)

      by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday August 20 2019, @09:58AM (#882546)

      > Men win wars, and men lose wars.

      Not really. The force with the most ships, having longest range, most firepower and fastest vessels win (sea) wars.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:03PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:03PM (#882602) Journal

        I am not so very sure of that formula. Long range and firepower, along with speed, will always be important factors in the formula. The number of those ships will always be important, as well. But, today, we have some crazy idea that we can put ships to sea with only a small number of men, and lots of electronics.

        A King class guided missile destroyer can be operated by a crew of about 75. But, in actuality, we had a crew of 350. We simply didn't NEED all those men, just to cruise around, display the flag, and challenge Soviets wherever they could be found. But, we had 350, all the same. That's because, if and when the shit hit the fan, we could expect casualties. I never researched the Navy's formula, but it appears that the Navy decided something like 4 to 5 times the number of required personnel was about right. Supposing the ship suffers an engineering casualty, and one of the boiler rooms loses all it's on-duty personnel. During GQ, or combat, that would mean that slightly less than half of all the boiler tenders aboard ship were gone. You still need engineering personnel in the still functioning boiler room, and you need personnel in the non-functioning room, to try to bring the boilers on line again.

        Today's "philosophy" of putting minimal personnel aboard ship is very likely to lead to the loss of essential personnel in a first encounter with an enemy. Your power plant (probably gas turbines, today) can operate with only six personnel, so you are assigned ten. A casualty to the engineering spaces kills or disables six, and you're left with four. But, but, but, you REQUIRE six people!!! Guess what, Mate? We're screwed!

        What are your options then? You may (or may not) have a couple semi-qualified persons aboard ship, who were working toward their Surface Warfare qualifications, so you draft them. Or, you fish among the minimal labor pool, for some unqualified personnel that you can bring up to speed quickly. Hmmmm - maybe.

        I'll say it again - PEOPLE win battles, and people win wars. To a large extent, things are decided according to who can lose the most blood, and still keep on fighting. Automated warfare sounds cool and all, but we ain't there yet.

  • (Score: 2) by stretch611 on Monday August 19 2019, @05:16PM (7 children)

    by stretch611 (6199) on Monday August 19 2019, @05:16PM (#882222)

    To err is human... To really fsck things up requires a computer.

    This is a good idea, Not only does it give them a backup in case of computer failure (or compromised computers) It gives them a way to think outside the box on how to get things done.

    It similar to why people learn how to do math without a calculator... so that you can do it when you do not have a calculator.

    Without learning other ways, how many people would give up even trying to communicate if a transmitter was broken/destroyed?

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @06:02PM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @06:02PM (#882241)

      What's the bandwidth of signal flags?

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 19 2019, @06:25PM (4 children)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 19 2019, @06:25PM (#882251) Journal

        What about using hand held point to point laser communicators. They never are and never were connected to a net. While "high tech", there isn't much of anything on one to hack. Unless you make it digital and add encryption.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @06:30PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @06:30PM (#882253)

          High end surveillance might still intercept laser comms, people have made some crazy tech to extract data. Also line of sight can be tricky especially on water.

          • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 19 2019, @07:23PM

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 19 2019, @07:23PM (#882282) Journal

            Would they also be able to observe signal flags?

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 19 2019, @09:15PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 19 2019, @09:15PM (#882330) Journal

            High end surveillance might still intercept laser comms

            High end surveillance will have no trouble intercepting semaphores. Hell, they might be able to automate reading it in real time by satellite soon.

        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday August 19 2019, @07:28PM

          by sjames (2882) on Monday August 19 2019, @07:28PM (#882284) Journal

          Signal lights. Communicate in code (not cipher, code).

      • (Score: 1) by Sally_G on Tuesday August 20 2019, @05:34AM

        by Sally_G (8170) on Tuesday August 20 2019, @05:34AM (#882498)

        Signal lights have more bandwidth than flags do, and they work at night as well.

        ... - .-. ..- -.-. -.- ....... .. -.-. . -... . .-. --. ....... -... .-. . .- -.- ....... ... .. -. -.- .. -. --. ....... -... .-. . .- -.- ....... .. -. .- -.. . --.- ..- .- - . ....... .-.. .. ..-. . -... --- .- - ... ....... -... .-. . .- -.- ....... ... . -. -.. ....... .... . .-.. .--. ....... ..-. .- ... - ....... -... .-. . .- -.- ....... ... --- ... ....... -... .-. . .- -.- ....... - .. - .- -. .. -.-. .......

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 19 2019, @05:35PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday August 19 2019, @05:35PM (#882232)

    I wonder if our current CinC has had any input on the "are you really sure your systems won't be HAX0RED?" Seems like the kind of obtuse question he's good at asking, and in this case I think we're better off for whoever has asked it having done so.

    Still, I'd love to see the drill when an aircraft carrier is navigated into New York harbor with zero electronic navigation aides... that's gonna require the dress-browns on the bridge.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday August 19 2019, @07:59PM (2 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday August 19 2019, @07:59PM (#882296)

    In WWII, the most sensitive communications weren't just in code, they were in code spoken in Native American languages that Natives could speak fluently but the Japanese had no clue about. If you use a wide enough range of symbols that the enemy can't just match sounds to numbers or something simple like that, you have something incredibly powerful.

    And thus you have a practical case for linguistic diversity in the country.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Monday August 19 2019, @09:24PM (1 child)

      by legont (4179) on Monday August 19 2019, @09:24PM (#882335)

      That's easily defeatable in the age of modern computers. What works is what Russians use - paper printed one-time encryption pads. They can't be cracked.

      Note that even a single reuse of a pad makes it vulnerable https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/19/russia_one_time_pads_error_british/ [theregister.co.uk]

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:09AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:09AM (#882386)

        And one time pads are so easy to make these days.

        Think home movies made with noisy camera.

        Or digital recordings of a shower.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @09:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @09:23PM (#882334)

    I have a feeling some part of the military is already looking into how to use them in an effective manner.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday August 19 2019, @10:28PM (5 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday August 19 2019, @10:28PM (#882352) Journal

    It is cute, though, that everybody thinks that the US has not already owned everyone else's secure defense systems for a long, long time. Nope, nuh-uh. The US is totally vulnerable and the Chinese and Russians totally aren't.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:49AM (2 children)

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:49AM (#882400)

      Fear is often the first step used to sell some expensive new doo-dad to the US military.

      Those bean bags will wind up costing $2,000 each.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:32PM (1 child)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:32PM (#882665) Journal

        Oh, ye of little imagination, and less than adequate greed! I'll up your $2,000 bean bag, to a $12,000 High Capacity Resilient Skinned Bean Bag! Print the damned things in digital sea-green camo, and the Pentagon will eat them up!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:43AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:43AM (#882429)

      Even I know I am only one unrefuseable update from a brick. It's why I try like the dicken to use older tech that I completely understand, and know for sure there is no back door to it.

      Problem is the people who might hire me want the latest tech, which I understand just enough of to call the public facing API, having no idea at all of what's going on in the kitchen . And, thanks to hold harmless clauses, no one is responsible for food poisonings.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 20 2019, @02:39PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 20 2019, @02:39PM (#882599) Journal

      It is cute, though, that everybody thinks that the US has not already owned everyone else's secure defense systems for a long, long time. Nope, nuh-uh. The US is totally vulnerable and the Chinese and Russians totally aren't.

      It doesn't matter in the future what "everybody" currently thinks or what the US's current advantage is.

(1)