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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday August 19 2019, @10:28PM (5 children)
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)
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)
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: 3, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 20 2019, @07:47PM
Sounds great.
I'll take 50. Cash OK?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:43AM
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
It doesn't matter in the future what "everybody" currently thinks or what the US's current advantage is.