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from the instead-of-csv-files-we-should-use...xls? dept.
A Suezmax container ship can hold over 10,000 TEUs or “Twenty Foot Equivalent Units”. Most containers carried are double this length – FEUs or “Forty Foot Equivalent Units” – but that still means in the region of 5,000 containers.
Only around one third of that cargo is on-deck though – most is hidden in the holds, under massive hatch covers. To get a container out from the bottom of the hold could involve removing 50 containers from that hatch cover, removing the hatch cover, then taking a further 8 containers to access the bottom of a stack.
Screw up the load plan and you create chaos. What if the load plan, which is just a CSV list or similar, is hacked and modified? No-one knows what container is where. instead of taking 24-48 hours to load and unload, it could take weeks to manually re-inventory the ship. Time is money for a ship. Lots of money. Blocking a port for a period whilst the mess is resolved incurs enormous costs and could even jeopardise supplies to an entire country.
Seems like more bang-for-the-buck than an IED [Improvised Explosive Device].
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Wednesday November 22 2017, @09:06PM (1 child)
Another poster basically explained that it's impossible. Too many people involved getting real time reports, the cranes also weigh the cargo at the same time. You would need to fool the cranes about the weight of the cargo. Even then the poster pointed out that there are other ways to detect it before it even casts off from its moorings.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 22 2017, @09:40PM
That poster mis-understood the attack. The containers would contain exactly what they should, so the weights would match up with the IDs just fine. They would know exactly where they were. They would just be positioned anti-optimally for safety or unloading.