Officer Leaks Location of French Aircraft Carrier With Strava Run (bbc.com) 86
schwit1 shares a report from the BBC: A French officer has reportedly revealed the location of an aircraft carrier deployed towards the Middle East after publicly registering a run on sports app Strava. French news outlet Le Monde first reported the officer, referred to as Arthur, logged a 35-minute run on the app while exercising on the deck of aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle on 13 March. He used a smartwatch to record his run and upload the activity to the app, the paper said, creating a map that showed his location. [...] The location of the vessel was said by Le Monde to have been northwest of Cyprus, around 100km (62 miles) from the Turkish coast, with satellite images capturing the carrier and its escort. A representative from the French Armed Forces said the officer's behavior "does not comply with current guidelines," which "sailors are regularly made aware of."
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It costs no effort. There is no nation that doesn't have an intelligence service. If there were, they would be allied with a nation who did, and get the intelligence from them.
Re: So what? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Don't be Detected" is the second layer of the survivability onion [youtu.be].
Re:So what? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. Actors with interest here is Iran and its proxies, and their reconnaissance capabilities are exceedingly oversubscribed right now. Whatever access to reconnaissance data they still have, they're most certainly going to be very grateful for narrowing down the scope of the search.
The primary defense of the aircraft carrier is to hide at the sea, and stay highly mobile, making long range targeting by ballistics impossible. For those not in the know, most anti-ship ballistic missiles are targeted at an area, and fire up their radar only after they're quite a while into the descent, meaning you need to know approximate location of the carrier group for ballistic anti-shipping missiles to have any effect on them. Otherwise it just arrives in the area, and there's nothing within range of its radar because carrier group is long gone from last reconnaissance data. Or even worse, there's another group of vessels in the area missile locks on to and hits, and it has nothing to do with the conflict. Which Iran and its proxies have been doing for years.
So this not only put the carrier group in danger, it also put civilian shipping in the area in danger. Massive fuck up.
Re: (Score:2)
Good luck hiding something the size of an aircraft carrier in the busy meditterenean. Its probably seen by the the crews of dozens of ships every day.
Re: (Score:3)
It's exceedingly easy, because this data is exceptionally time sensitive. Assume extreme red capability, i.e. say missile can track targets within 50km radius upon arrival in the sector and has perfect accuracy with its inertial system and faces zero degradation from EW assets.
Carrier groups are generally rated to travel at around 30 knots combat and aircraft launch speeds. Let's assume it's going with oilers and not conducting active operations, so it's probably going to be as low as 20kn.
So this slow ass
Re: (Score:2)
You can see yourself it was going in a straight line. Everyone knew it was going to the middle east...
There's a whole lot of middle in that east.
Re: (Score:2)
This are not "ballistic" missiles but "cruise" missiles.
Ballistic means, you shoot in an arc, and it gets down in an area where the end of the shot is.
Close to that end, ofc. you could use radar and fins and rockets to adjust your drop down.
Typical anti ship missiles are ground/sea level hovering low flying (the opposite to ballistic) missiles, which indeed switch on radar on the last moment.
Re: (Score:2)
Cruise missiles lack range needed for this sort of work, are unsuitable due to being far too slow at those ranges, and finally as Ukraine war has shown are exceedingly vulnerable against any fast jet assets.
This is why Russian anti-carrier group strike asset package involved massive wings of supersonic bombers firing dozens to hundreds of such missiles into a single carrier group from a fairly close range and very high altitude and speed.
Re: (Score:1)
I pointed out that you used the word "balistic" wrong.
No idea about the other points.
No idea about Russian tactics. Anti ship missiles like Exocet touch surface as soon as possible and approach the target in a height around 10m ...
Re: (Score:2)
As usual, you're wrong on everything.
Long range cruise missiles fly high to conserve energy most of the flight, and only go low once they get close enough to were they can afford to lose energy flying in much denser atmosphere.
Exocets are short range cruise missiles. They're utterly unsuitable for Iran to attack anything in the Med. They're barely suitable for working in the Gulf from Iran's perspective, as even there, they wouldn't be able to reach many places without exposing the launcher.
Almost all long
Re: (Score:1)
As usually: you are an idiot.
Does not matter what height anythings flys: if it flys, it is not ballistic.
That was the topic
And last post you claimed cruise missiles are not used for attacks in ships. Now you claim they are.
Make up your mind.
An Exocet is not a cruise missile, it is a farking rocket. Get your terms right.
Almost all long range anti-shipping missiles of the kind that Iran could use to attack shipping in the med are ballistic.
That also was not the topic.
I have no idea and did not talk about eith
Re: (Score:2)
I'll add the "doesn't matter what height something flies at, it's all the same in terms of energy" to the list of "no more winters below -20C in nothern europe due to global warming", "germany can control wind" and other angelospherims.
Honestly, I thought you peaked at those two. You proved me wrong.
P.S. Top tier reading comprehension as usual on your part.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if what you said is true, no one is sitting around scouring Strava for locations of aircraft carriers to launch ballistic missiles. If the carrier is moving then the same theory still applies, not a massive risk.
Also it's trivial to locate an aircraft carrier group close to your country. This isn't a small strike force. Your comment applies only for transit to the destination, not to within 100+km of the border, something that will almost certainly be under continuous surveillance already (and is part
Re: (Score:3)
This is a rare post in that most posts that are wrong have some seeds of being correct. In this case, everything is wrong. Literally, every single claim in your post is factually incorrect according to well understood relevant doctrine.
Your first point has been fully debunked in US Afghan war era and reinforced in Ukraine war. This is what crowdsourcing does best.
Your second point is in the "I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about" category. Good luck locating the carrier in the Med while you're in Ir
Re: (Score:2)
Adversaries have been using it for years. [mapulus.com] Sure, the well dried up after it was publicized, but state-level intelligence agencies still pursue it. They have the resources and people get lax.
As for the rest, Luckyo already said it. As a former carrier TAO, s/he's right. Targeting data is ridiculously time sensitive because your circle of error probable [wikipedia.org] falls off spectacularly and is compounded by modern carrier tactics.
Re: (Score:2)
Most armed forces ban the app for good reason.
Re: (Score:2)
-1, uninsightful
a) Whether in a specific instance it turns out okay is irrelevant. Operational security should be a habit, and if you want an exception it should only be permitted after review. If someone disabled the firewall at your company but no breach occurred, you you say that's permissible? of course not.
(Note, this is different that private individuals noting that the vessel was seen, as they are not part of the organization and have no extraordinary obligation to that organization.)
b) The informati
Not so difficult to locate (Score:3)
No it cannot dive to hide itself.
Re: (Score:2)
And what assets does current foe have that are capable of tracking an aircraft carrier on such journey in real time, and what is their current resource subscription situation for those assets?
Re: (Score:3)
Money
Re: (Score:2)
This stupidity reminds me of "here are money, go load it into the artillery pieces" nonsense we went through with Ukraine shell situation.
For those not in the know, lots of bureaucrats across the West had the same idea. We have money, we can get shells. Lots of financing was arranged very quickly. And then the basic economics, which none of them have any clue of in their bureaucratic genius reasserted itself. Turns out you cannot load stacks of cash into guns, much less electronic money.
And you cannot in f
Re: (Score:2)
the people are already there. money is how you get them to give you what you want.
Re: (Score:2)
"People" are not an asset capable of tracking an aircraft carrier.
Existing built out technology that is in correct position plus people is. Same thing as shells in aforementioned scenario.
So first you have to give money to people to research technology (remember, Iran is under heavy embargo regime, tech imports are hard. Even Russians and Chinese keep promising them things that never get delivered, because they also don't want Iran to do what it's currently doing). Then you need to build the capacity to bui
Re: (Score:2)
are US aircraft carriers some sort of alien dreadnaught operated entirely by artificial intelligence?
if so, wow that's amazing.
if not, then there are PEOPLE involved.
FFS, you're in the comment section of a story where a (foreign) soldier accidentally exposed his ship's location with tech available for at most a couple hundred bucks.
if it can be done accidentally, then it's possible deliberately
Re: (Score:2)
You've completely changed the topic from "money = capability" and "people = capability" to "but it's possible to do things deliberately that would create the intelligence track".
Yes. Almost everything is possible. It is possible for you to die while reading this post from a meteor crushing through you.
Warfare isn't fought on "what is possible". It's fought on "what is both possible and exceedingly likely".
Re: (Score:2)
must everything be explained to you in minute detail?
are you not capable of realizing that one of the things that money enables is espionage?
in WW2 the Empire of Japan was able to find people in Hawaii to provide information on & locations of the ships that were targeted on that day that shall live in infamy.
and these were not Japanese-Americans or Hawaiian Pacific Islanders but fine upstanding white Americans armed with the devastating tech of pen, paper & camera.
now if you'll excuse me, i'll step
Re: (Score:2)
You fail to notice the immediate and glaring problem with your argument.
Static targets vs rapidly moving targets.
Notably, you don't need HUMINT for former very much any more. This is one thing where commercial satellite providers will sell you detailed, fairly recent maps of pretty much any location on earth. As long as you're allowed to transact (i.e. not an Iranian in this case, but let's ignore this minor issue).
You've learned nothing from "money does not equal capability" and "people do not equal capabi
Re: (Score:2)
an aircraft carrier isn't much of a "rapidly moving target" and in this case doesn't need to be tracked all the way across the ocean; the enemy only needs to know when it's within effective range.
but figuring out its location can be as simple as having someone ask the right person a simple question
https://www.latimes.com/politi... [latimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Notably, this particular error has been made elsewhere in this thread and solidly and easily debunked. And confirmed by a carrier TOA.
You also demonstrate that you don't understand the difference between carrier tactics and submarine tactics, and think them same or at least similar enough to make this quote be relevant.
I will repeat my question. You continue making these completely wrong claims in subject you clearly have zero understanding of. Why?
Re: (Score:2)
you can assert away all day long; doesn't make me wrong or you right
Re:Not so difficult to locate (Score:5, Insightful)
And what assets does current foe have that are capable of tracking an aircraft carrier on such journey in real time, and what is their current resource subscription situation for those assets?
The main foe at the moment is Russia, and they surely know where the carrier is. If Iran is interested at all, they get the information from their allies in Russia.
Re: (Score:2)
What is the state of Russian ISR subscription?
Hint: if you read Russian milbloggers, extreme oversubsription of ISR assets is one of their main complaints.
And after that, it has to go through the famous Russian bureaucracy before it's dispensed to Iran. By which time carrier group is long gone.
This isn't even arm chair general stuff. This is arm chair private stuff. And people don't know this, and yet want to wax poetical about it.
Re: (Score:2)
If Iran is interested at all, they get the information from their allies in Russia
And Russia gets the information from their ally in the White House.
Re:Not so difficult to locate (Score:5, Funny)
> it cannot dive to hide itself.
It can, but at most once.
Re: (Score:2)
> it cannot dive to hide itself.
It can, but at most once.
Yes, we always used to say that we'd prefer to keep our surface-to-dive ratio equal to one.
Re: (Score:2)
> it cannot dive to hide itself.
It can, but at most once.
Is this navy AmeriCAN or AmeriCAN'T?
Re: (Score:3)
> it cannot dive to hide itself.
It can, but at most once.
Is this navy AmeriCAN or AmeriCAN'T?
"You Ess Ain't, You Ess Ain't" as chanted in Tehran these days?
But I've been beginning to wonder what the letters stand for. No question that U was United when I did my hitch, but that was a long time ago... I don't see any evidence of unity lately. Maybe it's useless, stupid, angry now? And I'm not believing that this latest "excursion" in Iran is the bottom because they always manage to go lower.
No mention of Mueller on Slashdot? Funny, I still think such integrity was a good thing. But RIP.
Re: (Score:2)
No it cannot dive to hide itself.
Well, it can... but only once.
Re:France should just surrender now (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: France should just surrender now (Score:3)
Yes
Re: (Score:1)
Surrender to who? Iran or the US?
Given who has been colonizing France, I would think Iran.
Re: (Score:3)
... before they even enter the war. It'll save time.
I remind you that the USA is so incompetent they actually asked the French for help in this case.
Not just any sailor (Score:5, Insightful)
Because we've heard these tales before, it's not exactly new that fitness apps follow you around.
Re: (Score:2)
I also know the DuckDuckGo browser has a nice option via a local VPN to disable most if not all unnecessary traffic from apps on my phone.
But that leaves the shit people knowingly share...
Re: (Score:2)
Now you'd expect the officer to be dismissed and he may well be since he is a pleb, and I would have expected hegs to be dismissed, but yet here we are a year later where orangey still denies it was even a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone is stupid, you can have a PhD and do stupid things too. That's why these kinds of mistakes will continue to happen time and time again.
Re:Not just any sailor (Score:4, Insightful)
Or President.
Artificial Intelligence vs. natural stupidity (Score:1)
That being said, I guess it is probably not that difficult anyway to track the location of aircraft carriers using "simple' satellites that are above us for so many decades already.
Next question: Will there be an "intelligent" soldier doing the same exercise in a submarine?
Who says the military doesn't learn? (Score:3)
I don't buy it (Score:2)
He had WiFi or 4G on the aircraft carrier? I don't think so.
And if the Strava app uploaded the logged run later when it got connectivity at port or something, by then the ship was long gone.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean star-link is a thing and while it takes a long time to integrate it into a ships communications system, to provide quality of life internet access for the sailors is incredibly simple.
Re: (Score:1)
He most certainly had wifi.
And the carrier has an uplink to France.
Hard to hide (Score:2)
Hard to hide a giant freaking aircraft carrier crossing the ocean. Nothing was revealed that a motivat actor couldn't find out on their own.
This Story Has Issues (Score:2)
The primary issue with this story is that it is well known that countless apps have location tracking, both explicit and superstitious. It is also well known that ships crews have loose lips and frequently leak operational "secrets".
That's why shipboard internet access is restricted at sea. This is most especially true when any form of secrecy or stealth is desired.
Please recall the story form a few years ago where a Starlink had been secretly installed aboard ship and the crew was leaking operational secre
Addendum (Score:2)
Though I doubt the veracity of this particular story, I can certainly imagine that something like this will become a bigger problem in the near future when cellphones utilize satellite internet more heavily. Something that is already underway and developing rapidly.
Inquiring minds wanted to know (Score:2)
a. Has the officer beaten his current record on Strava?
b. Did he uninstall the app?
c. How large is this aircraft carrier? Can we send Dmitri to race against this guy?
But even worse things can happen. It only takes a drone to bring him a new pair of missi- running shoes, from AliBaba.
Re: (Score:2)
My god what a disaster.. (Score:1)
Aircraft carriers are well known for their manoeuvrability and stealthiness. :)
How's he supposed to run? (Score:3)
What do you expect? Should he jog without a GPS like a savage?
If it's not on Strava it didn't happen!
Re: (Score:2)
Seems kind of anti-French... (Score:2)
I realize newspapers don't give a hoot about their own countries and are literally there to just make money but do they really need to report on the whereabouts of military assets at any level? Sure, there is a fairly good chance one of Iran's allies was able to keep track with satellites and share that information but we don't need to hang more lights on the situation.
I realize they are free to do this kind of reporting but I honestly don't see how it serves anyone but the newspaper itself. General
Re: (Score:2)
The proper nomenclature (Score:1)
I gather the proper nomenclature for a one-sided geometric shape drawn by a Frenchman running in circles is 'a Maginot line'.
'Leaks' (Score:2)
We are currently clean on OPSEC (Score:2)
This happens over and over again: Strava 2017-, FitBit 2017-, Pokémon Go 2016-.
Take away all of their personal devices on base or deployed to be legit electronics "sterile" and give them some sort of "secure VPN remote access" to them back home without sensor forwarding.
long run (Score:2)
Time for a long run on a short dock.
Why no whitelisted proxy? (Score:1)