A group of Navy sailors secretly used Starlink to check sports scores, social media and watch movies. They hid it from rank-and-file.

A U.S. Navy chief who wanted the internet so she and other enlisted officers could scroll social media, check sports scores and watch movies while deployed had an unauthorized Starlink satellite dish installed on a warship and lied to her commanding officer to keep it secret, according to investigators.

Internet access is restricted while a ship is underway to maintain bandwidth for military operations and to protect against cybersecurity threats.

The Navy quietly relieved Grisel Marrero, a command senior chief of the littoral combat ship USS Manchester, in August or September 2023, and released information on parts of the investigation this week.

  • @[email protected]English
    3•2 months ago

    I’m wondering how wifi worked at all. Aren’t navy ships like pure steel? How did the wifi signal get through all that?

    • @[email protected]English
      5•2 months ago

      No.

      These are aluminum.

      Similarly the antenna was mounted on the tower above decks like the rest of the communication equipment.

      There will be more than a firing, chiefs arent often walking the ropes near the antennas so there has to be accomplices and they’re almost certainly going to be charged with a national security violation since starlink has two way com and thusly Elon likely knew it’s location at all times.

      The trimaran aluminum hull will allow flight operations up to sea state 5.[11]

      Ed: to be clear they ended up being some of the worst ships America had ever produced.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•2 months ago

      In the navytimes article, they said some of the Cheif’s Mess installed a bunch of wired ‘repeaters’ all over the ship (probably wireless access points and not repeaters though).