Fake Ship Positions Could Start A War

Everyone (and their mother) has discovered AIS signals. When there is a major confrontation at sea, or a ship gets stuck in the Suez Canal, it's a race to the data used to track ships. But like any form of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) the signals you get may be misleading. They may even be fake.
In fact tat is happening more and more frequently. Here's how.
Article on Yantar spy ship www.hisutton.com/Yantar.html

[@blackf1ng3r62]

Your " unscripted " reads are infinitely preferable to other peoples' robot voices . Just keep being your real self, and * stop * being so damn self-conscious . Keep up the good work !

[@jamieclarke321]

He’s british, self consciousness is a professional past time of ours

[@GintaPPE1000]

I think it's a very good thing he's self-conscious. It means that he cares about the quality of his content. Properly-researched and -sourced information, and intelligently-made points based on that information rather than national bias, are basically nonexistent in terms of military-related content on KZbin. Other than a select few channels like this one and Sub Brief, everyone just puts out clickbait garbage without a care for factuality.

[@BeKindToBirds]

I doubt its self doubt but rather an explanation. The man gives briefings like this for a living or at least, has.

[@JainZar1]

This is also important for general Naval navigational security, as there are plans to replace buoys with simulated AIS ones. If you spoof the position by a few hundred meters, you could provoke merchant shipping into running aground for example.

[@otm646]

Who has suggested replacing the physical buoys?

[@JainZar1]

@@otm646 I don't know who first came up with it, but the BSH in Germany did a study at least.

[@mytube001]

Not really. AIS is not a distributed network. Ships pick up the signals that are actually around them - they don't get them from the internet! A ship off the Danish coast when the Russian warship was spoofed at that location, would not have seen the ship on its AIS, as the signal wasn't there. Spoofing is really only a problem for map services like Marinetraffic.

[@riskinhos]

"by a few hundred meters" all you need is less than a meter. the deviation will be insanely huge over the course route and ships can't exactly be stop. ships have to constantly correct trajectory due to currents, wind, weight etc etc. a 1cm deviation at start from usa to china will result in reaching antartica. but anyway that won't happen. there's GPS.

[@JainZar1]

If you spoof the GPS and not have a physical buoy present, because the AIS signal is broadcast by a coastal station, it can become a navigational hazard.

[@nukkinfuts6550]

Btw H I Sutton.. for reference.. The green dots inland at 23:30 is actual ship(s) moving on the rivers in Sweden from or towards Gothenburg and Trollhättan.. See the 2 huge lakes in Sweden, Vänern and Vättern, they are connect to the ocean via Göta Älv and some canals.. Ship size is quite limited, in Sweden we refer to it as Vänerntrafiken/Vänerntraffic. There is also Göta Kanal / Göta Channel going inland from Trollhättan, max size for ships in that traffic is 88 meters, i think it is something similar for the "Vänern traffic".. The larger lake Vänern in pparticular is laced with paper mills, sawmills etc hence the traffic, i am actually suprised there are not more ships "inland"..

[@DIREWOLFx75]

"The larger lake Vänern in pparticular is laced with paper mills, sawmills etc hence the traffic, i am actually suprised there are not more ships "inland".." Probably too much interference/too far to reach the specific receiver. "Göta Channel" Göta canal.

[@BeKindToBirds]

Sounds a bit like the north american great lakes and canals in construction

[@deth3021]

Remember hearing a story about commercial shippings dependency on GPS... They wanted to see what would happen so they took a ship out to sea and jammed GPS... And the ships radar stopped working.... Lot of head scratching later and they found out that the radar manufacturer was using GPS as a time source... So when it got blocked... lost the radar. Moral of the story is, I don't think any of us really know just what the impact would be of loosing GPS...

[@EwanMarshall]

@belzebutterfly A lot of the NTP time stuff for syncing computer clocks over networks are GPS recievers on the other side of the server.

[@KnowledgePerformance7]

There was a similar attack where GPS signals were spoofed in an area and many ships that received the data made turns to "correct" their heading

[@DIREWOLFx75]

"don't be too quick to assume something is unusual or special unless you know what normal looks like" THAT, is something that should be the baseline rule for almost literally EVERYTHING. It's amazing how much garbage is reported because someone, sadly often even supposed professionals or "experts" actually don't have a clue.

[@paulberkebile5562]

Another case of possible AIS spoofing occurred on 17 JUN 2017 when the MV ACX Crystal rammed the USS Fitzgerald. A Patreon user (Florida Maquis) studied the track of the ACX Crystal exhaustively and found some puzzling occurrences. For one, the AIS data for the ACX Crystal went from Class A mode (commercial ships) to Class B mode (pleasure craft) for a while, then changed back. Also, immediately after the collision, the ACX Crystal seemed to instantaneously move a significant distance south from it's previous track. The ship then seemed to run away from the collision for some time before it belatedly turned around and went back and offered to lend assistance. There was a 1 hour discrepancy of when the collision occurred, with the Japanese claiming one time and the US Navy claiming the later time.

[@autumnrain7626]

Weird

[@samjohnson9894]

I followed this very closely as well. This guys vid is the first I've seen related to such an event since.

[@trcostan]

One thing that could really help this data would be to introduce multilateration mlat to the system. If the AIS receivers all had highly accurate time sources they could verify the RF time domain of arrival and check that against the ships GPS data in the AIS packet. This could significantly improve the RF data reliability. This is exactly what the FAA does in the US to try and prevent spoofing of ADS-b data. This could be implemented by marine traffic in high traffic areas fairly easy. Satellites could also do the same thing if the position of the satellite is well knows and packets are all time stamped at the satellite with sufficient temporal resolution

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

yes I think that also, if you have access to multiple elements, you could investigate erroneous coordinates etc. Maybe even screen them out, although you would want to be sure. But as end-users we can only speculate

[@Br1cht]

So you think that MI6, NSA or NSA would find it hard to break into that? History shows that they are behind most of False flags, Tonkin, Iraq et cetera.

[@dziban303]

GNSS-disciplined clocks at every receiver aren't even necessary. ADSB MLAT doesn't require GPS at all, and it produces decent enough tracks in most cases.

[@napalmholocaust9093]

All these people watched wargames as a kid. That whole "we better counterstrike now before its too late." at a mirage scenario.

[@JoeTaormina]

Excellent information! I’d like to add another remote attack vector where discovery is performed on social media (linkedIn, etc) of sailors, syscom. Then you can spearfish, inject malware, and work your way to ship systems that way; which can be performed from anywhere.

[@saltyshackles5227]

Nice video and love these videos you cover mate. AIS is so sketchy. I use it for looking ahead over the visual and RADAR horizon. Anything below 15 to 20nm is visual and RADAR however I'm commercial and don't tend to worry about torpedoes and fast attack craft swarming me 😂

[@seno5530]

….yet 😬😅

[@_tyrannus]

*Gulf of Oman intensifies*

[@dhanu_4539]

James Bond plot is what came to my mind immediately ... and then you showed that image

[@warhappens-com4489]

As you said AIS is based on honor system. Most transmitters on ships are simply connected with serial cable to GPS. Anyone can put a computer in between and generate all kinds of false readings. There are places on the internet that you can buy GPS jammers from China. I am sure many countries have ability to not only jam them but also screw with them. China is probably practicing for when it invades Taiwan.

[@lastcraft]

Really informative, thank you.

[@quinncampbell9255]

I really love how you specify how dangerous this will be for Oil/metal trades and such. Causing ww3 because of a hacked GPS signal isn't very likely, but some companies losing billions and possibly thousands of people effected or more from specific targeted hacks. Get tens of billions of profit or complete chaos within and lots of people would do it.

[@darwinortiz6394]

Love your unscripted talk threw out the video. Makes it more interesting. Great job as always.

[@_datapoint]

Hi. I came over from Sub Brief. I get a lot out of your unscripted work and I like it. I don’t think it would be much better if it was scripted. At any rate, fascinating topic. I don’t understand the use of the octopus, though.

[@n3glv]

Sea Monster

[@liammarra4003]

great work as always.

[@xchazz86]

Asymmetric electronic warefare really starting to heat up.

[@jakubstrumillo]

I sail on sea,tracking other vessels by AIS is part of navigation. In bad weather and low visibility its easy to check that different ship is, or not on collision course.

[@jakubstrumillo]

@belzebutterfly yea, i know that issues since USNI News speak anout that accident..Also amount of US/NATO Ships collisions in past years is questionable now... For example Helge Instad Frigate lose...

[@MrSubmariner76]

Best videos. Thank you Sir.

[@sharg0]

That AIS station in the example is rather local to me :-) The name "FRO" indicates that it is run by a volunteer military organisation, "Frivilliga Radioorganisationen" "Swedish Voluntary Radio Organization" - a Swedish volunteer defense organization. As far as I know these are more or less the core of radio amateurs in Sweden. Edit: corrected the abbreviation of FRO and translation.

[@grumpyfinn]

yantar and undersea cables... id bet they got equipment there sitting and ready to cut all transatlantic cables if conflict pops off....

[@sreekrishnanmuralitharan520]

Isn't the yantar just a passive Elint/sigint ship? I mean their attack subs do the undersea cable cutting rig right.

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Yantar carries deep-diving submersibles, ROVs and likely UUVs. More survey than EW. Interesting ship www.hisutton.com/Yantar.html

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

@H I Sutton - Covert Shores >>> Regarding how false data is introduced, particularly regarding the British and Dutch warships that were recorded by webcam as NOT being underway, do those ships continue transmitting data when they are in port?

[@carlsiciliano6434]

Quick question just like AIS and using visual sats to gain OSI can you do the same with waste from ships or submarines. What I mean is tracking ammonia/methane/ inferred being dumped out? I assume this will work best in cold waters contrasted by the "warm" waste if it is possible? Or is it if possible done by composition compared to the sea?

[@farisshaikh1026]

I have never heard of the Chinese surveys off of pakistan's coast.

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

See Damien Symon twitter.com/detresfa_/status/1465930162260819973

[@farisshaikh1026]

@@HISuttonCovertShores Thank you. Shame i didn't find the story on a big American or Foreign news channel.

[@stevenfranszen1032]

Constantly relay the signal to a different ship it could clock\manipulate historical records. No signal decryption required just bounces the exact same signal frequency from the ships in port, fake ship to broadcast.

[@Alex-cw3rz]

Great video

[@kirkjones9639]

Air Snort or man in the middle, would be my first choices. As you can stay anon, fairly easy. Bruting a receiver to send false data, can be iffy, if'n the sysadmin is on his toes.

[@tomtom4405]

There are so many reasons localised GPS interference near a residence could occur, but one obvious one is security and protection of a visiting VIP. The Dacha example could be more to do with close protection than maritime, but of course it'd be ships etc that would notice. As you will likely already appreciate the manipulation of OSINT/GEOINT in its many types is a far broader subject than maritime. Interesting to stumble on a KZbin video on the subject!

[@petersellers9219]

I watched your fascinating video right through.... but no mention of the giant squid! 😩

[@moosesnWoop]

at this point, Marine Traffic is more entertainment than OSINT

[@boonedockjourneyman7979]

Thank you.

[@Br1cht]

@ 20:30 Why would the Chinese spoof GPS in their own port? You´re usually very on point but here you wander into pure 1984 doublespeak, if the truth is malleable then why even pretend to be "worried" about this? I´m Swedish(grew up in Karlskrona, the Naval base)and the "Russian" subs were often German or British and the make-belief made our officers disgusted.

[@TerryLawrence001]

I love the unscripted nature of your videos! i think it's quite possible that the ship did the spoofing as an exercise to see the response generated. All the time they knew it would be easily proven that the ships did not move. Spoofing is possible, but even cheap off the shelf GPS modules have error detection that will detect the spoofing. AIS transmtion can be simulated and a ship can be spoofed but the results would have two locations of the same ship. I understand that Marine Traffic can actively remove uncertain pings.

[@Name-ot3xw]

Gonna put a missile sub's AIS on a narco sub and drive it up into the Mediterranean.

[@1KosovoJeSrbija1]

4:54 politically sensitive fishing*

[@kruelunusual6242]

Holy cow……detailed…

[@mccoybyz1099]

Didn't people initially allege that the Fitzgerald and McCain collisions might have had AIS or GPS spoofing going on at the time of the collisions? Could something like this be capable of causing collisions like that?

[@idwalwilliams3713]

Now why does that not surprise me!

[@RsDefcon]

What about using WSPR to track vessels?

[@theblueescapologbb227]

If you want a Blue Yeti Microphone I have one here, I couldn't find a PO Box or postal address for you though. Let me know if you're interested and I will send it along to you, definitely on me as I want to be able to hear more of this amazing content!

[@009fly]

Im definitely interested 😅

[@ViceCoin]

GPS can also be spoofed.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

At 05:29 in this video: IMHO, *SWATH* vessels -- and multihulled vessels in general -- are _COOL...👍👍_

[@Syndr1]

P.s. thank you for the different way of looking at the mundane.

[@WildBillCox13]

Shared.

[@mhamma6560]

Need to develop AIS receivers (ground based) that use GPS timing to accurately triangulate a ship (using 2 or more of the receivers - only 2 are needed for ships as they're ground based). GPS clocks are highly accurate, and they can operate for about 24hrs before their clocks drift after loss of GPS timing. They can throw up a flag when they detect spoofing because as a ground receiver, they're not moving. Lots of hobbyists host these devices at their own expense. I host ADS-B for instance. One of the features that my device uses is that it can use the GPS data along with delays for older transponders to roughly triangulate an aircraft's position. It'd be even easier to do for ships give their speed and the fact they're on the surface.

[@PrezVeto]

You'd need three, one more than the number of dimensions.

[@mhamma6560]

@@PrezVeto Just 2. 2 gives 2 possible points, in the water, or on the land. The only issue arises is if one of the 2 points are a distant island. We're also talking about ships. The distance between pings is really tiny.

[@sandybottom6623]

The AIS will be a separate unit. I would doubt that you could get in on it via WiFi.

[@sreekrishnanmuralitharan520]

To what extent can optical satellites track the non AIS activated ships ?

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Yes, that is a technique especially in Dark Ships which turn off AIS. Radar satellites too. But they are not omnipresent, and often have issues with cloud etc. Plus most optical satellites don't image open ocean. So it is hardly a magic bullet

[@carlsiciliano6434]

@@HISuttonCovertShores What about inferred? Or tracking ammonia/methane trails from waste from large ships or submarines is that possible? I assume dumping that into the ocean will be able to be tracked as it is an odd compound to see in an ocean.

[@Nelsonwmj]

@@carlsiciliano6434 The problem is that it isn't just military vessels that discharge such stuff into the ocean. So you still have to distinguish between a cargo vessel and a military vessel in such imagery. As for infrared tracking, ships don't naturally run very hot to begin with when just cruising, certainly not on a level you find in say fighter jets with full on jet engines (sometimes with afterburners) going at hundreds of kilometres an hour which not only means high engine heat but also high surface heat for the entire thing being tracked. That's how IR is useful in tracking air targets, but markedly less so for naval ones.

[@ajobdunwell2585]

Satellites are very expensive, and moving very fast. It's possible that the some of the geostationary weather tracking satellites that have gone up recently could be used .. I think they snap a couple pictures an hour which would make tracking easier.

[@smasher123ism]

I learnt about this a few hours ago, then suddenly I get suggested this video?! Brilliant!

[@mostlymessingabout]

One would have thought land ships is a WW1 thing 😁

[@carlsiciliano6434]

Do you think it would be viable/useful to have a "civilian" cargo ship modified to resupply submarines while underway underwater? Would that be even possible?

[@captiannemo1587]

Not really, trying to fit a moon pool long and wide enough to safely stuff even a sail in... which would be a pain... not to mention ship-boat interaction... Its possible but not something you would want to do and somebody would notice that X ship keeps meeting up with submarines at some point...

[@009fly]

@@captiannemo1587 how would one know what they are doing below the water?

[@captiannemo1587]

@@009fly by following the noise in the oceans.

[@Kelkschiz]

8:58 You pronounce Evertsen as Everstan, A-vert-zun would have come a lot closer to its Dutch pronunciation. But I fully realize that your specialty is not the pronunciation of foreign names ;)

[@andreimoutchkine5163]

So, the British frigate wasn't sailing at all? This can't be,

[@geist453]

hi is it true that you design all of your submarines on PAINT?

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/hpWunIWVocd_hJI

[@rosariadileone5272]

Good information. But, it's not happy news.

[@jman2903]

SHALL WE PLAY A GAME.......?

[@WickedMuis]

"How about Thermonuclear War?"

[@jman2903]

@@WickedMuis "How about a nice game of chess?"🤣

[@Syndr1]

Hi H.i., well I don't want the C.i.a. directing my Air Traffic Control. So I wouldn't want the A.i.s to be abused similarly.

[@dominiquegobeil5831]

Do the Russian monitor naval AIS, let's spoof data about an attack. Readiness check.

[@diggLincoln]

Hot air balloos that can stay aloft for months. Antarctica is deployment location.

[@seno5530]

I understand that video title was „Americanized“ for YTs algorithms and audience. Anyhow, thanks for the very informative take!

[@georgemacdonell2341]

Sloppy nav

[@RubenKelevra]

15:12 I think the coolest attack would be to spoof the GPS receiver of the ship in "thinking" that it's sailing to Sevastopol. Just imagine the face of the sailers in the morning looking on their map and can't make any sense of the coastline shown :D

[@jeebus6263]

Hey there's a Biden button next to the like button 🤣

[@ladderssnakes1755]

CIA

[@bluntman305]

um u know nothing of hackers do u 🤔 hacking is apart of open/proxy war

[@009fly]

Tell me more

[@secret5070]

Why are warships using this? At a time of high tensions isn’t it putting the ships at risk?

[@mekaerwin7187]

Maybe you have other risks in mind, but, as far as major players, they are already likely to know the information the could be gained from AIS from their own intelligence efforts. It protects the ships using it and watching it and can be turned off when the need arises.

[@MrViki60]

Good. War, the World's Only Hygiene.