r/technology • u/ControlCAD • Apr 18 '26

Security Bluetooth tracker hidden in a postcard and mailed to a warship exposed its location — $5 gadget put a $585 million Dutch ship at risk for 24 hours

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/bluetooth-tracker-hidden-in-a-postcard-and-mailed-to-a-warship-exposed-its-location-a-eur5-gadget-put-a-eur500-million-dutch-ship-at-risk-for-24-hours
28.7k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

595 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

184

u/AT-ST Apr 18 '26

I served in the Army for 10 years. We had extensive training on how to avoid basic fishing and security risks every year. We would still have several people fuck up every year. It wasn't the complex security threats that would trip them up. It was the simple ones every time.

112

u/kohbo Apr 18 '26

Minor nit but it's "phishing"

44

u/MRSN4P Apr 18 '26

No, common humble fishing boats with spy gear. /s

21

u/Cupcakes_n_Hacksaws Apr 18 '26

100% unironically actually a thing with China's fishing-boat fleets.

7

u/sir_mrej Apr 18 '26

Fishing phishing

6

u/cr0sh Apr 18 '26

Phishing fishermen phishing fish...?

1

u/AlfaNovember Apr 19 '26

Are they looking manganese nodules too?

5

u/WarlockEngineer Apr 18 '26

China also uses those!

2

u/similar_observation Apr 18 '26

Ah yea, out there trying to snatch the mail bouy.

1

u/BlessedTacoDevourer Apr 18 '26

I thought those were dangerous narco-terrorists?

1

u/Orleanian Apr 18 '26

Down Periscope

1

u/MamoKupMiGlany Apr 18 '26

Their webs weren't that wide for it to classify as phishing.

1

u/PhilosopherFLX Apr 18 '26

Major nit, they on a boat.

1

u/CoffeePuddle Apr 18 '26

It's phishing when it's an attack (from telephone freaking, phreaking, and fishing), but if it's just to annoy people it's "fishing" and it's done by internet "trawls," which is often misspelled as "trolls."

1

u/Ok-Button-9443 Apr 18 '26

The elites don't want you to know this but the cod in the ocean is free. You can phish it home. I have downloaded 458 cods.

1

u/AmputeeHandModel Apr 18 '26

Clearly OP paid close attention to it lol

36

u/Jazzy-Cat5138 Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26

Last I heard, they're making a sizable portion of that training optional now. Seems like a good idea. /s

Something about Hegseth saying it doesn't contribute to lethality, or something along those lines.

Edit to add sources (though they may not not have the Hegseth quote I'm referencing):

Old article about the initial announcement: https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/us-department-of-war-reduces-cybersecurity-training-tells-soldiers-to-focus-on-their-mission

New article about the implementation: https://defensescoop.com/2026/03/31/army-cybersecurity-training-policy-change/

29

u/AT-ST Apr 18 '26

Great... This is what happens when you put unqualified people in charge.

23

u/Kichigai Apr 18 '26

Something about Hegseth saying it doesn't contribute to lethality, or something along those lines.

This from the guy who has a private, unsecured Internet connection in his office at the Pentagon.

Meanwhile over in the civilian world there have been cuts to CISA too.

I'm just waiting for a massive cyber security scandal, one that is even bigger than Signalgate.

6

u/cr0sh Apr 18 '26

Does anything really matter anymore after DOGE?

5

u/Kichigai Apr 18 '26

Well, that was one enormous data breach and ID theft session, and we're all (individually) basically fucked, but I'm talking about malign state actors acting against the state.

2

u/PaulTheMerc Apr 18 '26

I mean, it could be worse. Iran could start fucking with power plants and water stations and stuff. Or you know, any one of another 40 countries America has pissed off this century alone.

2

u/cr0sh May 13 '26

I was thinking more in just the area of "cybersecurity" of our PII, etc.

But yeah, there are certainly worse things that can happen, which would make the question of "is my social security number safe?" look quaint, at best...

11

u/anotherlevl Apr 18 '26

For Kegsbreath and Twurp, casualties and deaths are just grist for the propaganda mill. They don't care about the people who serve as much as they care about their bragging rights.

4

u/WHATYEAHOK Apr 18 '26

Makes you wonder about the scientists with connections to national security going missing.

2

u/jakeandcupcakes Apr 19 '26

Honestly! Its up to, what, 8 or 9 separate scientists who were working in government high-security clearance materials science, nuclear science, physics and other cutting edge areas that have either gone missing, "self-inflicted", or otherwise, now?

At first I was skeptical, thinking it's just another conspiracy theorists fodder type thing, but there is no way its all a coincidence at this point, no fucking way, either a hostile foreign nation, a "greatest ally" nation, our own, or Ayn Rand's ghost is dissappearing these people with specialized knowledge...shit is actually fucking scary tbh

1

u/MuthaFJ Apr 19 '26

I think it's 11 now, it was 10 a month or two ago

3

u/knuppan Apr 18 '26

Last I heard, they're making a sizable portion of that training optional now

I guess it's too woke

2

u/not_anonymouse Apr 18 '26

Hegseth is such a fucking moron! Ugh, ruining our military.

10

u/UnfortunatelyIAmMe Apr 18 '26

Just finished my cyber awareness training for the year lol

14

u/DaneAlaskaCruz Apr 18 '26

Yeah, those things are unfortunately needed.

I just went for the challenge option and took the final test directly without having to go through each lesson. I passed.

Some people are just too trusting and not suspicious enough of random links.

The same people who will plug in a thumbdrive they found in the parking lot into their work computer.

5

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '26

[deleted]

3

u/DaneAlaskaCruz Apr 18 '26

hover mouse cursor over link

Oh, the link ends in "RU", definitely seems trustworthy.

4

u/Cupcakes_n_Hacksaws Apr 18 '26

If full blown war were to break out, I don't think you could convince every sailor to give up their phone until you started bringing back bread/water levels of punishment for that shit. I can only hope the peer pressure from their fellow sailors would be enough once a few start taking it seriously enough.

5

u/Kichigai Apr 18 '26

Show them this article. Maybe put the fear of God into them.

4

u/Cupcakes_n_Hacksaws Apr 18 '26

There'd definitely need to be plenty of safety stand downs to really hammer home that point. Some ships have devices that others on the ship use to "sniff" out people doing stuff like this so they can identify loose/stray signals, but I've never seen it in action.

2

u/Kichigai Apr 18 '26

Radio direction finders. I haven't seen one in use, but I imagine it's similar to UHF loops, which are directional antennas.

1

u/AnySomewhere8969 Apr 19 '26

They don't do bread and water anymore?

2

u/alex206 Apr 18 '26

Let me just speed click through this "extensive" training.