Happy 238th Birthday

I believe completely in studying and learning from history.  Yet we have what most consider a "young" community.  Fortunately, lessons in leadership, mentoring, and following ... lessons in valor, fortitude, and resilience ... lessons in honor, courage, and commitment ... and yes, lessons in organization, intelligence, and technology are found all over our Navy's 238 year history.

Following the lead of speakers at our local Navy Day Ball, would like to share quotes, chosen purposefully, from some of our greatest leaders of the past.  But looking forward, for our Information Dominance Corps, what "seas" are ours to control and what "ships" do we sail, protecting our people and our nation as we have done for 238 years?

To the United States Navy!  Happy birthday, Shipmates!

IA Must be Easy

In the early 2000's, illegal acquisition of music was rampant.  These things called MP3's were shared between computers through physical connections like CD's as well as the virtual, like torrents on the Internet.  You know who solved the problem, though?

Apple.

And you know how they solved it?

Back To The Sextant?

How much do you trust your electronics?

An interesting article with video over The Old Salt Blog titled, "How Secure is Shipboard GPS? Not Very – GPS Spoofing Takes Control of $80MM Yacht", shows how GPS satellites can be overpowered and an attacker can commandeer the GPS navigation system aboard a ship (although far more vehicles than a ship are possible I imagine).

Personally, I always wonder if folks on the highway are listening in on my fine selection of tunes when I am running my iPhone through an FM modulator...

Wi-Vi: Exploiting Known Technology

This is really neat.  Apparently in our information age, WiFi can transmit information in more ways than you might realize.  While 1's and 0's might transmit on the waves, have you ever thought about the propagation properties and the information that can be gleaned and derived from it?

A fairly extensive article over on CIMSEC offers the following description on Wi-Vi:

History: Huff-Duff

While making my way through Ladislas Farago's "The Tenth Fleet", I have been truly fascinated by the ingenuity of great minds in the 1940's as well as the valor exhibited by the commercial vessels that transited the Atlantic.

One technical topic that has pages, rightfully from its importance, dedicated to it, is a product of the former mentioned above: Huff-duff, or HF-DF, or High Frequency Direction Finding.  This technology was brought to relevancy through precision by the Allies after the U-Boat Command dismissed inaccuracies at the beginning of the war as "no cause for anxiety"¹, leading to terrible COMSEC procedures which ultimately led to defeat.

Navy Cyber: The 5th Operational Domain

Apparently this "Cyberspace" thing is pretty cool, yeah?  It is the buzz all over the news feeds as well with the talking heads on TV.  Denial of Service this, SCADA that¹, First Amendment rights, Fourth Amendment rights², Internet kill switches³ (a little dated), etc...

Well not only is this a very dynamic topic in the news, it is also an extremely dynamic domain in which to operate.  Our Navy recognizes this and has Tenth Fleet tasked to support.