US Navy officers were caught putting a contraband Starlink satellite dish on their ship so they could stream TV and movies:
Today’s Navy sailors are likely familiar with the jarring loss of internet connectivity that can come with a ship’s deployment. For a variety of reasons, including operational security, a crew’s internet access is regularly restricted while underway, to preserve bandwidth for the mission and to keep their ship safe from nefarious online attacks.
But the senior enlisted leaders among the littoral combat ship Manchester’s gold crew knew no such privation last year, when they installed and secretly used their very own Wi-Fi network during a deployment, according to a scathing internal investigation obtained by Navy Times.
As the ship prepared for a West Pacific deployment in April 2023, the enlisted leader onboard conspired with the ship’s chiefs to install the secret, unauthorized network aboard the ship, for use exclusively by them.
So while rank-and-file sailors lived without the level of internet connectivity they enjoyed ashore, the chiefs installed a Starlink satellite internet dish on the top of the ship and used a Wi-Fi network they dubbed “STINKY” to check sports scores, text home and stream movies.
It’s like the idiotic mercenaries in Ukraine who carry their cell phones around with them until Mr. Kaliber or Mr. Iskander comes to visit, only on a grand scale. I think we can definitely say that this officially marks the end of the Pax Americana and the US Navy ruling the oceans. This navy will be lucky if any of its ships survive contact with the enemy. I mean, it’s already lost one battle against the landlocked forces of Yemen.