Radar can detect ships that don't cooperate with it, but not identify them. Ships are supposed to actively cooperate with a system called AIS (which is like av

Radar can detect ships that don't cooperate with it, but not identify them. Ships are supposed to actively cooperate with a system called AIS (which is like aviation's ADS-B). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_syste... If they use AIS as required, they will be identified by receivers that they pass nearby.