4 ms·

I think the title buries the lede... FTA, the cranes have sensors that can track the origin and destination of a container. The US military, which reasonably wo

by bunnie 3y ago

I think the title buries the lede... FTA, the cranes have sensors that can track the origin and destination of a container. The US military, which reasonably would want to unload cargo at any port in the USA, does not want their logistics to be trackable by anyone but them. It would seem that currently if they wanted to send or receive a shipment of secret goods, their options are increasingly limited as to where it can be routed.

remarkEon 3y ago
Yes, that is the actual issue. Here's the relevant part of the story. >The U.S. military has been concerned about the cranes for years and has made efforts to skirt ports with the China-made cranes as best as possible, according to the senior U.S. military commander who oversees the military’s logistics operations. >The Chinese can track the origin, destination and other data of the U.S. military’s containerized materiel to determine exactly where the military is shipping it, Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, the commander of U.S. Transportation Command, told the Journal last year.
- mattlutze 3y ago
  Why do we not just remove the RFID radios and cameras from the cranes, or just not allow them to call home? This is a problem that doesn't require billions in investment to solve, but rather a wire cutter.
  - rfoo 3y ago
    > just remove the RFID radios and cameras from the cranes Because they require these to work. > or just not allow them to call home? I can't say for sure, but I believe they already don't call home: this is also why building a solution to block them from "what if they started to call home" doesn't work.
    - lnxg33k1 3y ago
      > Because they require these to work. What if its wrapped in aluminium?:0
      - wakawaka28 3y ago
        Just guessing that the software forces you to put in tracking information for every item. If it can't read it, you'll have to input the stuff manually. I bet they make that interface painful too.
    - mattlutze 3y ago
      If they don't call home, then the foreign interests wouldn't be getting the data, I think? If the concern is access to inferred logistics and crane telemetrics, then the solution would still seem to be removing access to the data or retrofitting new controls systems to the cranes, and not replacing the entire crane.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    Or just design a container whose RFID identity changes between being loaded onto the ship and being unloaded at the next port, making tracking impossible. Could be as simple as telling the captain of the ship to swap the RFID modules between two containers during the voyage.
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      Like any system that is "monitored", it also presents the opportunity to feed disinformation to an adversary; what's labelled as submarine technology heading for one place is really anti-drone weaponry heading to a different front thousands of miles away.
      - wakawaka28 3y ago
        The volume and timing of containers is also important and leaks a lot of information. The weights probably have to be accurate too. Then, besides this, the whole thing is a bad idea. The Chinese will destroy these cranes in the event of a war with the US.
        nonrandomstring 3y ago
        > destroy these cranes in the event of a war Indeed you are right. And I was once laughed out of security meeting for suggesting that allowing certain nations to build the control systems for one of our nuclear power plants might have issues. TBH, I think the laughter was very, very nervous and I distinctly heard the sound of a penny dropping. [0] https://www.punchline-gloucester.com/articles/aanews/edf-hinkley-nuclear-plant-chinese-role-in-spotlight https://www.punchline-gloucester.com/articles/aanews/edf-hin...
    - mattashii 3y ago
      Even if you swap RFID identities during transit, the location of each container on the ship doesn't change much during any voyage, so this wouldn't materially change things: the tracker just has to update the ID references with the locations of the containers in the unloading port.
  - NoPedantsThanks 3y ago
    [dead]
- Animats 3y ago
  > >The Chinese can track the origin, destination and other data of the U.S. military’s containerized materiel Everybody can do that. Here are sites for tracking a container.[1][2] Many people need to know where containers are. Ship operators, ports, railroads, truckers, customs officials in multiple countries, customs brokers... It's not usually a big secret. The military may operate outside the commercial system at times, but probably with their own vessels. [1] https://www.track-trace.com/container https://www.track-trace.com/container [2] https://www.searates.com/container/tracking/ https://www.searates.com/container/tracking/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
graemep 3y ago
A reasonable concern. It has often struck me that intelligence could also be gathered using civilian infrastructure. There are a lot of cameras out there, things like cars are tracked. Overall traffic movements, particular images showing something like a military vehicle, and an individuals private vehicle's movements can all yield a lot of information if a lot is available.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  HikVision [0] comes to mind. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63749696 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63749696
  - graemep 3y ago
    Exactly who I was thinking of. That ban on installing their equipment on government property is a good idea, but they are all over the place, often on entrances to large buildings so lots of views of streets.
  - Animats 3y ago
    Oh, HikVision, the happy, cheerful Big Brother. For schools: [1] For roads: [2] Their own wuxia.[3] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scoM0sL-HGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scoM0sL-HGg [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4s83ECKblo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4s83ECKblo [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otAuH6FDhgw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otAuH6FDhgw
- paganel 3y ago
  Which is why the forced digitalisation of everything, accompanied in almost all cases by centralisation, poses very big strategic risks that almost no-one in a position of power is willing to openly talk about. In the Eastern-European capital where I'm living (EU and especially NATO member bordering Ukraine) the local mayor's office has implemented a parking verification system which involves a few Town Hall cars driving around with "AI"-cameras attached and filming almost everything on sight, automatically identifying number-plates. I'm pretty sure that that system and the data stored there is a lot less secure compared with what some special security service would have put in place, and, yet, the data stored in there (basically the real-time locations and identification of almost all the cars in the downtown-ish area of this NATO capital) is just as important as anything held by said security services and labeled as "state secrets".
mprovost 3y ago
If only there was a branch of the US military with lots of ships, and bases around the world.
- lupire 3y ago
  Different ships and bases.
NoPedantsThanks 3y ago
[dead]
roenxi 3y ago
If we're talking about burying ledes, it seems the real story here is that the US doesn't appear to know how to make cheap, high quality container cranes. That seems vaguely like it should be a security concern in itself; if the US isn't cost-competitive enough to build cranes for US ports, what exactly is going to happen in a war? If the US is seriously worried about fighting China then they're at a real disadvantage because China has all this heavy industry they can repurpose to a war effort. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZPMC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZPMC says the same Chinese group are going to be building a new Bay Bridge in San Francisco. And they (ZPMC) don't even have bridge building experience! I'm going with a US v. USSR style defeated-before-the-fight-starts scenario here favouring China.
- amluto 3y ago
  > US doesn't appear to know how to make cheap, high quality container cranes The US doesn’t know how to make cheap, high quality hardware as far as I can tell. Basically every time I’ve recently looked for a piece of somewhat specialized hardware, especially if it’s at least a bit electronic, it’s from China or Taiwan. The cheap sketchy hardware comes from China. The slightly more expensive apparently nice stuff comes from China or Taiwan (but is oddly hard to buy — apparently these companies have not mastered distribution?). The really nice expensive stuff has substantially less informative spec sheets, comes from US-based companies, and is actually a nice package wrapped around almost-stock gear from China or Taiwan. Even brand new innovative things “from the US” outsource to ODMs in China or Taiwan. For some reason the US doesn’t seem to have nice contract manufactures or ODM shops and also seems to lack the expertise needed to cost-effectively design or manufacture power electronics.
- Too 3y ago
  Since when did not being cost-competitive become a concern for the US military?
  - roenxi 3y ago
    At the highest of levels, if two parties are at war the one with the most resources wins. That is obviously a gross oversimplification as millennia of tactics demonstrate, but for the sake of argument just hold the thought for a moment. If the US supply chain isn't cost effective, then it'll have to commit multiple times the resources of the adversary to win. If the US supply chain becomes inefficient enough, at some point the US becomes unable to win. The US doesn't have multiple times the resources of China when it comes to overall manufacturing, so under that oversimplified model the US just loses any direct war - and apparently their military budgets are similarly sized right now [0], so if China is much more efficient at manufacturing (more than about 2x) they might have an edge even at present spending without being on war footing. Ok, so now we snap back to reality where there are other factors than just manufacturing efficiency and the US military is presumably in better shape than China's. But you can hopefully see now how without overwhelming manufacturing the US needs to maintain big strategic, organisational and technological advantages over the Chinese military to compete with them. They can't outresource someone with similar resources (for which we have GDP and manufacturing output as proxies) and much more efficient processes. [0] https://chinapower.csis.org/military-spending/ https://chinapower.csis.org/military-spending/

by bunnie 3y ago

remarkEon 3y ago

Yes, that is the actual issue. Here's the relevant part of the story. >The U.S. military has been concerned about the cranes for years and has made efforts to skirt ports with the China-made cranes as best as possible, according to the senior U.S. military commander who oversees the military’s logistics operations. >The Chinese can track the origin, destination and other data of the U.S. military’s containerized materiel to determine exactly where the military is shipping it, Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, the commander of U.S. Transportation Command, told the Journal last year.

mattlutze 3y ago
Why do we not just remove the RFID radios and cameras from the cranes, or just not allow them to call home? This is a problem that doesn't require billions in investment to solve, but rather a wire cutter.
- rfoo 3y ago
  > just remove the RFID radios and cameras from the cranes Because they require these to work. > or just not allow them to call home? I can't say for sure, but I believe they already don't call home: this is also why building a solution to block them from "what if they started to call home" doesn't work.
  - lnxg33k1 3y ago
    > Because they require these to work. What if its wrapped in aluminium?:0
    - wakawaka28 3y ago
      Just guessing that the software forces you to put in tracking information for every item. If it can't read it, you'll have to input the stuff manually. I bet they make that interface painful too.
  - mattlutze 3y ago
    If they don't call home, then the foreign interests wouldn't be getting the data, I think? If the concern is access to inferred logistics and crane telemetrics, then the solution would still seem to be removing access to the data or retrofitting new controls systems to the cranes, and not replacing the entire crane.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  Or just design a container whose RFID identity changes between being loaded onto the ship and being unloaded at the next port, making tracking impossible. Could be as simple as telling the captain of the ship to swap the RFID modules between two containers during the voyage.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    Like any system that is "monitored", it also presents the opportunity to feed disinformation to an adversary; what's labelled as submarine technology heading for one place is really anti-drone weaponry heading to a different front thousands of miles away.
    - wakawaka28 3y ago
      The volume and timing of containers is also important and leaks a lot of information. The weights probably have to be accurate too. Then, besides this, the whole thing is a bad idea. The Chinese will destroy these cranes in the event of a war with the US.
      - nonrandomstring 3y ago
        > destroy these cranes in the event of a war Indeed you are right. And I was once laughed out of security meeting for suggesting that allowing certain nations to build the control systems for one of our nuclear power plants might have issues. TBH, I think the laughter was very, very nervous and I distinctly heard the sound of a penny dropping. [0] https://www.punchline-gloucester.com/articles/aanews/edf-hinkley-nuclear-plant-chinese-role-in-spotlight https://www.punchline-gloucester.com/articles/aanews/edf-hin...
  - mattashii 3y ago
    Even if you swap RFID identities during transit, the location of each container on the ship doesn't change much during any voyage, so this wouldn't materially change things: the tracker just has to update the ID references with the locations of the containers in the unloading port.
- NoPedantsThanks 3y ago
  [dead]
Animats 3y ago
> >The Chinese can track the origin, destination and other data of the U.S. military’s containerized materiel Everybody can do that. Here are sites for tracking a container.[1][2] Many people need to know where containers are. Ship operators, ports, railroads, truckers, customs officials in multiple countries, customs brokers... It's not usually a big secret. The military may operate outside the commercial system at times, but probably with their own vessels. [1] https://www.track-trace.com/container https://www.track-trace.com/container [2] https://www.searates.com/container/tracking/ https://www.searates.com/container/tracking/

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

graemep 3y ago

A reasonable concern. It has often struck me that intelligence could also be gathered using civilian infrastructure. There are a lot of cameras out there, things like cars are tracked. Overall traffic movements, particular images showing something like a military vehicle, and an individuals private vehicle's movements can all yield a lot of information if a lot is available.

nonrandomstring 3y ago
HikVision [0] comes to mind. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63749696 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63749696
- graemep 3y ago
  Exactly who I was thinking of. That ban on installing their equipment on government property is a good idea, but they are all over the place, often on entrances to large buildings so lots of views of streets.
- Animats 3y ago
  Oh, HikVision, the happy, cheerful Big Brother. For schools: [1] For roads: [2] Their own wuxia.[3] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scoM0sL-HGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scoM0sL-HGg [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4s83ECKblo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4s83ECKblo [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otAuH6FDhgw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otAuH6FDhgw
paganel 3y ago
Which is why the forced digitalisation of everything, accompanied in almost all cases by centralisation, poses very big strategic risks that almost no-one in a position of power is willing to openly talk about. In the Eastern-European capital where I'm living (EU and especially NATO member bordering Ukraine) the local mayor's office has implemented a parking verification system which involves a few Town Hall cars driving around with "AI"-cameras attached and filming almost everything on sight, automatically identifying number-plates. I'm pretty sure that that system and the data stored there is a lot less secure compared with what some special security service would have put in place, and, yet, the data stored in there (basically the real-time locations and identification of almost all the cars in the downtown-ish area of this NATO capital) is just as important as anything held by said security services and labeled as "state secrets".

mprovost 3y ago

If only there was a branch of the US military with lots of ships, and bases around the world.

lupire 3y ago
Different ships and bases.

NoPedantsThanks 3y ago

[dead]

roenxi 3y ago

If we're talking about burying ledes, it seems the real story here is that the US doesn't appear to know how to make cheap, high quality container cranes. That seems vaguely like it should be a security concern in itself; if the US isn't cost-competitive enough to build cranes for US ports, what exactly is going to happen in a war? If the US is seriously worried about fighting China then they're at a real disadvantage because China has all this heavy industry they can repurpose to a war effort. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZPMC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZPMC says the same Chinese group are going to be building a new Bay Bridge in San Francisco. And they (ZPMC) don't even have bridge building experience! I'm going with a US v. USSR style defeated-before-the-fight-starts scenario here favouring China.

amluto 3y ago
> US doesn't appear to know how to make cheap, high quality container cranes The US doesn’t know how to make cheap, high quality hardware as far as I can tell. Basically every time I’ve recently looked for a piece of somewhat specialized hardware, especially if it’s at least a bit electronic, it’s from China or Taiwan. The cheap sketchy hardware comes from China. The slightly more expensive apparently nice stuff comes from China or Taiwan (but is oddly hard to buy — apparently these companies have not mastered distribution?). The really nice expensive stuff has substantially less informative spec sheets, comes from US-based companies, and is actually a nice package wrapped around almost-stock gear from China or Taiwan. Even brand new innovative things “from the US” outsource to ODMs in China or Taiwan. For some reason the US doesn’t seem to have nice contract manufactures or ODM shops and also seems to lack the expertise needed to cost-effectively design or manufacture power electronics.
Too 3y ago
Since when did not being cost-competitive become a concern for the US military?
- roenxi 3y ago
  At the highest of levels, if two parties are at war the one with the most resources wins. That is obviously a gross oversimplification as millennia of tactics demonstrate, but for the sake of argument just hold the thought for a moment. If the US supply chain isn't cost effective, then it'll have to commit multiple times the resources of the adversary to win. If the US supply chain becomes inefficient enough, at some point the US becomes unable to win. The US doesn't have multiple times the resources of China when it comes to overall manufacturing, so under that oversimplified model the US just loses any direct war - and apparently their military budgets are similarly sized right now [0], so if China is much more efficient at manufacturing (more than about 2x) they might have an edge even at present spending without being on war footing. Ok, so now we snap back to reality where there are other factors than just manufacturing efficiency and the US military is presumably in better shape than China's. But you can hopefully see now how without overwhelming manufacturing the US needs to maintain big strategic, organisational and technological advantages over the Chinese military to compete with them. They can't outresource someone with similar resources (for which we have GDP and manufacturing output as proxies) and much more efficient processes. [0] https://chinapower.csis.org/military-spending/ https://chinapower.csis.org/military-spending/