Believe it or not, the U.S. Navy does not let sailors use the ship's wifi for scrolling through social media when they're cruising about in undisclosed locations.
Something about operational security, mission bandwidth, and avoiding cyber-attacks at sea.
But the internet's siren call was too much for the senior enlisted leaders of the littoral combat ship USS Manchester, and they dashed themselves against the rocks of a Starlink satellite secretly mounted on top of the ship's weather deck.
The WiFi was named STINKY and was used by the officers to check social media, sports scores, and to watch movies.
Command Senior Chief Grisel Marrero led the online mutiny against the no-internet protocols.
Marrero set up payment plans for the chiefs' mess to pay for the system — either $62.50 a month or a one-time fee of $375 — so the ship's Chief Petty Officer Association treasurer could collect into a chiefs' mess checking account.
Those involved also used the Chief Petty Officer Association's debit card to pay off the $1,000 monthly Starlink bill, and Marrero warned the chiefs to only use the network in their rooms.
According to a Navy court martial, Marrero purposely misled and lied to the ship's command about the existence of the WiFi, even changing the name of the WiFi to resemble the name of a wireless printer when the commanding officers became suspicious.
She also lied to the chiefs using the WiFi that their commanding officer, Cmdr. Colleen Moore, was aware of the satellite dish.
'Any reasonable Chief should have known that with those conditions, CMC Marrero's assertions that the CO was aware and authorized the system were unreasonable,' the investigation stated. 'To think otherwise would mean they believed CDR Moore intentionally authorized a concealed Wi-Fi network only for the CPO Mess, excluding all others from usage.'
Moore, however, was suspicious that there was an illegal internet ring aboard the ship and conducted three unsuccessful investigations trying to find it.
The satellite was not discovered until a civilian from the Naval Information Warfare Center installed an authorized Starshield satellite communication system on the Manchester and found it jerry-rigged to the weather deck.
Marrero was convicted in a court martial.
The deep level of manipulation is only overshadowed by the level of corrupt dealings in which CMC Marrero used to conceal the system. CMC Marrero's assessment that the system was being used for morale is undermined by the selective availability of the Wi-Fi and strict control of its access to the CPO Mess only. Furthermore, her prior training as an IT should have made it clear to her that commercial, off the shelf (COTS) assets would not be authorized onboard the ship without routing an Information Technology Procurement Request (ITPR) for approval at Echelon II. That same experience and training would have led her to recognize that such a formal request would not have been approved due to a lack of emission control and system hardening.
She was demoted to the rank of E-7.
Honestly, I can't believe this is what the Armed Forces have come to.
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