Scandal in the US Navy

Conspiracy at sea about a WLAN called “Stinky”

Scene of a "criminal conspiracy": the USS Manchester

(Bild: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Christopher Thomas)

Bringing the internet to the remotest corners of the earth via satellite - the Starlink service from Elon Musk's space company SpaceX makes it possible, even on the high seas. A fact that officers of the US Navy wanted to take advantage of. Krone+ about a curious conspiracy surrounding a WLAN called "Stinky".

Life at sea is full of hardship. Whereas in days gone by, sailors were probably mainly concerned about food and their health, today it is often the loss of the internet and the associated lack of contact with family and friends that gets to them. This is especially true for members of the navy, on whose ships access to the internet is usually more restrictive than elsewhere in order to maintain bandwidth for military operations and to protect the ship and crew from enemy cyber attacks.

However, several high-ranking NCOs on the USS Manchester, a US Navy littoral combat ship, did not want to give up their "connection" to the outside world. In order to be able to send text messages home, stream movies or check sports scores during a deployment in the Western Pacific, they conspired under the leadership of Senior Chief Petty Officer Grisel Marrero to secretly install a Starlink antenna on the ship's outer deck, to which only they would have access to the WLAN network. His name: "Stinky".