Underwater E-Mail for Submarines

/ writes "The Massachusetts-based company Benthos has developed a way for submarines to send e-mail underwater at distances of up to 3 miles (to a relay buouy) at 2,400 bps, using sound waves. Military and commercial applications abound."

Comments

There are so many places to take this story

[shadowspar]

THE PENTAGON. (AP) A group of terrorist sea mammals claims to have possession of the authorization codes that grant access to the US Navy's nuclear arsenal.
A spokesanimal, known only as 'fLiPpOR', claims that the group will obliterate human civilization as we know it unless all water-polluting industry is immediately halted.
They also demand that all natures of fishing by humans cease immediately; and further that 12 tonnes of herring be dumped into the ocean off the coast of Spain.

Problems first became apparent when the ship's monitors of the USS Portent nuclear-class submarine began to flash the message "wE bR0kE uR lAmE @$$ 'K0DEZ' - tHe d0lphInS 0wN j00!!!!#$$!!@@!" Department of Defense officials refused to comment on speculations that marginally intelligent marine animals were able to defeat their cryptography measures.

"We are tired of being pushed aside as mere 'animals'" commented an unaffiliated dolphin on conditions of anonymity. "The frustration of being labelled a 'second-rate life form' gets to all of us, and someone finally snapped."

Proof of concept

[Tackhead]

As others have said - for military use, this is probably a Bad Idea.

OTOH, given that present military communication tech for subs is much slower than 2400bps, it may have some value in the event that a sub commander deems it necessary to risk detection versus in order to have high-speed communications for a few hours. Although communication via this method is detectable, it's probably much less detectable than surfacing and using radio, for instance.

Because the relay is in the form of a buoy, I envision an aircraft dropping a disposable relay buoy in the general vicinity of the sub (along with a bunch of decoys not in the general vicinity of the sub ;-) and the buoys self-destructing a few hours later after the message has been transmitted or received.

The most likely applications, however, are likely to be civilian. There are plenty of underwater activities involving submersibles - both human-piloted and remotely-piloted - that could benefit from this. That the test was carried out on a military vessel is more of a "marketing" thing - if there are potential military applications, who better to have test it? The commercial application may be where the profits are made, but the military can serve a valuable role on the R&D side while the bugs get worked out.

It's the Dolphin

[Nidhogg]

1. While cruising at a depth of 400 feet, the USS Dolphin was able to send e-mails up to a distance of three miles to a relayer buoy, which transferred them to land

The Dolphin (SS-555) is the Navy's non-combatant deisel-powered research submarine. That boat is older than most of us and security about it's position is not a major concern.

Having served in the submarine Navy I seriously doubt this will be an option aboard the combatant vessels. Sub captains don't need any more excuses to have litters of kittens underway.

But then again... even having served as long as I did... I was constantly surprised by the military's stupidity. :)

That's great

[mwalker]

now our lonely sailors can get UUencoded porn spam from newsgroups, even four miles underwater!

That should really help with their seamen problem?

Detection?

[aphrael]

Wouldn't sending email from a submarine allow someone to detect its location? If the whole point is that the subs are supposed to be hidden ...

(Actually, there must be a way to solve this --- as otherwise radio contact from the sub to a base would have the same problem. I'm not schooled in military technique, tho; anyone know what the solution is?)

Re:Detection?

[BCW2]

It sounds like a version of the Gertrude, a low powered sonar that is used as an underwater telephone at ranges less than 2 miles. That is way too much noise. Submarines do the best imitation of a hole in the ocean, anything that compromises this is very bad. Radio is encoded and translated to morse then recorded on a very high speed tape and transmitted at speed. All anyone hears is a chirp not much longer than a finger snap, and thats for 10 or so lines of text, a long message. Former MM2(SS) SSN 679

Re:Great news for marine mammals (NOT!)

[Pfhreakaz0id]

Quick! register www.XXXdolphins.com, www.dolphinPorno.com and www.DolphinMP3.com
---

I wouldn't worry 'bout THAT one...

[SvnLyrBrto]

My dad's a retired chief who did his twenty in the sonar shack; all the way from GUPPY boats to 688s before he retired (ie. forget about bringing a girl into the house, cause he *WILL* hear you... and be able to give a frequency count too).

Proposals like this thing, AND the acoustic email thing in the main topic would make him laugh his ass of... about two seconds before he reached out and twisted your head off for sugessting such a damn stupid idea.

Simple fact is: sound BAD... quiet GOOD.

These survallance ships would be sitting ducks just screaming to ivan : PLEASE KILL ME PLEASE KILL ME.

Active sonar announces your position to a passive listener LONG BEFORE you get enough of a return to track your target. On subs, the ONLY time they're used is to perfect your solution right before you fire on your target... and usually it's not even necessary even then, passive sonar is so good it's SCARY.

Ditto w/ skimmers. The only time skimmers use active sonar is when the whole world knows where you are already, such guarding a CVBG from subs. And even then, a CVBG can go silent and "dissappear" for a distrubingly long time.

I dont think you need to worry about this thing bothering the whales.

john

Marine Noise Pollution

[TheShrike]

Quoting from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society:

The impact of noise on cetaceans has been little studied. However, from the evidence that is available there are reasons to be concerned that their normal behaviour may be interrupted or otherwise adversely affected. They may also be displaced from areas that are of importance to them. Impacts may occur over tens and sometimes even hundreds of kilometres. The difficulty involved in detecting impacts does not mean that they are not occurring or that they are not of significance.

Just something to think about.

Security, or the /. effect?

[eric2hill]

Doesn't this sound like a fairly open security hole? I can see it now...

"...in related news, a US Trident nuclear submarine was found to have been hacked and has been sending it's military GPS position to an IRC channel for the last 3 weeks. Sources close to the incedent have been thrown in the brigg, and the hacked Windows 2000 box was sent back to Microsoft (OS Division) with a Post-It note saying Please Fix. Linux zealots were heard laughing around the world."

Or I guess maybe the better point to make is...

"Oops - sorry Admiral. I'll have the lights back on in a minute! Running the web server process on the main computer was a good idea until its URL got posted to Slashdot... ;-)"

Re:Great news for marine mammals (NOT!)

[haystor]

The upside is that they can now have net access.

Re:More Governmental intrusion on Free Rights

[jacobm]

Have you ever wondered why the Government thinks they own the airwaves? Why you need to have a license to broadcast radio and television signals? Think about it, WHO gave them the right to do this? What right does the Government have to just up and claim that the airwaves (which belong to EVERYBODY) are theirs and that they can control them and let whoever they want on there and not let on people who they
don't like and who will broadcast the truth about the government.

Are you trolling, or are you serious? The government regulates broadcasting because if they didn't, the airwaves would be a big ball o' static and no one could use them for anything, including transmitting the Truth about the Government. That's why the FCC exists. It was not a plot against the citizens by the Man; it was created as a necessary regulatory body.
--
-jacob

This could be useful.

[Shoeboy]

I have two passions in life, dolphin molestation and slashdot. The problem is that when I'm scuba diving, I can't tell if slashdot has been updated. Just 5 minutes ago, I was wondering if there was some way to get new headlines emailed to me while I'm living out my flipper fantasies. All that karma has paid off!

Science, is there anything it can't do?

--Shoeboy
(former microserf)