This Is Big Brother: How The ‘Dark’ Fleet Is Being Tracked From Space

… Windward has highlighted a series of techniques used by movers of sanctioned products to dupe investigators from AIS tampering — ranging from switching them off to more sophisticated techniques like the ‘handshake’. A new tactic was revealed this month by pressure group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which said one shipowner had asked for data to be removed from a ship-tracking platform. The data was reinstated after UANI highlighted the change, according to the group’s blog. You don’t any longer have to be a big government with a billion-dollar budget to gain that data and to get insights from it. Thomas Leira, Vake CEO The examples highlight the shortcomings of AIS as a tool that was designed to protect life at sea rather than for tracking rogue operators. “If a ship is out in the ocean, or somewhere where AIS is poor, it’s quite easy to hide,” Leira said. “But that’s getting harder and harder with everything that is happening. “What we’re seeing is that you don’t any longer have to be a big government with a billion-dollar budget to gain that data and to get insights from it.”