Don't put trust in your AIS

[Bilgediver]

The Grey Funnel Line have been spoofing AIS for years, either by going ‘dark’, faking their position or mimicking other vessels.

Sometimes share MMSI numbers. During the completion of our new carriers at Rosyth on of the carriers sometimes used the same MSI a a small naval vessel in the middle east. Amusing seeing it jump back and fot
Rth. On one occasion one of the carriers took off up the road to Dundee !

Spoofing is not difficult. Just needs the coordinates given to relate to logical possibilities.

 

[Roberto]

Spoofing is not difficult. Just needs the coordinates given to relate to logical possibilities.

Also love messages, or people being bored


(sry for repeat I posted this already some time ago)

 

[Sandy]

Don't see much Border Force up here, nor oversize, overloaded rubber dinghies thank goodness. But you're right, everything associated with the military or security services seem exempt from the rules governing the use of AIS. I wouldn't be at all surprised if ATONs and synchronised buoys in the approaches to naval bases can be spoofed in the same manner, but maybe I'm just being paranoid.

In Plymouth the 'Grey Funnel Fleet' are usually pretty good. Just MOD Plod who don't transmit AIS.

 

[LittleSister]

I am reminded of the story in the book 'Mr. Nice', by former drug smuggler Howard Marks, that they were sailing across - IIRC - the Indian Ocean circa 1960s to buy or deliver drugs, and had become convinced the authorities had placed a tracking device on their boat. They searched high and low and eventually found it, er, high: on top of the wooden mast. They sawed the top of the mast, weighted the bottom of the offcut, and set it adrift in the ocean in an attempt to throw them off the authorities off the scent.

 

[WFA]

The Grey Funnel Line have been spoofing AIS for years, either by going ‘dark’, faking their position or mimicking other vessels.

Aren't they the things we pay them to be good at, and to regularly practise and hone such skills?
It's apparent that some (IMHO many) Yachties should spend more time honing their own watching keeping practices not the least of which to "at all times maintain a proper lookout by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate to the prevailing circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision".

 

[boomerangben]

I’ve noticed the fishery protection vessels switching their AIS off as they leave port, presumably making the point “we are at sea…… but you don’t know where we are….” Which I suppose is part of their remit in protecting our fisheries