Tasmanian techie spreads security.
The war between anti-whaling outfit Sea Shepherd and
Japanese whalers isn’t just occuring on the high seas, it’s also in
cyberspace, with hackers believed to have attacked the environmental
vigilante's websites as whalers try to block radio communications
between its ships.
The organisation has fought a protracted and public battle with
whaling vessels in the Artic and Antarctic for 20 years. It refutes
Japan’s claim that the slaughter of whales was for scientific research,
and accuses the nation of breaking an international moratorium on
whaling.
And as the activists rebuild the Brigitte Bardot damaged in their
current Southern Ocean campaign, they will keep close eye on
communications.
“Security is crucial for us,” said Doug
O’Neil, who looks after ships IT and communications for Sea Shepherd.
“We need to make sure our communications are secure.”
But it wasn’t always smooth sailing. When O’Neil joined the
organisation in 2009, he received a call from a crew member who was
seeking a techie to renovate IT systems on the flagship vessel The Steve
Irwin.
He travelled the short distance to Hobart and found insecure and
malfunctioning communications systems. Cameras weren’t working, cables
were severed, and the wireless network was unprotected.
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In 2008 its website was hacked and defaced. The organisation’s
founder, Paul Watson, suspected the attacks were linked to Japan and
said he and other members had been attacked over social networks.
O’Neil has since outfitted the Steve Irwin with military-grade encryption for satellite and radio communication
systems and with a focus on security, has installed newer radars,
Power over Ethernet cameras, network hubs and radio and tracking
systems between ships and small boats, and secure wireless between ships
to allow a private network at sea.
He was also alert to insider threats
and had encypted all laptops that contained senstive data with True
Crypt to prevent against hacking attempts from within Sea Shepherd's network.
Sea Shepherd’s other ships received an IT makeover in 2010 when O’Neil travelled to the Mediterranean during Operation Blue Rage, a campaign to fight illegal fishing of bluefin tuna.
The organisation used a mix of high and low-tech security: Encrypted
communications between its ships was run over Ubiquiti Bullets, while
emails are sent through free and open source ThunderBird and encrypted
with GnuPG.
O’Neil oversees mitigating security leaks by screening all
communications from the vessel over its 512kbps VSAT link and cruising
online forums.
While it is unknown if the whalers had tried to hack its
communications systems, they reguarly attempt to locate the radio
frequency it uses to talk between ships.
When it is discovered, rather than listen in, the whalers practise
'keying' by holding down a button to generate a loud tone over the
frequency, preventing the ships from communicating.
O’Neil, who also works at the Wilderness Society and battles logging
in Tasmania’s Styx Valley, will join the Southern Ocean campaign next
month.
He might also get a chance to tinker with the Sea Shepherd’s unmanned drone surveillance aircraft, dubbed the Osprey. The hand-launched craft already succesfully found the whaling factory ship the Nisshin Maru.
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