Security, we hardly knew ye…

Posted on by May 11, 2013
Loose lips: Candid camera club alerts N. Korea of USS Nimitz’s arrival
It wasn’t a tapped phone, a hacked computer or a double agent that tipped off North Korea that the U.S. Navy’s biggest and baddest aircraft carrier was steaming toward the peninsula — it was a perfectly innocent bunch of shutterbugs.

When Pyongyang’s state-run media agency mentioned the ship’s itinerary in a news release, a day before it was first reported in the South Korean media, alarm bells went off, according to the South Korean newspaper The Hankyoreh. U.S. and South Korean military officials initially feared a phone tap, intelligence leak or hacked email account might be to blame, according to South Korean media reports.

“A U.S. naval aircraft carrier is coming on the 11th and leaving on the 13th, and you would just need to transport the US sailors.”

– Ad posted on photography website

But it turned out that on Saturday night, a Seoul-based camera association known as the “O” Club had told its members that an aircraft carrier would berth in Busan on May 11, and that people were needed to drive American sailors around, a South Korea Ministry of National Defense said.

“… looking for two Busanites who can drive and speak basic English,” read the message, posted on a photography website. “A U.S. naval aircraft carrier is coming on the 11th and leaving on the 13th, and you would just need to transport the U.S. sailors. Pay is 110,000 won ($101) a day. Two people wanted. Send a message if you’re interested.”

Another post offered suggestions on where to get good pictures of the massive ship. Someone in North Korea saw the ad and did some low-risk intelligence gathering.

Although neither post named the ship, officials believe North Korea were able to put together the details using other information already made public, including a post on the U.S. Navy’s website last week that said the nuclear-powered Nimitz had entered the jurisdiction of the 7th Fleet, a South Korean Ministry of Defense official said Wednesday.

The U.S. and South Korea are staging anti-submarine exercises this week, and the Nimitz will participate in another joint naval exercise next week. Although the exercises come as tensions are rising between North and South Korea, officials publicly sought to downplay the Nimitz’s appearance.

“We are not trying to deliver any message to North Korea with this exercise,” a spokesman for the South Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff said, referring to this week’s anti-submarine drills. “This exercise is for improving the U.S.-South Korean war-fighting power.”

North Korea has vowed immediate countermeasures if even one shell fired during the joint U.S.-South Korea exercises lands in North waters.

The U.S. and South Korea are trying to push “the present state of war to an actual war,” according to a statement posted on the North’s government-run Korean Central News Agency website.

So while this may have been pushed off the front pages at home, it’s STILL high tension in the Western Pacific, and there are also ‘sniffs’ of comments from China about whether or not Okinawa really belongs to the Japanese or to China…

Pushing, pushing, pushing…

h/t JP

Comments

Security, we hardly knew ye… — 11 Comments

  2. I don’t know how secret the US can keep anything. The society doesn’t lend itself to that. When you move the Nimitz into Chinhae (which is where I presume it will dock), it’s sort of like removing the moon from orbit. People will notice. And the DPRK has an effective, well funded intelligence operation in the ROK.

    Despite the efforts of the Obama Administration to put a lid on Benghazi, the president and presidential hopeful are still being called out. Yes, the media and the Party aren’t all that worried about “accountability” but the halls of Washington are not very secret.

  4. I think the bottom line here is that security simply isn’t important . . . to anyone. As LL said, it is nearly impossible in our society today and no personal experience to demonstrate why “loose lips sink ships”. Yet another lesson of history lost . . . that will need to be relearned sometime down the road.

    • +1 Bill. Don’t you think the Russians and Chinese track carriers with their satellites? They may not share that information, but they probably know where the carriers are located.

  5. It’s almost impossible to keep anything secret when there is so much freedom with things like cell phones and laptop computers. Plus, like Japan in WWII, I would hazard to say that all the RNK fishing boats have radio contact with the nearest military instillation.

  6. ED- Apparently from the ROK Navy…

    LL- That’s been true for years…

    Opus- Pushing, pushing… Until the get a reaction from the administration…

    Bill/WSF- Concur, and when it’s 5600 people, there WILL be a hue and cry (but too little too late)

    CP- Good points all, and correct more likely than not.

  7. I was watching a documentary on the Korean War earlier today. There was mention that a US aircraft carrier was moved from Japan to Korea to provide air support. Along the way they launched a training flight along the Chinese coast. Just to let the Chinese know that we knew they were up to something.

    It doesn’t sound like things have changed much in 63 years, does it?

  9. “We are not trying to deliver any message to North Korea with this exercise,”

    Ummmm, okay, whatever they say.