“This is out of hand right now,” Matan Peled, co-
founder of Windward and a former Israeli naval
officer, said in an interview. “It’s not driven
by countries or superpowers. It’s ordinary
companies using this technique. The scale
is astonishing.”
Peled said U.S. authorities have been slow to
catch on to the spread of technology that has
been part of the electronic warfare arsenal
for decades but is only now cropping up in
commercial shipping, with serious national
security, environmental and maritime
safety implications.
Windward was able to identify suspect ships
using technology that detects digital tracks
that don’t correspond to actual movements,
such as hairpin turns at breakneck speed or
drifting in the form of perfect crop circles.
William Fallon, a retired four-star admiral and
former head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said
U.S. authorities have been aware for some time
of the threat from electronic manipulation, one
of a growing number of so-called “gray zone”
national security challenges that cut across
traditional military, commercial and
economic lines.
“Any time you can deceive somebody into
believing you’re somewhere where you’re not
is concerning,” said Fallon, who is now a board
member of the American Security Project, a
Washington think tank. “It illustrates the extent
to which people who don’t have any scruples
are willing to go to achieve their objectives and
the ease with which they can do it.”
One of the more egregious examples found by
Windward involves a 183-meter-long oil tanker
Image: Scott Bauer