A Navy security failure has allowed the top secret propeller of an Ohio class nuclear submarine to be revealed on the internet. Hopefully the blame will fall squarely on the military security services -- where it belongs -- and not on the satellite mapping company that inadvertently took the pictures.
A photograph of a sensitive piece of Navy technology — the propeller of a ballistic-missile submarine — now appears on the Internet, thanks to commercial efforts to photograph and map all corners of the Earth by aircraft and satellite.The Navy goes to great lengths to conceal the design of its submarine propellers, but the aerial photo now on the Internet clearly shows the blades. A wider view of the photo shows a second Ohio-class submarine in the water nearby.
Those "great lengths" are supposed to take satellite surveillance into account. Is there any internet user who doesn't know that satellites are flying overhead mapping everything? Classified equipment is supposed to be handled in a secure environment... commercial mapping companies aren't the only people with surveillance satellites, you know.
This breach is worse and far more consequential than the Air Force temporarily misplacing five nuclear warheads, but I bet it will get less attention.
