Saturday, August 17, 2024

Cassini style

courtesy of Makina Corpus
 
Bordeaux 1550
 

Bordeaux by J. Boisseau (1648)

 Bordeaux 1832
including insets View of Bordeaux from the Quai des Salinieres --
View of Bordeaux from the Quai des Chartrons.
 
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Friday, August 16, 2024

ESA Monitoring marine litter from space is now a reality



 From Satnews by
 
The quantity of plastic floating on the sea surface is rarely high enough to generate a detectable signal from space.
Plastics and other floating debris have to accumulate into dense patches of at least tens of metres in area to be detectable using existing satellites.

These patches of floating litter are called ‘slicks’, ‘streaks’ or ‘litter windrows’.
They are often filament-shaped, resulting from the presence of convergence current lines on the sea surface.

Aerial drone image of a litter windrow in Bay of Biscay, Spain.
Windrow width: 1-2 metres.
CREDIT Rivages Pro Tech, Suez Eau France.


Detecting such litter windrows is indicative of high pollution at a particular place and time.
But could such scattered and short-lived patches of litter provide sufficiently useful data for global monitoring of plastic pollution?

Litter windrow detected from space.CREDIT
Cózar et al. (2024) Proof of concept for a new sensor to monitor marine litter from space.
Nature Commun. 15, 4637


“We didn’t know if the abundance of litter windrows was enough to draw maps, or to reveal trends over time,” notes Andrés Cózar, from the University of Cádiz, co-director of the project.

To find out ESA Discovery funded a consortium of space companies and research institutes from six countries.
Using a six-year historical series of 300 000 satellite images, the team scanned the entire Mediterranean Sea every three days, at a spatial resolution of 10 metres, on the hunt for windrows.

They relied on the multispectral imaging Sentinel-2 satellites of Europe’s Copernicus programme, which while not designed for litter detection, have a somewhat limited capability for plastic detection.

“Searching for litter aggregations of metres in size on the ocean surface is like looking for needles in a haystack,” explains Manuel Arias, from the Institute of Marine Sciences, CSIC, in Spain, the other project co-director.

 
Sentinel-2

Automation was what made the project possible, harnessing supercomputers and advanced search algorithms.
The team found thousands of litter windrows, most more than a kilometre long – and some reaching 20 km in length.
The result was the most complete map of marine litter pollution to date.

“Litter detections with a non-specialised satellite allowed us to identify the most polluted areas and their major changes over weeks and years,” comments Andrés Cózar.
“Litter is injected into the Mediterranean Sea as the rainstorms rage.”

A key element of this work has been in understanding the significance of the litter windrow structures in the context of marine monitoring, being mainly associated with land-based litter emissions in the preceding days.

This makes them especially useful for surveillance and management of the problem.
In the paper the team assess the effectiveness of action plans against marine litter around Rome, identify a pollution hotspot related to shipping through the Egypt’s Suez Canal and put forward satellite data for guiding cleanup operations in Spain’s Bay of Biscay.

Manuel Arias explains: “The tool is ready to be used in other world regions, which I am convinced will teach us much about the littering phenomenon, including identification of sources and the pathways to the ocean.”

Andrés Cózar adds: “There is still room for improvement. The sensor used in our proof was not designed to detect plastic. Detection capability would be enormously improved if we put observation technology into orbit tailored for ocean plastics.”

The ability to monitor marine litter pollution in this way also holds broader promise.
The deployment of a sensor specifically dedicated to detect and identify floating objects one metre in size could also be useful for tasks such as oil spill monitoring, loss of cargo or even search and rescue at sea.

Paolo Corradi, overseeing the project for ESA Discovery, comments: “The importance of these results and the applicability of this methodology can indeed be extended in a wider sense to the monitoring and characterisation of generic floating matter accumulations.
This could be the more general target of a dedicated small satellite mission, which would collect the interest of a large scientific community, while addressing the need for large scale monitoring of marine litter pollution.”



“ESA Discovery is our funding programme to ensure our Agency is ready for tomorrow, looking into future ways we might make use of space,” comments Dietmar Pilz, ESA Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality.
“The potential detection of marine plastic litter has been a topic of interest for a number of years within ESA Discovery.
I am pleased to see this work has resulted in such a landmark scientific paper, exploiting the incredible value of the data from Europe’s Copernicus satellites.”

Along with the University of Cadiz and CSIC, the team is composed of researchers from ESA; ARGANS in France and UK; Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Spain; the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, ISMAR-CNR, in Italy; the Technical University of Crete in Greece; Airbus Defence and Space in France; the Joint Research Centre, JRC, of the European Commission, The Ocean Cleanup in the Netherlands; and ACRI-ST in France.

The study was funded by ESA and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Global Litter Observatory, ref. CTM2016-77106-R/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR).


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Thursday, August 15, 2024

DANA storm in Formentera

 
A DANA is a term used in Spain to describe a cold drop, such as a high impact rainfall in one area. 
Known as a DANA, Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos; the temperatures in the area have significantly dropped with a yellow alert issued for heavy rain. 
 


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Wednesday, August 14, 2024

What is really ours in the disputed SCS?


Image extracted from videos published by the Philippine military showed Chinese Coast Guard personnel ramming and boarding Philippine naval boats and confiscating their weapons
 
From The Manila Times by Prof. Anna Malindog-Uy
Anna Rosario Malindog-Uy is a PhD economics candidate at the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development in China's Peking University.
She is an analyst, director and vice president for external affairs of the Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute (ACPSSI), a Manila-based think tank.


IN this edition of my column, I present the views of retired Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) Adm.
Joel Garcia, former commandant of the PCG and former undersecretary of the National Coast Watch Council System under the Office of the President.
He addressed some contentious and ongoing issues surrounding the dispute with China over the contested waters of the South China Sea (SCS) and the real score behind the 2016 arbitral award.

Contentions

Garcia says the Philippines should assert and enforce the 2016 arbitral award if it can.
But how? Incidentally, our government, both the executive branch and Congress, has yet to define what is "atin" (ours).Wage board grants P35 pay hike to NCR workers

According to him, since the arbitral award was promulgated on July 12, 2016, our government has not published an official map indicating our maritime zones' geographical coordinates (latitude and longitude), such as our exclusive economic zone (EEZ), contiguous zone and continental shelf.

He contends that a published official map should indicate and enumerate the awards that declared the "high tide elevation" (HTE), rock territories and the "low tide elevation" (LTE).
The rock territories should have their respective 12 nautical miles territorial sea (TS).

Why is this important?
Because the law enforcement regime inside the TS of these rocks is different from those in the EEZ.
In the EEZ, one can only enforce fisheries law (if it conforms with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea or Unclos); incidentally, Philippines fishery laws do not conform with environmental laws.
He added that the surface of the EEZ is considered the high seas (Art 58 and 87 of Unclos), and any ships of foreign countries can navigate or even loiter there (but not to conduct marine scientific research, fish and build artificial islands).
The US is invoking this in freedom of navigation: whether you stop sailing on the sea surface for as long as your engine is operating, and even you can freely conduct military exercises therein, and many more "frees." 
Meanwhile, in the TS, one can enforce all domestic laws.

For everyone's information, an HTE is a feature above water at high tide and can generate territorial seas, while an LTE is a feature that is submerged at high tide and only exposed at low tide.
LTEs do not generate territorial seas if they are located beyond the territorial sea of another feature.
Also, maritime zones do not give rise to territorial claims.
 


PH map

Garcia further contends that the Philippines had not enumerated its claimed rocks in an official map.
Why not?
According to him, the origin of our official claim of the KIG (Kalayaan Island Group) stemmed from Presidential Decree (PD) 1596, s. 1978 of the first President Marcos.
Incidentally, this law is just a two-pager law and does not enumerate these "claimed islands" inside the polygon box.
The law only states that this is the polygon box in the SCS, and our territory and internal waters are inside the box.

Fast-forward to the advent of Republic Act 9522, also known as the "Philippine Baselines Law," which was enacted in 2009 as sustained by the Supreme Court as constitutional in 2011, which practically removed the PD 1596 polygon box, again without enumerating therein our claimed "islands." 
The arbitral award has also exacerbated this inadvertence by declaring that the Philippines cannot also claim the whole KIG as a territory, like China's "nine-dash line"
(See para 573 and 574 of the arbitral award).

Garcia argues that Filipinos are made to believe by the media and by jingoists' pseudo-international law and maritime security experts that these maritime areas belong to the Philippines without specifically explaining the big difference, technically and legally.
They speak their usual rhetoric of rousing the emotional patriotism of gullible Filipinos.
He says Vietnam and Malaysia do not recognize the arbitral award incidentally.
That makes the issue more complicated.
They are just watching on the sidelines while the Philippines and China are scratching each other.
They are the winners in this dispute because their territorial claim exists at the end of the day; at the same time, they solidify their economies with China's help.
We Filipinos lose.
Why?
Because in international law, the territorial claim is superior to a mere maritime claim based on Unclos.

He added that Unclos is not the venue for determining territoriality or ownership.
It's the International Court of Justice.
What complicates the matter is our co-claimants, five of them, which claim the said SCS area as their "territory," while the Philippines is claiming the said area as hers, invoking Unclos and the arbitral award, meaning a mere "sovereign rights claim," not territorial, appearing inferior to the territorial claims of other claimant states.
This is because Unclos, particularly the arbitral award, has not provided the Philippines with territorial ownership of our claim, only sovereign rights to fish and extract hydrocarbon deposits in our EEZ and continental shelf, respectively.

Admiral Garcia asks how we can solve this dilemma.
He says either we partially accept the arbitral award or abrogate it.
Incidentally, there is no such thing as partial acceptance in international law.
Hence, he said the Philippines should either accept or abrogate it, lock, stock and barrel.

 
 UN
 
Conclusion

Admiral Garcia concludes his contentions by asking how our law enforcers will determine our claimed territories when we don't have a published map to reckon with.
How will our enforcers determine the extent of our claimed maritime zones to assert our sovereign rights?
Right now, they are sent to this disputed area and are ordered to defend what is ours without even intelligently knowing the location and extent of what is ours!
Lawfare is comparable to warfare.
We have to arm them with enough legal ammunition to fight for our rights, as the international community is watching us in this maritime theater of legal and territorial conflict.
"We cannot invoke the 'rule of law' and international law unless we have complied with them to the letter and spirit. Otherwise, we are just mirroring what we have been accusing China of as a bully and as a violator of the law."

Garcia further asserts that we have to fight for what is ours to the teeth, even sacrificing our lives for the sake of our dear motherland.
But first things first, where is the published map?
Without this, external forces will exploit the Philippines using our naivete.
The silence of our Asean neighbors, especially our co-claimants, does not mean they recognize our claims.
One should understand that the SCS area is disputed, not just by the Philippines and China, but by five other countries.

Indeed, to fight for what is truly ours is a commendable spirit of nationalism.
Nevertheless, rousing and prompting Filipinos to fight for something wholly based on deception and misinformation is idiocy and a disservice to the Filipino people.
We Filipinos must assert and fight our sovereignty and rightful claims, preserving our territorial integrity and core national interests.
But in doing so, it should be based on facts and ground realities because doing otherwise based on deception and misinformation would be akin to fooling ourselves.

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Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Unmanned maritime systems and warships : interpretations under the Law of the Sea?

Courtesy : DARPA

From CIMSEC by Takeo Imura

Unmanned systems technologies possess great potential for changing the landscape of military operations.
Today's unmanned systems include aircraft, ground vehicles, and surface and subsurface vessels.

Military forces are experimenting with unmanned systems, which are expected to help the military reduce casualties and increase mission endurance.
The U.S.
Navy enumerates various missions expected for unmanned systems and plans to substitute them for some existing manned platforms.

Treating unmanned vessels as warships requires examining whether they meet the definition of a warship under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
The legal status of naval vessels under UNCLOS varies widely depending on whether a navy operates its ships as warships, non-commercial government vessels, or accessories to conventional warships.


This paper discusses whether unmanned systems can be considered warships under UNCLOS, especially with today's voracious appetite for developing the technology; however, the legal status of unmanned vessels as warships remains uncertain.
International agreements on the legal status of unmanned vessels would help establish the legitimacy of naval operations employing them.

Unmanned Vessels and Warship Status

Article 29 defines a warship as:
"A ship belonging to the armed forces of a State bearing the external marks distinguishing such ships of its nationality, under the command of an officer duly commissioned by the government of the State and whose name appears in the appropriate service list or its equivalent, and manned by a crew which is under regular armed forces discipline."

Accordingly, four conditions must be met to determine whether unmanned vessels can be considered warships under UNCLOS.
They are defined as a "ship," bear "external marks" of the possessing flag state, are "under the command of an officer," and are "manned by crew." Each of these conditions is considered in the following analysis.

Ships

UNCLOS does not provide a specific definition of what constitutes a ship.
Article 91 states, "[s]hips have the nationality of the State whose flag they are entitled to fly." Further, article 92 provides "[s]hips shall sail under the flag of one State only…[and a] ship may not change its flag during a voyage or while in a port of call, save in the case of a real transfer of ownership or change of registry." Accordingly, UNCLOS declares that all ships must maintain a genuine link with their state and fly their flag to show who possesses jurisdiction.
Article 94 mandates that "[e]very State shall effectively exercise its jurisdiction and control in administrative, technical and social matters over ships flying its flag." There are certain requirements the flag state must meet to maintain a genuine link between the ship and the State, such as undertaking measures "to ensure safety at sea." Paragraph 3b of the same article requires flag states to regulate "the manning of ships, labour conditions and the training of crews, taking into account the applicable international instruments."

In the case of unmanned vessels, it would be difficult for a flag state to fulfill these requirements since they are unmanned.
However, if the word "manning" is considered part of a greater flag state duty to ensure safety at sea, then this requirement can readily be met.
Manning should not simply mean individuals being physically aboard.
Additionally, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article 31, states, "any subsequent practice in the application of the treaty which establishes the agreement of the parties regarding its interpretation" is included in the meaning.
Accordingly, the states party to UNCLOS may recognize unmanned vessels as ships unless such interpretation is contrary to the treaty's terms, its object, or purpose and is evidenced by the subsequent practices of the parties.
Evidence that many states are moving to accept unmanned vessels as ships can be found in the maritime transportation domain.
Specifically, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) developed the maritime autonomous surface ship concept, or MASS.
Considering the latitudes provided by the provisions of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the IMO's development of MASS demonstrates the definition of "manning" is not an obstacle to accepting unmanned vessels as ships under UNCLOS if flag states fill their requirements.

UNCLOS is not the only treaty that defines what constitutes a ship.
For instance, the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) defines a ship as "a vessel of any type whatsoever operating in the marine environment." Also, the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs), Part A, Rule 3a states, "[t]he word vessel includes every description of watercraft… being used as a means of transportation on water." Similar to MARPOL, this definition encompasses a wide variety of vehicles, with the main difference being whether the vehicle is used for transportation on water.
However, a ship without transporting something is difficult to imagine.
Even unmanned vessels carry payloads that are not essential for navigation.
For example, the SD1045 unmanned vessel is used for maritime environment research and can change payloads to adjust to user demands.

Finally, the 1972 Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (London Convention) defines a ship more broadly as a "waterborne…craft of any type whatsoever…." Based on this provision, a vessel can be interpreted as any vehicle that operates in or above water.

In conclusion, unmanned vessels can be recognized as ships under UNCLOS or other treaties, given the broad definition of a "ship." Therefore, a flag state has the legal authority to decide what device it will regard as a ship, provided it meets the minimal requirements of UNCLOS.

External Marks

Generally, a flag, referred to as a naval ensign, is used as an external mark to show the status and nationality of a warship.
Setting up a naval ensign on unmanned surface vessels may be possible.
In the case of unmanned underwater vessels (UUVs), this requirement probably would need to be fulfilled by painting a flag or other substitute markings.

Under the Command of an Officer


There is no unified definition of the word "command." One paper discussed the subject and stated, "…being in command does not require the person to make every decision and guide every action, and that the commander can be removed from the action to some extent." This view is based on the military doctrines of the United States, Netherlands, France, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
This approach can be applied to the command of unmanned vessels, but the outcome may depend on the vessel's degree of autonomy.
There are three levels of human participation in the command of unmanned systems: "in the loop," "on the loop," and "out of the loop."

The concept of "in the loop" is that a human is continuously and significantly involved in the actions of the unmanned vessels, operating it remotely.
The concept of "human on the loop" is one in which humans monitor unmanned vessels and influence autonomous decisions without directly operating the system.
The human has veto power over the actions of the unmanned vessels, which otherwise operate independently.
"Human out of the loop" applies when humans are not involved in autonomous decisions – the system has full operational autonomy.
Human control relates to the software programming that governs the unmanned vessel's actions in such cases.

Unmanned vessels with "humans out of the loop" are controlled by high-end autonomous algorithms.
Such unmanned systems equipped with weapons are categorized as lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS).
Rules governing the operation of LAWS are currently one of the most controversial subjects in international law.
Advocates for using LAWS in military operations focus on their contribution to military advantage as a moral justification.
LAWS can reduce the loss of human life and expand operations into previously inaccessible areas.
Further, they argue LAWS meet the requirements of morality because "autonomous robots in the future will be able to act more "humanely" on the battlefield […because] they do not need to be programmed with a self-preservation instinct." Those who oppose the use of LAWS focus on the problem of accountability.
Given the system's autonomy and the unpredictability of decisions made by machine learning, it would be hard to identify the cause of flawed decisions and assign accountability.
As one article puts it, "Where a human being makes the decision to use force against a target, there is a clear chain of accountability, stretching from whoever actually 'pulled the trigger' to the commander who gave the order." This is not the case with LAWS.
While the commander can be identified and held accountable for the operation of unmanned systems with "in the loop" or "on the loop," this is not the case with "out of the loop" systems.

Some propose that "[s]ince a commander can be held accountable for an autonomous human subordinate, holding a commander accountable for an autonomous robot subordinate may appear analogous." If so, commanders that employ unmanned systems cannot escape the responsibility for their operation, whether a human is in the loop or not.
Traditionally, command responsibility is only implicated based on reasonable foreseeability of an untoward action, and the commander failed to prevent it.
The possibility that a commander can reasonably foresee what LAWS will do is remote.
Even if unmanned systems were only operated for non-combat missions, such as information gathering in peacetime, responsibility for non-lethal violations of UNCLOS or domestic law would remain an issue.
Usually, in the case of manned warships, the responsibility falls on the tactical-level commander, such as the commanding officer.

One solution some have proposed is to incorporate a recording function to provide a detailed operational log against which to hold a commander responsible.
But is the tactical commander best positioned to reasonably foresee what the LAWS will do? Whether command responsibility lies with the tactical commander who deployed the system, the operational level commander who allocated the system to the tactical commander, or the commander responsible for the design and introduction of the system into the fleet remains unclear and the subject of debate.
However, for the "command" requirement of UNCLOS Article 29 to be fulfilled, a commander must be aware of the operations conducted under his or her command.
Since it is possible this will not be the case with LAWS, with humans "out of the loop," it is an issue that remains unaddressed by international law.

Manned by a Crew

"Manned" is generally understood as a crew aboard a vessel.
However, other laws that regulate or define ships do not include the condition of a crew being aboard.
For example, U.S.
code Title 33, section 4101 states unmanned systems are "…designed to function without an on-board human presence…" Other scholars point out in regard to the safety of life at sea (SOLAS),

"SOLAS relies on states to ensure the safe manning of their ships.
There is no minimum number of persons required to be on board so long as the primary safety concern is met.
It can, therefore, be argued that a crew numbering zero is technically 'adequate' provided the operation is safe."

At least in the private sector, crews are not required to be physically aboard unmanned vessels.
Also, a boarded crew is not required in COLREG or MARPOL.
That said, the history of the definition of warships might be different from ordinary ships.

A warship has a specific definition derived from the history of privateers in the 16th to mid-19th centuries.
A privateer "…was a privately-owned vessel, outfitted as a warship, authorized by a recognized national government, through the issuance of a commission to attack." On the one hand, privateers did not always come under the control of the government, and abuse of its rights and abnormal practices occurred.
Ultimately, privateering was abolished in 1856 by the Paris Declaration.
Nevertheless, the use of civilian ships in wartime continued.
The Hague Convention No.
VII, on International Convention relative to the Conversion of Merchant-ships in Warships of 18 October 1907, provided regulations about converting merchants to warships.
A merchant ship converted to a warship was given the rights of a warship (mainly belligerent rights).
The Hague Convention influenced the drafting of UNCLOS, specifically the requirements in Article 29.
The key to properly reading UNCLOS Article 29 is to focus on the requirement that "crews [be] under the appropriate discipline." Physical manning is not the primary point of the article.
Thus, while some form of human control of the warship is needed to fulfill the condition of the existence of a crew, physical manning is not required.

Conclusion

This analysis discussed whether navies should operate unmanned vessels as warships under the provision of UNCLOS Article 29.
Considering the discussions above, one can say that unmanned vessels with "human in the loop" or "human on the loop" fulfill the conditions of Article 29.
However, unmanned vessels with "humans out of the loop" do not fulfill the current conditions of Article 29 and do not acquire the status of warships.

Undoubtedly, details of how to fill the requirements of "under the command of an officer" and "manned by crew" will be controversial with "out of the loop" unmanned systems.
Concerning the command requirement, this paper concludes that commanders are at least responsible for the decisions to deploy unmanned systems, but the level of command responsibility remains unclear.
Concerning the requirement that a ship has a crew, while some form of involvement of a 'crew' in the operation of the unmanned systems can fill the condition of Article 29, it might be difficult to meet the condition if autonomy develops to such a level that no crew involvement is required once the system is deployed; to be accorded the status of a warship requires "a crew which is under regular armed forces discipline." Accordingly, navies that want to operate unmanned systems should carefully evaluate their desired missions and how to manage the command and crew requirements, especially in cases where unmanned systems will be fully autonomous.

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Monday, August 12, 2024

Britain’s nuclear submarine software built by Belarusian engineers




From The Telegraph by Camilla Turner
 
Fears that coding work outsourced to Russia and its allies could pose national security threat

Britain’s nuclear submarine engineers use software that was designed in Russia and Belarus, in contravention of Ministry of Defence rules, The Telegraph can reveal.

The software should have been created by UK-based staff with security clearance, but its design was partially outsourced to developers in Siberia and Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

There are fears that the code built by the Russian and Belarussian developers could be exploited to reveal the location of Britain’s submarines.

The Telegraph understands that the MoD considered the security breach a serious threat to UK defence and launched an investigation.

The inquiry discovered that the firm that outsourced the work – on a staff intranet for nuclear submarine engineers – to Russia and Belarus initially kept it secret and discussed whether it could disguise where the workers were based by giving them fake names of dead British people.
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As well as the UK’s submarine fleet, there are fears that further defence capabilities could have been compromised because it has emerged that a previous project was also outsourced to developers in Minsk.
 
The nuclear-powered submarine HMS Vanguard after completion of repairs in May 2023.
Photo from the network.
 
 National security in jeopardy

On Friday, experts warned that the UK’s national security could have been jeopardised if personal details of those with classified knowledge of Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet fell into the wrong hands, leaving them exposed to blackmail or targeted attacks.

Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary, said the breach “potentially left us vulnerable to the undermining of our national security”. He added: “Time and time again, countries like China and Russia have targeted the supply chains of our defence contractors. This is not a new phenomenon.”

James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, said it was an “absolute imperative” to ensure “our most sensitive defence programmes have total resilience and security”.

Rolls-Royce Submarines, which powers the UK’s nuclear submarine fleet on behalf of the Royal Navy, wanted to upgrade its staff intranet and had subcontracted the work to WM Reply, a digital consultancy firm.

WM Reply then used developers based in Belarus – Russia’s closest ally – one of whom was actually working from home in Tomsk, Siberia, according to documents submitted to the MoD’s inquiry.
 
The intranet system included personal details of all Rolls-Royce Submarines employees as well as the organisational structure of those working on the UK’s submarine fleet.

In the summer of 2020, staff at WM Reply began to sound the alarm over the security implications of using Belarusian staff for the project and suggested that Rolls-Royce should be informed.

By November, a team meeting – a transcript of which was provided to MoD investigators – revealed the serious concerns of some staff members.

But they were told by superiors there was no need to “panic” and that Rolls-Royce should not be informed as there was a risk it might cancel the project if it found out.

It was only in the spring of 2021, when concerns were reported directly to Rolls-Royce, that an investigation was launched. The matter was subsequently brought to the MoD in the summer of 2022, triggering a further investigation which concluded in February last year.

Dr Marion Messmer, senior research fellow at the think-tank Chatham House, said that allowing Belarusian and Russian developers to work on this kind of project constituted a clear “national security risk”.

Any rogue actors gaining access to personal data of those working on the UK’s submarine fleet carried a risk of “blackmail or a targeted attack”, she said.

“From a strategic perspective, the great thing about the submarines is that they are very hard to detect and very mobile. If anyone had access to a tracking system that shows where submarines are at all times, that would give them a huge strategic advantage – if planning an attack on the UK they could first target the nuclear submarines and disable Trident.”

A Rolls-Royce spokesman said: “We can categorically state that at no point was there any risk of data, classified or otherwise, being accessed or made available to non-security cleared individuals. It is not possible for non-security cleared individuals to access any sensitive data via our company intranet. It is used to provide business updates, wellbeing support and a channel for collaboration between our colleagues.

“All our suppliers comply with strict security requirements. Once we were made aware of these allegations that clearly breached these requirements, and following a rigorous internal investigation that concluded in 2021, Rolls-Royce Submarines ceased working with WM Reply. We have not awarded them any further contracts.”

Rolls-Royce said it had carried out full IT security checks on any coding before it was introduced to its network.
The company is understood to be confident that WM Reply employees and their subcontractors did not have access to information on secure servers.

A spokesman for WM Reply denied the claim that its actions could have endangered national security.

“WM Reply regularly reviews its delivery processes and procedures, respects the needs and processes of its customers and enjoys transparent and long-standing relationships with those customers,” they said.

An MoD spokesman said: “This matter was fully investigated by Rolls-Royce. As they have said, at no point was the integrity of the system compromised.”

How Russian link to submarine software was kept secret

It was several minutes into a conference call between WM Reply staff members when one employee summed up the concerns of those in the meeting.

“We are talking about serious stuff here, this is our defence … this could screw the company if it got out,” they said.

Having won a contract from Rolls-Royce Submarines to carry out an upgrade of its intranet, the digital consultancy’s team had spent much of the call trying to work out how they could cover up the fact sensitive work was to be carried out by developers in Belarus, an ally of Russia so close some describe it as a vassal state.

As one of them put it: “I think as soon as we mention Minsk ... I think they will just go wahhhh!”

During the brainstorming session, one employee suggested WM Reply could hide the involvement of offshore developers by concealing their Belarusian-sounding names. This could be achieved, it was suggested, by using the names of “dead people in the UK” instead.

The Microsoft Teams video conference call, which took place in November 2020, is at the centre of revelations about how highly sensitive work was outsourced to people in Belarus and Russia.

Rolls-Royce Submarines, which runs Britain’s fleet of nuclear submarines on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, stipulated that the work on its intranet upgrade should only be carried out by UK-based security-cleared individuals.

Those working on the project for WM Reply in the UK, who did have security clearance, were told they should obtain advice before even travelling to certain countries where “special security restrictions” applied, which included Belarus and Russia.

The Teams call – a transcript of which was passed to MoD investigators – took place towards the end of the “discovery” phase of the work and just days before the project was officially due to start. By this point, some of those working on the project at WM Reply were becoming uncomfortable about using coders based out of an office in Minsk in apparent contravention of the instructions from the MoD.

Various options were discussed by senior managers at WM Reply about ways to conceal the identities of the Belarusian coders from Rolls-Royce, such as having one British developer compile all the software which was produced in Belarus to make it look as though the entire code had been created in the UK.

Another employee on the call stated Rolls-Royce must not be told about the Belarusian developers, saying: “We can’t tell them we are doing this, unfortunately.”

Another team member asked why, if they were not doing anything wrong, could Rolls-Royce not be informed?
 
A more senior team member warned against escalating the concerns to a higher level of management, saying this could lead to them deciding to “completely pull the plug” on the project and risk losing a contract worth half a million pounds.
 
They went on to reassure other team members by claiming that the risk was “minimal” given that they had already undertaken previous projects for Rolls-Royce using developers in Minsk without any problems.

They argued that they could make it “secure” so the Minsk team “don’t even know what they are working on” and told staff to stop “talking each other into a panic” about it.
 
After the meeting, the senior employee at WM Reply told the team they had spoken to a contractor at Rolls-Royce who indicated he was happy for offshore workers without security clearance to take part in the project “where required to achieve accelerated timelines and only in the WM environment”.

However, it was not explicitly stated to Rolls-Royce that this involved using workers based in Belarus or Russia, according to documents studied by the MoD.

It was alleged WM Reply wanted to use developers based out of an office in the Belarusian capital of Minsk to cut costs, according to documents submitted to the MoD’s inquiry. Developers in Belarus would have cost “substantially less” than those in the UK, so contracting them for the project – worth around half a million pounds in total – would “increase the profit margin”, it was claimed.

Dr Marion Messmer, senior research fellow at Chatham House, a think tank, said that IT and software development work was increasingly outsourced to agencies in countries such as Belarus, Russia, Poland and Ukraine which was “done as a cost-cutting measure”.

“This could be completely harmless but it becomes a huge security concern if it is work on critical national infrastructure,” she said.

James Cartlidge, the shadow defence minister, said: “The country needs to be reassured that everything is being done to look into this.”

He added that a “much greater focus on the resilience of supply chains” is needed across the board, in both the public and private sectors.

‘Over-reliance on certain suppliers’

Mr Cartlidge, a former minister for defence procurement, said that when he was in the MoD, officials were looking at supply chains, in particular the issue of ensuring the UK did not become “over-reliant on certain suppliers for items that are significant for our critical infrastructure”.

Ed Arnold, at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, said in this case there was a “principal security threat” of state-sponsored sabotage but also the potential for information to fall into the hands of criminals.

“The issue with data these days is you can store it pretty quickly and easily. Once you lose control of the data, you can’t get it back,” he said.

“It would give a state actor a pretty good intelligence start point. If you want to compromise systems, you need to first work out who to target. If you can get a dataset which does the pre-sifting for you, it means that subsequent approaches and targeted pitches are more productive.”

He said that Russia, the closest ally of Belarus, is one of the “primary” national security threats to the UK. “The threat is made up of capability, opportunity, intent – they have it all,” he said.

“The MoD should be asking itself, ‘What if there wasn’t a whistleblower?’ This wasn’t the MoD identifying the problem, it wasn’t Rolls-Royce. If it hadn’t been alerted to this, there would potentially be a vulnerability that could have been used and exploited for a longer period of time.”

Confident in security

Rolls-Royce, which launched an investigation into what happened after it was contacted directly about the issue in spring 2021, says it is confident its intranet is secure.

A spokesman said that all software or development work that was subcontracted out, including “off-the-shelf” software packages, went through rigorous security testing before being considered for use.

It said it carried out IT “health checks” annually across all of its networks and regularly took part in exercises with the National Cyber Security Centre to ensure networks remain secure.

A spokesman for WM Reply said it denied the claim its actions could have endangered national security. “WM Reply regularly reviews its delivery processes and procedures, respects the needs and processes of its customers and enjoys transparent and long-standing relationships with those customers,” it said.

Georgina Halford-Hall, chief executive of Whistleblowers UK, said: “There were multiple whistleblowers here who were doing the right thing and raising concerns.

“In a case like this, one would expect that the company would take matters seriously and act on the evidence provided by the whistleblower. But rather than acting on the concerns, they closed it down. The whistleblowers felt ignored, sidelined, and targeted by their employer.”

She is among those campaigning for whistleblowing laws that could result in companies being fined millions of pounds for attempted cover-ups.

Ministers are being urged to back a Whistleblowing Bill which will also outlaw non-disclosure agreements and set up a new tribunal where whistleblowing cases will be heard.

Previous iterations of the Whistleblowing Bill – which have been introduced in both the Commons and the Lords – received backing from senior Labour figures including Dame Margaret Hodge and Lord Browne, who was defence secretary under Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Campaigners hope the Bill, which would protect whistleblowers from criminal or civil action being taken against them, will win the backing of Sir Keir Starmer’s government.

The current whistleblowing regime enables workers to bring an employment tribunal claim against their organisation if they are dismissed or treated unfairly at work because they have made a “protected disclosure” about wrongdoing.

These protections were set up in the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) but many are deterred by the cost and complexity of the system. The legislation would see people compensated for any loss they experienced – such as being dismissed from their job – as a result of their whistleblowing.

It would also set up a regulator, the Office of the Whistleblower, to investigate protected disclosures. It would set minimum standards for workplace whistleblowing policies, monitor and enforce compliance, and bring prosecutions.

Civil penalties – with a maximum fine set at 10 per cent of a company’s turnover up to £18 million – would be levied for those who fail to comply with an order from the Office of the Whistleblower. And a new criminal offence of subjecting a whistleblower to detriment is included in the draft bill, which carries a maximum jail term of 18 months.

Ms Halford-Hall is also urging the legal watchdog, which oversees the professional conduct of lawyers, to ensure that solicitors firms are not allowed to facilitate cover-ups of national security issues.

“It is time that the SRA stopped pussyfooting around with this and brought forward meaningful regulations and serious consequences for lawyers,” Ms Halford-Hall said. “Every lawyer should be compelled to report national security or other safeguarding issues to the relevant regulators and/or the police.”
 
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