Was it a mistake or did the Australian Navy attack us?
HMAS Canberra accidentally blocks wireless internet and radio services in New Zealand
The Department of Defence has acknowledged that HMAS Canberra, the Royal Australian Navy’s largest warship, accidentally took out a number of wireless internet and radio services across New Zealand earlier this week during a visit intended to celebrate the sister city relationship between Canberra and Wellington.
The incident occurred early on Wednesday morning, as the 230-metre navy flagship made its way through the Cook Strait en route to New Zealand’s capital, where the ship’s crew is set to be welcomed with a parade and concert on Saturday.
According to local internet service providers (ISPs), HMAS Canberra’s navigation radar began interfering with 5GHz wireless access points – devices that bridge wired and wireless networks – in regions on both New Zealand’s North and South Islands at around 2am.
Oh it was an accident was it?
One of Australia’s most powerful warships rolls up and ‘accidentally’ knocks out our internet?
Isn’t it as equally possible they did it on purpose to see what the impact was?
Didn’t they test asymmetric warfare against us to see what the result would be and because we are so naive we accept it’s an accident?
The radar interference triggered in-built switches in the devices that caused them to go offline, a safety precaution intended to prevent wireless signals from interfering with radar systems in New Zealand’s airspace.
Stuff reported that the outages were first raised with Radio Spectrum Management, an agency within the government’s business ministry.
The agency notified the New Zealand Defence Force, which notified the Australian Defence Force.
“On becoming aware, HMAS Canberra changed frequencies rectifying the interference,” a spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Defence said.
“There are no ongoing disruptions.”
The outages affected wireless internet and radio services in Taranaki and Marlborough regions, the spokesperson added.
Matthew Harrison, managing director of New Zealand-based ISP Primo, said he had never seen anything like the incident before.
“This wasn’t just a blip. It was full-scale, military-grade radar triggering built-in safety protocols … and it rolled across our network in sync with the ship’s movement,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
“It’s not every day a warship takes your gear offline!”
…Yes, not every day.
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Oh well. I guess the test was successful. A timely warning to all those people scrolling toctoc at 2 in the morning.
Almost certainly a test – and possibly even a threat.
Hopefully their invasion is imminent.
Blue hairs to battle stations!
Tin foil hats being issued.
You know, at risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist you would have thought that this phenomenon would have been well recognised before now and steps made to prevent it happening.
Are the RAN the only ones using this system?
Maybe it was a demonstration of this is what could happen if….And the Chinese Navy, during its well noted voyage didn’t trigger anything. Except naybe the warmongers.
But then if they can do it to us will other be able to do it to them?
It’s very unlikely that the attack was actually accidental. There are different WiFi bands reserved for Australia and New Zealand, however, from what I’ve heard from MBIE sources the ship was intercepted operating its radar over a broad spectrum calculated to interfere with 5GHz wireless signals of all kinds- not just on the Channel 120-128 band which is reserved for radar in Australia but is not in New Zealand.
Who’s your mate Kiwi – and who are we for? Is there a good side and a bad one or is it like the parson’s egg? Only old people will understand that one. Unfortunately old people have’nt understood enough from their years of living
to guide us in responsible and so we are in a state of con-fuse-ion not knowing which outlet to plug ourselves into.
Now we know the real enemy.
Testing, testing, 1-2, 1-2
Normal marine radar used for navigation works in the S band 2.9 Ghz to 3.1 Ghz
The fact that interference was being detected (you’d have to ask the radio spectrum service) or causing problems in the 5 Ghz range would suggest the ship had been using that frequency (And military don’t tend to advertise their frequency use for obvious reasons) as they crossed the Tasman.
Whether they forgot to switch back to normal marine frequencies as they approached the coast (most likely – they would potentially cause similar problems in Australia and other countries) or left it on to see the effects is unlikely (They should know the effects – via their radar system engineers)
The embarrassment factor is real much like our own navy’s ability to sink its own ships…
Nb – Marine radar operating at those frequencies is line of site (ie doesn’t go over hills and high terrain) and works from short range (higher frequencies in the band) to long range ( S band)
Max range approx 100nm (depends on many factors such as antenna height and earths curvature)
Unless you’re well into territorial waters your radar isn’t going to be an issue (ie Chinese warships)
The ship’s commander is a clone and his first mate is a lizard man.
They both hid commies under their bunks.
Don’t confuse your audience RC, we don’t know what you are getting at here on the blog and the spooks reading this will think we are all weird.
Cant control AUS so how are ya gunna handle the yanks .NZ anexed without a shot fired because the hobbits were asleep