€5 gadget tracks down Dutch Navy's stealth warship while on mission

The regional broadcaster Omroep Gelderland determined the location of the Zr. MS. Evertsen, a stealth frigate of the Dutch navy currently on mission, by using a €5 gadget, an envelope, and two stamps. The Ministry of Defense is taking measures, the broadcaster reported.

Omroep Gelderland found the Evertsen using a Bluetooth tracker, a cheap device typically used for things like finding your keys. The broadcaster got the tracker on board the ship by posting it through the Military Postal Organization, the Ministry’s own post office that lets soldiers stay in touch with loved ones at home. Instructions for using this service are available on the Defense website.

The Ministry checks incoming post for dangerous items. But videos posted online by the Ministry show only packages passing through an X-ray scanner. Omroep Gelderland, therefore, packaged the tracker in an envelope, and it went to the Evertsen undetected.

Rowin Jansen, an assistant professor of National Security Law at Radboud University in Nijmegen, told Omroep Gelderland that Defense needs to be more careful about what it puts online, given the current geopolitical tensions. “It’s a trade-off between the private interests of soldiers who want to maintain contact with their families and national security. And with everything that is going on at the moment, you would expect national security to take precedence.”

“You would rather not have a warship’s location known,” Former Lieutenant General Mart de Kruif from Laag-Keppel told the broadcaster. “Nowadays, you can eliminate targets remotely and with great precision, but you do need to know where they are. So, as a frigate, you never want to reveal your location.” You can’t just go along with the existing rules, he said. “We are still a bit naive, and that mindset needs to change.”

The Evetsen is currently deployed to protect a French aircraft carrier against missile attacks. Information regarding the stealth ship’s location is therefore highly sensitive. Yet this is not the first time its location was easily revealed. A few weeks ago, a French soldier accidentally revealed the location by uploading his jog to the running app Strava.

The Ministry of Defense banned Dutch soldiers from using fitness apps in 2018, after such apps' data revealed Dutch military patrol routes in Mali. Yet last year, Omroep Gelderland was still able to obtain the data of 900 Dutch soldiers through Strava.