Ghost Boat: Could satellite phone signal log a vessel’s movements?
As we learned from Eric Reidy’s story on the grim and dangerous journey refugees make across the Mediterranean, the Jackals (criminals engaged in human trafficking for profit) typically overload small, barely seaworthy boats with people then set them off to sea with no crew and few, if any tools to aid in navigation or survival.
They do, however, often provide a satellite phone for the refugees to use to call for help from the open sea; the intent being to get them into the hands of rescue or military forces rather than actually make landfall.
A digital breadcrumb trail?
In our quest to track the location of the Ghost Boat’s passengers, it’s important to understand the journey the vessel may have taken. I’ve done some basic research and discovered that the satellite phone (if indeed they were given one) may have been silently reporting their position through the course of the journey.
An article written by the Campaign to Protect Journalists (CPJ) — a nonprofit organisation which provides support to journalists working in war zones and repressive regimes — warning reporters that the satellite phones they use may be easily tracked by government or military forces.
“Satellite phone tracking is not only possible, it’s widely used by military and security services,” one human rights-oriented technologist with experience training citizen activists in Syria told CPJ.
Jacob Applebaum, a core member of the Tor organisation which has developed a tool allowing internet users to shield their activities from government and security agencies, warns that almost all satellite phones automatically report the user’s location:
No matter what — unless you ‘know’ otherwise, your Satellite phone almost certainly discloses your exact GPS location in an insecure manner.
Who tracks satellite phones?
Satellite phones are devices most of us will have had little if any interaction with, yet they are vital tools for communication in remote areas lacking traditional cellphone service. Two of the household names in the industry, Inmarsat and Iridium, have taken great steps to increase the value proposition of SatPhones: improving portability and launching their own fleet of satellites. Iridium, in particular, is unique in that its network spans the entire globe; providing a communication service that is readily accessed from a comparatively inexpensive smartphone-sized device.
Of all the parties tracking satellite phone signals (whether actively or passively), the most likely candidates are the satellite network provider themselves. In addition, governments, military forces, and rescue agencies will likely have the capabilities to monitor and track satellite phone transmissions. Given the current state of turmoil in Libya (the Ghost Boat’s point of departure), it is highly likely that military forces in countries bordering the Mediterranean are actively tracking satellite phone transmissions; calls and messages, or position reporting and other interactions with the satellite network.
How does this help our investigation?
Since a good chunk of our investigations must be based on assumption — noone aboard the Ghost Boat can tell us what happened — following this line of enquiry relies on the following:
- That the refugees aboard the vessel were provided with a satellite phone.
- That the satellite phone was in good working order (full battery, access to satellite network), was rugged enough to survive the maritime environment, and was switched on.
- That one or more outside agencies were actively/passively tracking satellite phone activity, including the phone aboard the Ghost Boat.
If the above conditions were satisfied, it is logical to assume that the satellite phone’s position was recorded by someone. Unfortunately, this may have been stored among a mass of other data transmitted by vessels, aircraft, and maritime monitoring devices (e.g. weather buoys) in the vicinity.
Follow-up questions:
- Can we ascertain whether the refugees in the Ghost Boat were provided with a satellite phone? The most likely answer will come from the Jackals who loaded them into it.
- Is there a source for identifying satellite phone transmissions from the area we believed the Ghost Boat was in, during the timeline it was believed to have sailed?
- Is there a record of distress calls/signals being made that were either not investigated, or resulted in nothing being found? Some of Iridium’s portable satellite phones come equipped with an SOS button, so it may be that an alert message was sent, as opposed to a voice call to a potential rescuer.
- If a satellite phone was present in the Ghost Boat, is it possible to track the vessel’s position from passive signals? In a separate Medium piece, I’ve explained how a team investigating another refugee boat story with eerie parallels to the Ghost Boat did just this (https://medium.com/@redheadednomad/ghost-boat-an-eerily-similar-story-from-2011-4696677aafd9).
Does anyone reading this have telecommunications expertise, or other ideas on how to obtain data on satellite phone position? If so, please add your thoughts.
