Where are they offshore? Pirates are not globetrotters with ports all over the world. But if this was off the coast of Somalia type things you'd think it would happen. Unless they are only interested in the ransom in which case probably mot a good score anyway.
> What about the crews just taking what they want and leaving?
Most people dont steal because they know its wrong. Not because they couldn't get away with it before. And where are they off to? If you're a Filipino on a ship sitting off US coast, what your going to fill a lifeboat full of Chanel perfume, head for the coast, lug it from lifeboat and hail a taxi? Sell it somewhere and try and get out of the country you have no visa for and get back home... doesn't sound too appealing.
What are you going to steal from these ships? Everything's in containers and those are packed really tightly together, there's no accommodation for opening these doors while the ship is loaded.
If you have another self-loading container ship you might be able to pull off a big heist, but who has one of those just kicking around?
As a thought experiment... let's say your pirate crew has an unloading port someplace. Why not take the ship and get going to said port? Would the crew alert the navy/coast guard? Probably.
But then what?
The navy kills the pirates and liberates the vessel... And Hanjin refuses to take it back? The navy now has the responsibility of getting it to port and unloading it, despite ports not wanting to do that?
Pirates do hit container ships, actually some even hire hackers to locate the high value cargo to steal. A bankrupt shipping company doesn't really change much, since the ship is still worth millions. If pirates stole and abandoned the ship then at worst salvage laws apply, and a salvage company would go out and take over. The ships aren't worthless because the company is bankrupt, there's just an issue with operating costs and companies not wanting to shoulder them.
Thank you for actually contributing to my understanding rather than just saying "it'll be dealt with by someone!" as if the situation as-is shouldn't already have been dealt with by someone.
Unloading these ships with state of the art equipment takes upwards of twelve hours. Many of those containers have GPS tracking devices embedded in them.
The sorts of ships routinely subjected to piracy are those carrying an easily transportable commodity (e.g. oil) that can be pumped out or stolen quickly and offloaded on a market without arousing suspicion.
You'd spend weeks going through all those containers to look for anything useful. Many, I'm sure, contain half-finished products, super cheap consumer goods, promotional merchandise, and niche application bulk supplies with almost zero value on the grey market.
If you had someone on the inside that could position the crate you wanted to steal right on top and ready to pick off, you'd just do that with a helicopter anyway and save yourself the trouble of hijacking it.
Very interesting! That's actually pretty shocking that they can be unloaded in 12 hours. I would've expected far longer than that, though now thinking about it I suppose it seems reasonable with all those crazy crane systems that industrial docks have.
Hanjin has max 13.000 TEU vessels. That's maybe 8000 containers. One crane can unload at around 30 containers per hour. You might be able to use 6 cranes on such a vessel. It works out to 45 hours to unload such a vessel if completely full. I might be off a bit in some of the calculations, but 12 vs 45 hours is quite a big difference.
There's various physical limitations. You cannot have too many cranes working on a vessel (need to have space between cranes). Further, most cranes aren't that quick. Depending on a region you might hit 45 containers per hour, but that's pretty high (usually only seen in Asia).
This seems like a rather pointless thought exercise, but the Navy has a responsibility to enforce law and order (...in addition to extra-legal responsibilities), and impact on "bottom line" is not really a factor considered directly in military operations.
I didn't say it was. I'm asking "and then what?" Can they force a port to take in and unload a ship? Would they just leave it adrift? Would they unload it themselves?
If it became a nautical or environmental hazard they'd be compelled to act. If it's just anchored in international waters there's nothing they could or should do.
Or privateers? (I'm half-way serious here. It seems like everyone wants this to get resolved but there's a "log-jam" in the system. Possibilities for a creative solution?)
"The SpaceX explosion on June 28th was caused by a failed strut in the rocket's upper stage liquid oxygen tank, SpaceX chief executive officer Elon Musk said today. The strut was one of several hundred used to hold together the helium pressure vessels in the tank......"
Goes from saying Oxygen tank to helium tank... wait what? is the helium tank inside the oxygen tank?
A pressure vessel does a bit more than a tank. While a tank may house liquids/gasses, it typically does not regulate or maintain a certain amount of pressure that is different from the natural, ambient pressure.
Anyways - perhaps it was my misreading or an edit after-the-fact by the parent (can posts even be edited on HN after responded to? I haven't tested or taken particular notice of it), they seemed to be confused that the statement switched from talking about an oxygen tank and then a helium tank (as if both were the same tank) and were confused about which gas the tank contained, when in fact there are 2 containers and not 1 with the gas being mixed up. I was simply clarifying that. There is a helium pressure vessel and an oxygen tank - not an oxygen tank that is later called a helium tank.
I don't remember seeing the question appended at the end when I responded:
from the article "Six years after Microsoft launched Bing and lost billions of dollars in a long-shot attempt to take on Google, Microsoft appears to be nearing a significant milestone: the Bing search engine is no longer bleeding cash. "
No where does the article state they have even started to gain back the costs lol
This is the dumbest thing any news agency could ever do. What the camera was put there for was to gather evidence of people tampering or trying to steal mail.
Now if who ever was doing this saw the news they will stop and go un punished.
This happened at my local post office. Someone would drive up to the mail boxes with a vacuum cleaner and suck the mail out.
Eventually they caught the guy red handed with a cameras just like this.
Shame on the journalists for blowing this sting operation.
And here is one of the many problems with government surveillance: prior to the Snowden papers, I would be completely open-minded about the legitimacy of these actions.
But knowing what we know now about the scope of extra-judicial surveillance, I am incredibly grateful that the journalists blew the whistle.
The US government and all of its actors have lost the presumption of good faith, and it's a useful thing to possess.
Serious question: Why? All we really know is that the US is dragnetting as much data as they possibly can. Have there been any solid exposures as far as actual misuse of the data? Not just hypotheticals (as realistically scary as they are), but real abuses which have already occurred?
> In a long-awaited report on privacy and security, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) reveals MI5, MI6 and GCHQ have disciplined or in some cases dismissed staff for inappropriately accessing personal information obtained through bulk data collection.
>What the camera was put there for was to gather evidence of people tampering or trying to steal mail.
That may be true but the camera was positioned to systematically capture information about anyone leaving the facility. There is no mention of it being positioned to monitor the mail drop boxes, which would make more sense if monitoring for mail theft was the only objective.
They need to hide their cameras better then. That thing is very obvious.
And if a random customer blows your sting operation, then I guess it's bad luck or bad planning. You can't expect people or journalists to know a camera is part of a sting operation.
I don't think anyone would have an issue with this sort of theft-prevention if it (1) wasn't done in secret without any explanation about (2) how the data is stored and (3) where it's going. Pictures of your license plate, your face, time-stamped and geo-located, probably tied to any mail sent or accepted -- that's not information that should be winding up in a giant surveillance database.
Assuming this to be the case, and assuming Fox31 aren't lying when they say they made FOI requests regarding this, shouldn't someone have approached Fox31 and said "Hey, this is a sensitive operation underway right now. Please keep quiet for a bit, we'll keep you updated."?
I'm not sure how the police / FBI usually handle press intervention, but I'm sure it must have happened before.
What stops pirates from taking over the ships? What about the crews just taking what they want and leaving?