Thursday, May 15, 2008

BERTHOLF's DD 250 posted online for all to see
Posted by Peter A. Stinson

I'm not sure when it was posted, but I discovered today that CG-9 has posted the Material Inspection and Receiving Report (DD250) for the BERTHOLF. Captain Patrick Stadt, signing as the Commanding Officer, accepted custody of the cutter in block 24 of the DD-250: Ship's Force Acknowledgement of Custody Transfer.

CG-9 also posted an Information Assurance Fact Sheet.

I haven't yet had time to digest all of this information, but I applaud the Coast Guard for being proactive in posting this information.

Earlier this week, David Axe at War is Boring posted Coast Guard Cutter’s Shady “Whodunit” where he said he'd been told there was some unethical actions taken in order to get the BERTHOLF a passing mark from the INSURV team. He'd been told the BERTHOLF's

communications systems had been fully installed as of this spring, but were yanked out of the ship in the weeks preceding InSurv’s visit … and then apparently re-installed after the inspectors had left.

This prompted Mr. Axe to ask three questions:

1) What were the circumstances surrounding the “un-installation” of Bertholf’s communications systems?

2) Who exactly yanked the systems, and when?

3) Who ordered the cheat, and what was their rationale?

The same rumor led me to file a FOIA request with the Coast Guard:

Pursuant to the federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, I request access to, and electronic copies of:

1.) All inventory documents of all C4ISR equipment which has been placed on the BERTHOLF at any time from the time the keel was laid to this date.

2.) All inventory documents of all C4ISR equipment which was placed on the BERTHOLF and then removed before April 20th, 2008.

3.) A listing of all descrepencies discovered in the C4ISR and TEMPEST systems which were noted by any organization involved in the construction and evaluation of the BERTHOLF.

4.) All documents, including emails, memos, and other forms oforganizational communication concerning the placement or removal of C4ISR equipment on the BERTHOLF.

Perhaps the Coast Guard leadership will just avoid the FOIA issues and just answer all the questions simply and directly.

In the mean time, tonight's reading is the DD-250 and the Information Assurance Fact Sheet.

Posted on Thursday, May 15, 2008
   

Labels: by Peter Stinson, Deepwater

7 comments:

At Thursday, May 15, 2008 3:17:00 PM EDT Anonymous said...

That picture scares me. Who is he mad at?

 

At Thursday, May 15, 2008 6:33:00 PM EDT Michael DeKort said...

DD-250

Are you kidding me? This is a joke and an insult.

These guys know this release is useless to us or anyone else. Without knowing what the reference numbers refer to there is no way to make heads or tails of this. That information exists and is not classified. Plus - where is the information on monies paid and held back?

I challenge the Coast Guard. Put all of it out there.

IA Fact Sheet
The document mentions standards the CG/ICGS signed up to in 2007. Notice that is well after the 123 debacle. They changed the requirements. It looks like they now refer to much newer standards. I will look in to this more.

I believe the Navy's instrumented and visual tests of the 123s followed the more relevant standards(?). They failed the 123 in many areas and suggested the failures not be waived. Then the CG allowed an uncertified staff member to waive those failures. That was an illegal and improper act. Then the Matagorda transmitted its classified internet in Cuban waters putting every government agency who used it as severe risk for compromise.
IF the 123 failures would have not been waived and the 123s design were sound would the NSC be in the shape it is now? How do the changes in requirements affect the NSC and how would would have they affected those 123 failures?

They mention an early visual inspection resulted in 650 trial cards. Then the Navy released a document in the fall of 07 stating their were 350+ DESIGN flaws (not things that are fixed during install). What happened to those design flaws? How many of the 350+ the Navy mentioned in the fall were part of the 650 found during the visual test? Didn't the CG state recently that all of the equipment was not installed? What were they inspecting? Cables? Racks? Trays? Physical spaces? How many more flaws would have been found above 650 (which is a lot and way too many by the way - first in class or not) if all the equipment were there?

The doc says there was a FORMAL Visual Test and a partial Instrumented test in Jan 2008. I assume that the Visual was a FULL test? How is that possible if everything isn't installed? They mention only 122 of the original 650 Visual flaws remained. Were they design flaws? None were important enough to become "starred" items. Yet the only part of the ship that will not be complete at the end of the month is C4ISR and TEMPEST? As I understand all the ship system issues - which was the only thing listed as "starred" items will be fixed?

The article says the C4ISR equipment configuration was unchanged during all of this testing and trials. Does that include the testing they mentioned in the spring/summer of 07? So they run tests without everything there including a complete Visual test and that counts? Was the equipment ever installed or not? Why run complete tests such as the Visual tests without everything there? You can't have it both ways. If there is so much missing that you can't complete the tests and you can't use the classified systems after the DD-250 signing - how does this not rate a trial card?

They mention "new capability" will be added post shakedown and before "final" delivery. Is the missing equipment "new". So the "new" equipment is stopping testing? Seems to make no sense.

What are the open issues, what will they take to fix, how much MORE will they cost, who is paying and were they design or workmanship issues? Most design issues should never had made it to the install phase.

If the CG and the Navy want this to go away why not make all the docs available - especially to David Axe who has been turned away? If the CG made an understandable, plausible and proven case I would be glad to say I was wrong. Thing is their story has been all over the map, their conduct hostile and their pattern of performance has been anything other than competent or trustworthy.

Look at the DD-250 release. IT IS USELESS and they know it. How do you build trust like that?

 

At Thursday, May 15, 2008 8:47:00 PM EDT Michael DeKort said...

The CG mentions using a portable secure comm system. That doesn't necessarily solve anything. In order to use it they will have to stop transmitting on many if not all of their comm and sensor gear while using it. And if the environment they are in has physical TEMPEST problems they may not be able to use it while on board.

Also notice that the first round of testing was right after the hearing on the 123s. Coincidental? While it could very well be proactive I think they wasted that response through their actions after that. They should have reversed the Porter waivers and done so publicly. Not doing that set most of this situation up. From there things just snowballed. It's a shame that the Commandant squandered his chance to get ahead of this thing. Sometimes you think it's barely snowing out and you look outside some point down the road and see you are snowed in. It's a shame. This is a classic example of how good people, with the best of intentions, rationalize themselves in to big holes.

The second NSC delivers in October? The third right after that. What shape are they in? Is the FRC contract going to be let this month? What are the C4ISR requirements and designs going to be?

 

At Friday, May 16, 2008 3:21:00 AM EDT Granite Island Group said...

The Coast Guard published a four page Fact Sheet regarding the Bertholf, and the document seems to directly contradict public statements that have previously been made by senior Coast Guard leadership. I don't know what game they are trying to play with Congress, the media, and the public but most of the document reflects that TEMPEST is massively, MASSIVELY screwed up on the National Security Cutter.

Heck, if you review the document you can see that they did absolutley nothing about TEMPEST related issues until 45 days after I testified before Congess (and savaged the CG TEMPEST program), and that the NSC started failing from even the earliest inspections, AND has failed every single TEMPEST examination ever since right up to the most recent failures just a few weeks ago.

We see on page two of the Fact Sheet, fourth bullet point that the Navy has taken over all TEMPEST functions from the Coast Guard, and that the *** NAVY *** is now providing TEMPEST certification services to the CG, managing the CG TEMPEST program, and this is the first public document where they admit that the Coast Guard has no idea of what they are doing in regards to TEMPEST. The fact that the Navy is not the CTTA for the Coast Guard is a major revelation. This had to be a massive blow to the senior CG leadership as it indicates that they could not be trusted to do the job themselves.

I would point out that one of my formal recommendations to Congress was that based on the CG demonstrated fraud in regards to TEMPEST that the CG not be allowed to handle thier of thier own TEMPEST inspections and waivers and instead have them performed by the Navy. Based on the inspection schedules and flurries of CG press announcement it looks like the Navy took over shortly after I made my recommendations to Congress.

I would be willing to wager that the July 2007 whirlwind that hit the Coast Guard and which has been spining around every since has found massive TEMPEST failures on all CG assets, and not just on the NSC and trainng faiclity.

Not only did the NSC itself fail mierably, but even the NSC training faciity failed. It's no wonder that CG leadership is all upset about TEMPEST and why they were going out of tier way to hide the TEMPEST probelms.

In mid April 2007 the debacle of the Coast Guard TEMPEST program gets exposed during a Congressional hearing, then 10 days later their previously uncertified in house authority get magically certified under suspicious conditions.

A month later (45 days after the hearings) the NSC fails its first test, then a month later fails again with 650 major TEMPEST failures.

Six months later there are still major probelms, and just a few weeks later the actually training facility for the NSC failed it's inspection and gets savaged. Let's got back a moment... the training facility did what? As the training facility has been used in the past the major failure of the facility means that classified information may have been present on the systems at the training facility.

NSC Hull #0 fails (the training facility), and then the NSC Hull #1 fails (the BERTHOLF).

A month later the NSC fails yet again.

... and it just seems to be getting worse.

Everything associated with the NSC is failing TEMPEST inspections, they don't have a couple of normal minor TEMPEST probelms, they have hundreds and hundreds.

The only "glowing" point made in the fact sheet is on the bottom of page 3 where they talk about how an inspector said the C4ISR wiring was pretty colors, but if you carefully read this comment we see that the comment was made VERBALLY and not actually placed in a written format. Funny, because SPAWAR is doing the TEMPEST evaluations, and not INSURV. INSURV failed to mention that the RED and BLACK cable to laying on top of each other, but merely that they looked pretty. Funny that the author of the Fact Sheet felt complelled to mention the cables, becaus enot we know where one of the big, very expenisve probelms is located. It is amazing how anybody who can read between the lines of the fact sheet can find classified information mentioned in it... oops.

The last bullet point on page three also tells us that some of the equipment is actually missing from the ship (hence they can not actually perform a full TEMPEST inspection).

There is also some interesting comments about the CG actually operating the C4ISR equipment during four trials, but how can they use equipment one week during trials, but the following week when they perform TEMPEST testing some of the equipment is magically missing from the ship, with promises that it will be installed later.

Something funny is going on.

The NSC is a major liability to national security.

The so called "Fact Sheet" reads like a Kafka novel.

Red is Black, Black is Red, Up is Down, and Down is Up. Don't mind what the left had is doing, watch the right hand... and follow the pea.


Why do I get the feeling that this whole NSC TEMPEST fiasco is like a scene from the movie "Animal House"... you remember, the scene "Please Sir, May I have Another".

 

At Friday, May 16, 2008 6:39:00 AM EDT Michael DeKort said...

The Navy is in an interesting position being the new CTTA for the CG. It is one thing to watch another service illegally waive failures you found and recommended be fixed (the Porter issue on the 123s). And for those failures to lead to a probable compromise of ALL the governments secret internet when the Matagorda used SIPRNET in Cuban waters. It is another to sign on the dotted line and waive things that shouldn't be waived yourself. Especially with the NAVSEA IG now investigating and a CNO who has been firing COs left and right in order to clean house. (Something the DHS and CG should have started doing a while ago).

All they did by not assigning C4ISR/TEMEPST issues as "starred" items was buy time. But time to do what and at whose expense? What about the other NSCs in the pipeline?

 

At Friday, May 16, 2008 11:41:00 AM EDT Anonymous said...

you guys are way smart, but that picture still scares me.

 

At Friday, May 16, 2008 12:25:00 PM EDT Granite Island Group said...

Here were my recommendations made to Congress in April 2007, which savaged the way teh Coasties were doing things.

-----

In a letter to Congress (attached Rupprecht letter dated 13-Apr-07), the Coast Guard admits the 123’ class of cutters represented a “high risk” for physical connectivity in regards to TEMPEST, COMSEC and related technical security disciplines. Essentially, the first four cutters failed inspections, and were deemed a TEMPEST and COMSEC hazard. While the Coast Guard resolved several of these issues that created the initial test failures, other problems where simply ignored, or were issued waivers.

The issuing of these waivers circumvented the TEMPEST inspection failures, and rather then resolving the TEMPEST issues, the Coast Guard merely pretended that they did not exist to “certify” the cutters. This allowed the Coast Guard the tell SPAWAR that the cutters now were certified, and as such they could now handle classified information, even though this was a “high risk” proposition.

By permitting the Coast Guard to certify their own assets, a very dangerous situation has developed that endangers national security. If these problems are present in the 123’ cutter, Deepwater program they are likely present in other Deepwater and related programs as well.

I would encourage the government to freeze all work, on all ships or projects the Deepwater, firms are involved in until competent inspectors can get on-board and rigorously review the work that has been performed to date to ensure that ships will pass both rigorous a visual TEMPEST and instrumented inspection without waivers, falsified test results, or doctored documents.

Further, I would strongly recommend that the ships that were previously built by this firm be carefully reviewed in regards to both visually and with instrumented TEMPEST inspections to see if previous problems have been corrected, or if indeed any of them have actually fully passed as opposed to being waivered.

This is a very, very grave situation, and a waste of $64 million dollars that the Coast Guard could have used for better things… please do not let it continue.



An Organized Pattern of Malfeasance

This pattern of malfeasance and oversight problem can be explained is the following way.

1) There was never a plan to have these ships pass a TEMPEST inspection in place when the ships where being built, nor considered when the initial contracts and blueprints were drafted.

2) When the ships were built the classified communications systems were installed in a haphazard manner, with little or no regard to industry and/or U.S. government standards.

3) The configuration of the equipment, positioning, shielding, bonding, and grounding did not comply with that required to protect classified information systems.

4) These ships leak secrets, and based on the documents, which I have examined and some of which are attached to this document I, feel that they continue to leak secrets to this day.

5) Just prior to acceptance several of these ships were subjected to a visual and instrumented TEMPEST inspection, and in all cases, the ships failed both the visual and the instrumented inspections.

6) The contractor has not completed the remedial actions required for the ships to pass either a full visual or an instrumented TEMPEST inspection.

7) As such the ships are not allowed to have classified ciphering materials, scramblers, classified software, or classified operating systems on board as adding these systems to the ship would result in the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

8) The ships have to fully clear both a SERIES of visual inspections during build out, then a simulator inspection (which is often not performed), then an instrumented inspection, and they apply for a interim authority to operate, and with this IATO they can load the ciphers and software that will allow them to pass classified information into the C4ISR systems on-board the ships.

9) But, this assumes that the C4ISR systems themselves have been deemed secure independent from the TEMPEST testing. TEMPEST deals with the hardware side of the problems, but the C4ISR systems must also pass a series of standards that deals with finding backdoors in the computers and evaluating weak points in the software and firmware. There is significant documentation that the systems on board these ships also failed the software security examinations as well as the TEMPEST inspections.

10) Once everything passes the actual authority to operate (ATO) is granted, the C4ISR systems becomes live with classified signals and data, and the next phase of testing can be undertaken.

11) At this point you would normally perform NONSTOP evaluations and search for any HIJACK vulnerabilities (you have to have classified data and all communications systems usable and data seamlessly flowing to do this,) and would then begin the classified testing.

12) Once the government fully takes over the ship, but before it is dispatched on a real-world mission the ship would normally be subjected to a TSCM or Technical Surveillance Measures inspection to ensure that no eavesdropping devices are present. During this TSCM inspection, the TEMPEST inspection would be repeated to include the visual and instrumented inspection that would be far more rigorous then the original TEMPEST inspections.

13) It would be highly desirable for the TSCM team, and the TEMPEST inspectors involved in these final series of inspections to not have any prior involvement in prior Deepwater ships, no links to ICGS, and no links to Lockheed,


Mind Set

The mind-set of a TEMPEST inspector is that nothing is there until you can prove otherwise. Their job is to stop or limit compromising emanations and the technical leaks of classified information.

A TSCM inspector on the other hand always assumes that an eavesdropper is active or that a bugging device is present until they can scientifically prove otherwise. As you can see a TEMPEST, inspection has a different assumption then that of a TSCM inspection that is why both need to be performed before a vessel is operated in earnest.


The Bottom Line

These ships have since been decommissioned due to the hulls cracking and water leaks, due to a poorly designed modification and shoddy workmanship. There is good reason to believe they will never be in service again. Once the hulls cracked, all efforts to resolve the TEMPEST problems appear to have been completely suspended.

The Coast Guard now has eight worthless ships, for which they wasted $64 million dollars… how much money have they wasted on other assets that do not work, and will the new National Security Cutter be as equally a monumental failure… will it actually float, or will it too develop huge cracks in the hull and massive leaks of classified information?



Recommendations

Salvage all usable electronics, tactical, and mechanical equipment from all eight cutters.

Sell the stripped ships for scrap metal

Demand a partial refund of monies from ICGS, and consider DLA debarment proceedings the responsible contractors for fraud.

Immediately suspend all projects associated with ICGS and with Lockheed Martin in regards to the Deepwater program until all Coast Guard assets have been completely brought up to par, and completely re-inspected from scratch.

Request that this Committee and the U.S. Department of Justice investigate the faulty workmanship that caused the hull cracks, and all other shoddy workmanship present on this project, and that criminal proceedings be undertaken should such be warranted.

Request the U.S. Department of Justice immediately initiate a counterintelligence investigation into the TEMPEST flaws on these ships to determine if these flaws were the result of the efforts of a foreign government, or merely just shoddy design and workmanship.

Request the U.S. Government, and more specifically the TEMPEST engineers and students from the National Security Agency be allowed to examine this ship as a “lesson learned” program before the ships are dismantled or stripped. By studying the problems (that still doubtlessly exists) in these ships, the national TEMPEST and TSCM can be enhanced as a whole by learning from these mistakes. This would turn these eight ships into a temporary training range for the TSCM and TEMPEST profession.

Conduct an investigation into the entire Coast Guard TEMPEST program to determine the extent to which the USCG was, or is issuing waivers in lieu of legitimate TEMPEST inspections, installations, maintenance, and repairs.

It appears that none of the ships has ever actually passed a TEMPEST inspection, and that a huge number of major flaws were found on all ships, and that after the first four of ships grossly failing that the stopped all TEMPEST testing for the second four ships.

In order to perform a TEMPEST, NONSTOP, and HIJACK testing you must have all operational gear installed and active. If the piece of equipment requires a key to operate (such as the ARC-210) you use a testing key or a simulator during the testing, and then once you have IATO authority to operate you can load up the real keys and software, and retest.

Your Committee also needs to request the work schedules of all USCG, and SPAWAR TEMPEST employees and contractors to see how often they went out to the shipyard before the instrumented tests, and then investigate their activities during the periods of interest. Essentially, you want to see all of their movements and activities during the entire deepwater program.

In my professional opinion none of the ships (all 8 of them) are capable of passing either a visual or an instrumented TEMPEST examination, but rather failed miserably, which required that the government hold back money until the failure points were corrected. There this minimal documentation that any of these problems were actually fully corrected after delivery (other then a few minor problems, when the major problems were ignored).

The bottom line, is that based on the documents I have reviewed these ships are all a major liability to our national defense.

It is possible that the USCG has corrected the entire problem, and has had the ships subjected to a new visual and instrumented inspection, but there is no documentation to even hope that they have done this.

The Coast Guard has been very obstructive to this inquiry, has not been reasonably responsive in providing information, and instead provides mere fragments. They seem to issuing glowing press releases about the Deepwater program instead releasing the documents detailing the TEMPEST and other problems. In a nutshell, the Coast Guard has been giving this committee nothing but lip service.

While the Navy did not actually certify the TEMPEST inspections, but were merely contractors that performed the instrumented tests, while the Coast Guard performed the visual inspections.

Instead, the Coast Guard “self certified” themselves, but lacked the technical competencies and equipment to perform the instrumented TEMPEST tests on their own. This is a tell-tale sign that the USCG should not have been involved in their own TEMPEST program at all. The Navy SPAWAR does issue "pass/fail" recommendations
on USN installations, but they specifically do not do that for the Coast Guard.

After carefully studying the documents relative to the Coast Guard Deepwater program I have become reasonably convinced that there has likely been criminal conduct and gross negligence on the part of one or more Coast Guard, and Navy employees or members, and that there has likely also been criminal conduct and gross negligence on the part of the contractor, and subcontractors in a secondary capacity.

In my professional opinion the bungling of the Deepwater 123' program (as least on the TEMPEST, COMSEC, Ciphering, and Technical Security side) has resulted in the "losing defense information" and the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, codes, ciphers, and related systems as defined by Title 18, Sec. 793, and Section 798 due to gross negligence.

It is my professional opinion that by the Coast Guard operating these ships absent proper TEMPEST inspections that they, the Navy, and the contractor have disclosed highly classified information to our enemies.

The issuing of these TEMPEST waivers is the smoking gun, and I feel that they are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

If the Navy had even the slightest idea that waivers were being claimed and that the problems were not being corrected (bur rather falsified or the records doctored) they were duty bound to notify the cognizant authorities that the ships did not meet NSA TEMPEST standards, and hence to move to revoke any waivers.

I believe that the proper terminology is "accessory before the fact", as SPAWAR knew of upcoming illegal activities involving the disclosure of classified information, and while they may not have been the certifying authority for the USCG, he had full knowledge that at least one or more ships failed.

If the USCG is not qualified to perform these instrumented tests themselves, then they are not qualified to issue the waivers either. It is a bit of a double-edged sword of many excuses.

"TEMPEST waivers for any visual discrepancies" can also called "doctoring a TEMPEST inspection," since they could not get the ship to actually pass the inspection they covered the discrepancies with waivers and falsified documents. In some circles this is also called “pencil whipping” the inspection.

The results of the instrumented TEMPEST inspection are not classified, the actual report is classified, or more specifically 10% of the final report is classified. I would point out that during the DD250 that the USCG discloses that both the visual and instrumented inspections failed.

IATO and ATO can be granted if all of the TEMPEST visual and instrumented violations where falsified with "waivers". They could have also issued waivers for screen doors on submarines, but that does not mean that the submarines will be any safer or more secure.

The "Coast Guard 123 WPB class TEMPEST waivers" comments means that the Coast Guard just decided to abandon the TEMPEST standards and inspections right after PADRE failed (again), but gave PADRE Authority to Operate anyway (with falsified TEMPEST waivers). So discovered that the only way to get the ships to pass was to not inspect them in the first place.


SPAWAR’s Involvement and Comments

According to the Navy, visual inspections are normally conducted first so that discrepancies can be corrected before the instrumented test, which is comparatively both expensive and time consuming. However, there is no technical reason to preclude doing both at the same time. Scheduling is a USCG decision. They do not recall when the visual inspection was done since SPAWAR did not perform the visual inspection. The USCG may have performed the visual inspection during the first day since SPAWAR had the night shift. SPAWAR recalls having information about visual discrepancies during the test, but do not recall the details. However, it was SPAWARs understanding at the time that Lockheed Martin did not intend to correct visual discrepancies, so there was no reason to perform the visual inspection in advance of the instrumented test.

Lockheed Martin/ICGS has stated that they were not responsible for TEMPEST; SPAWAR claimed that they could only run the instrumented tests, but could not certify anything. The Coast Guard lacked the expertise, equipment, or resources to perform their own inspections so it turned into a case of everybody claimed that someone else was responsible for the problem.

SPAWAR tested two 123' hulls, the USCGC Matagorda in February 2004 and the USCGC Padre in July 2006. SPAWAR did not track or record installation changes between the hulls, nor was that a requirement--SPAWAR just tested what was equipment was there when they conducted the test. The test results are again classified. SPAWAR did not make a recommendation, either for or against, TEMPEST certification in the report for the Padre.


The Coast Guard and ICGS is Playing Games

While MIL-HDBK-232A does involve many TEMPEST topic matters it is not the "Core Document", nor should it be considered "THE" TEMPEST standard by any means. If MIL-HDBK-232A is the only document, which they list as the only contractual requirement, then there was never any formal requirement for TEMPEST compliance in the program, only a specification of distances between equipment and cables.

The Coast Guard had admitted that the only standard or protocol that they required for TEMPEST certification was only one publications, that being “MIL-HDBK-232A”
A list of relevant government standards, which should have been listed within the contracts and the designs, are amended to this document.

When the ships began failing all of their TEMPEST inspections the issue of “other standard and specifications” started being brought up. While we initially see that the USCG and SPAWAR quoted violations in regards to NSTISSAN 2-95 and IA PUB 5239-31, but in October 2005, the USCG inspector began trying to apply Air Force standards to the matter at hand to obtain a waiver.

This dragging in an Air Force standard is a case of “document shopping” where the Coast Guard and/or ICGS didn’t like what the NSA standards for TEMPEST said, so they shopped around for another government standard that they could quote that would let them get away with a waiver of a dangerous situation.

This is akin to a child not liking the answer one parent give them, only to run to the other parent to ask the same question in order to get an override.

The interesting issue here is that by seeking a waiver under AFMAN 33-214V2, the Coast Guard states that cheap Mylar/foil shielding may be used in cases where the digital signals are less the 5,000 bits per second (or 5Kbps). The CAT 5E cables that are at issue are actually capable of speeds up to, and in excess of 100 million bits per second (or 100Mbps), or twenty thousand times faster. If the cable were merely used for ISDN communications for a STE connection then the data speeds involved would be 192kbps, which is 38 times faster then the USAF specification. In either regards, brining up an Air Force specification, as an excuse as to why he Coast Guard should issue a waiver on the matter is ludicrous, but it also shows just how desperate the Coast Guard was to cover up the problem.


In Summary

I have serious discomfort and grave concerns with the prospect of any further asset deliveries, given what I have seen by studying documents regarding the Deepwater program… the men and women of the Coast Guard have a tough job to do, and they deserve better then ships that leak, and are unusable.

 

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