[endgame]

Not everyone's got AIS and ECDIS though. The places where I trained really pushed DSC for fishing and recreational use, by making it relevant to the little guys too: "If you'd just found a good fishing spot or a nice quiet place, why would you go blabbing to everyone about it on ch16? Call your mate up on DSC instead." They also made a point of telling people to spend that bit extra to get a radio that doesn't suck. Buying a cheap transceiver and having to input a MMSI using up/down/enter/back is really annoying and doesn't help take-up at all.

Speaking of AIS, did you see this thing from a couple of years back: http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/v... ?

[shiggerino]

That's true. But it does help a lot that there's a merchant ship equipped with these things as well as a fast rescue boat if you're ever in distress. Furthermore, writing free software for the big ships will also help the little guys too, even if it means running the software on a laptop for extra situational awareness.

As for security, yes, this is a problem. It's the same in aviation with ADS-B, completely unauthenticated messages that the on-board software will happily digest,[1] whether it's to mislead the pilots or find some vulnerability in the avionics software to exploit. How can this be anything but gross negligence on the part of both the regulatory committees and the industry at large?

1. http://www.esecurityplanet.com/network-security/security-fla...