Strava allows you to record your sports performances and then share them publicly. Thanks to geolocation, the application records the precise position of its user while traveling, as well as other data such as distance and speed. Once connected to the internet, the subscriber can broadcast this data on their Strava profile, privately, only visible to their subscribers or in a manner accessible to all users.
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Data that updates by period, revealing clues about underwater patrols
This is where the problem lies. According to Le Monde, over the last ten years, more than 450 French SSBN crew members have published on Strava a record of their sporting activities carried out while they were on Île Longue, one of the secret bases of the French navy located in the harbor of Brest. This information therefore makes it possible to determine how submarine patrols work. There are four of these and each can carry sixteen nuclear missiles. There is always at least one of the four submersibles patrolling the sea, where it must be ready to carry its missiles to specific locations in case the President of the Republic gives the order.
The Long Island base is largely secure, there are numerous controls to enter and smartphones are prohibited in a large part of the area. But how can sensitive data escape? It seems that submariners’ smartwatches do not attract the attention of security guards. These devices can store officers’ data, and update their Strava profile once they get their smartphone back. Le Monde noticed that they seem active rather north of the naval base.
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If SSBN crew members have a public profile on the application, and they do not use a pseudonym but their real identity, anyone can see when updates take place, but also know the periods when they were not active and potentially at sea. Often, submariners won’t post anything for several weeks, then suddenly reappear on Strava. Some even comment on their performance with very clear information, like this officer who posted a release “after more than two and a half months in a shoebox” and who added bubble and diving mask emojis to his sentence.
By analyzing the data shared by the submariners of Île Longue, Le Monde was able to determine with more or less precision the dates of at least four French submarine missions. If these leaks of partially secret data do not represent a “major risk” for the country’s defense, foreign powers could possibly use it in one way or another.
