Ask Slashdot: VPN Service For a Deployed US Navy Ship? 349
shinjikun34 writes "I am currently stationed on a U.S. Navy ship deployed in a country with restrictive internet policies. We are currently in the process of setting up an entertainment internet connection for the crew to use in their downtime. I suggested (and was thereby tasked with finding) a VPN service that would support 100 to 500 devices, have an end point inside the continental United States, be reasonably priced, and secure/trustworthy. Something that is safe to use for banking and other financial affairs. Ideally, it would be fast enough to support several VoIP calls (Skype, Google Voice, etc) along side online gaming, with possible movie/music streaming. It will need an end point in the U.S. to allow for use of Google Books, Netflix, Hulu, and other services that restrict access based on region. I, in all honesty, have no idea where to begin searching, and I ask the good folks of Slashdot to aid me in my quest. One of the main requirements I was given is that the company has to be trustworthy. And it has to be a company — computer in someone's closet hosting a VPN isn't acceptable to the Navy. What services would Slashdot recommend? (I understand that our connection without a VN probably won't be able to handle the described load, but I would prefer a VN service that offers capacity above our need. That way when T/S'ing the connection, the VPN can be at least partially ruled out.)"
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh don't worry they aren't going to take your word for it.
But as far as doing their homework, gathering opinions and collating data for review, they're asking in one of the right places.
q&a seems totally legit (Score:3, Insightful)
You realize that some of the people reading Slashdot around the world are going to have a vested interest in getting a back door into your affairs, right?
This would be an excellent trap to catch foreign agents.
Re:The end point should be run by the military (Score:5, Insightful)
The NSA is tasked with securing such communication and you should regardless of classification of data be using their equipment or at least an approved system. In that way you know that you at least are protected from your provider.Your users shouldn't even know you'd doing jack to their connection except to show as a US IP address. There should be no identifying information that points that IP to any military activity.
If you read between the lines, the poster is saying that this is an entirely separate network where the crew can bring their personal (non work) systems, and it will have no access or visibility to any of the ships systems or network. As such, those requirements go away. The Navy of course wants a US-based company to approach so they can monitor use and make sure that if another Wikileaks happens, they are a phone call away from saying "It was this guy, at this time, on this terminal," and also because US-based company means US-based laws -- and it's harder for a foreign national to penetrate a domestic service than a foreign one, especially after it gets hardened, which falls under the purvue of the DHS, not the NSA, in this case -- since the company is private, not military. And it probably will have cameras in the rec area, as all meeting and confidential areas on the ship do. So let's just go ahead and assume that the security people have already reviewed this and have green-lit it with the appropriate restrictions. They are, afterall, highly trained professionals. -_-
Remember that aircraft carriers have thousands of personnel, deployed for months at a time with no access to anything but the ship. Entertainment becomes incredibly important for crew morale, and the Navy recognizes the need to balance this; They want to give their crew access to everything you can do on the internet at home on their little slice of the United States afloat. And why shouldn't they?
Re:When in Rome ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Build your own - not at someone's house though. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
What the... (Score:5, Insightful)
OK I'm not American (I'm Australian), but this whole post elicits a massive "WTF" from me.
If this is a Navy ship, belonging to the world's most powerful military and run and administered by a branch of the US Government, then surely:
a) if this kind of usage of the connection is permitted, the Navy (or other government entity) would have its own infrastructure you could use for this; or
b) if not, there'd already be a clear policy that stated who your preferred providers of such a service would be (having been vetted and cleared for such use by the relevant IT people within the Navy)
I mean, I can't imagine any government department, let alone the Navy, giving some random guy the task of finding and setting up a VPN via whatever means he happened to think was good.
Also, um, doesn't the ship have its own internet connection? I'm surprised that the filtering practices of the country where you're based are affecting you ... surely you don't allow people on the ship to use random, untrusted connections provided by whatever place you happen to be in?
Anyway, as I said, I'm not American and wouldn't have a clue how the US military operates. But I can tell you this kind of thing would never fly in a government department here.
What is the physical layer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The end point should be run by the military (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read between the lines, the poster is saying that this is an entirely separate network where the crew can bring their personal (non work) systems, and it will have no access or visibility to any of the ships systems or network. As such, those requirements go away.
I just escaped from the world of contracting for the DoD and I can tell you that there is no such network on any military facility. Trust me. No boat, no ship, not even a storage shed. How do I know? Because I used to work on training simulations, and we wanted to set up things like a private WiFI network, to allow instructors to monitor simulations from a tablet device. Could we do so? No. It's against DoD rules. You can set up a private network, but only if it is wired, and only if it does not go out onto the net. Further, any machine on that network must comply with DoD Information Assurance (IA) rules. Those rules don't let you have USB enabled, you can't even have a USB port accessible on the device, without special authorization and hardening of the OS to disable the port, but allow charging.
The poster above is absolutely correct. You do not want to be caught setting up this kind of network. You will get in huge trouble if the DoD finds out. All internet access should be going from the ship, to their home port and onto the internet from there. If I were in charge of this boat, I would not do this without an order in writing authorizing me to do so because he's going to get burned if he goes thru with this.
What an AWESOME TROLL (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No internet for you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. The US Navy does a lot of great things (some of their disaster work is first-rate, for example, and they also do anti-piracy work and help ensure free navigation), but our armed forces and military policy have also been responsible for a lot of really bad things (allying with armed forces that place zero value on human life, adding to demand for forced prostitution, propping up oppressive regimes).
It's not black and white, and talking points on both sides (insofar as there are only two) have some truth to them.
Re:The end point should be run by the military (Score:5, Insightful)
Either the submitter has no clue or you have wrongly guessed abut his situation. Consider the comment about being stationed on a ship that is deployed in a country with restrictive Internet policies. If the US Navy were providing the Internet connection that they hoped to used, why would the country's Internet policies be relevant to the question? I assume that there is an Internet connection being provided via a shore-based ISP and it is snooping and restrictions on the use of the shore-based ISP that they would like to bypass using a VPN.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if it's not prevented by technological measures on the ship, you can be damned sure there are a more rules and regulations that he could spend the rest of his military career reading.
The DoD isn't particularly fond of people doing anything with information that they don't have control over.
Even if the DoD didn't like it, anyone with anything resembling security in mind wouldn't want to open up any sort of security risk. Opening an encrypted tunnel to circumvent packet inspection sounds like a wonderful way to bring in viruses, or send out classified materials. And fuck, potentially compromising any systems on a military vessel could be the difference between surviving and losing all hands.
I do have suggestions on good things to use, for civilians, in civilian environments, where it really doesn't matter if they get some malware, or otherwise hose their system. I won't touch this one. I'm allergic to prison, and more so to military prison.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
As others have mentioned, those decisions don't come down to a sailor on a ship. They come from the command. There are miles and miles of red tape,
Others have also mentioned that the military *does* have provisions for such things. In asking for another way around, he's basically saying that he wants to circumvent the security of the ship for undisclosed reasons.
Sure, there are technical ways that we can suggest to monitor the traffic on the ship side of the VPN. The problem here is that he most likely doesn't have the authority (or even real permission) to explore the options. He's most likely going to find himself in some very uncomfortable discussions with some strong penalties threatened.