URSABLOG: The Cranes Are Listening

Once upon a time, a long time ago, before Covid and entry into our language of phrases like ‘supply chain bottlenecks’ and ‘friend shoring’, before Ever Given memes were thought of packs of techies roamed the streets of cities like Athens and Piraeus, Hamburg, Copenhagen and Singapore, evangelists for a new world where tech (which meant different things to different evangelists) could transform the shipping industry into something beautiful and new. Autonomous ships, smart maintenance and management, data farming, AI, whatever they were hawking around, it would be transformative, and of course, very cool. It would also, of course, make them very rich.

And when, like all true believers, their vision was rejected and the practicalities of moving stuff by sea obstructed the one true way, they blamed those who they were trying to convert for not seeing the light. Shipowners (particularly Greek shipowners) were old fashioned, conservative, resistant to change, not willing to invest in the future – the techies’ future that is – and condemned to extinction or the hell or irrelevance. In particular, the reluctance of owners to share their data was extremely frustrating for them, for without that data, they could not manipulate, sorry develop, the industry so that they could make money, sorry innovate and provide new solutions. These solutions were a bit vague, and despite all the presentations and computer-generated graphics, it was difficult to pin down exactly how the data would be used to make the industry better, except to make it more transparent and that was, after all, a good thing.

Back then, technology had no colour, no nationality, no side, no ideology, it was going to bring the world together and usher in a new era of world peace and fulfilment. It could also make you a great deal of money if your start-up was successful and took over the world, or even if your start-up was bought out by a bigger tech company. Long hours, and a macho no-sleep culture was the aesthetic for the techies. It didn’t matter that you worked like hell, as long as you had employers that fed you with soya milk decaf lattes, pizza and you worked in a cool place. This was the future, and you were already there.

Except it wasn’t.

Fast forward to now, post-Covid, with technology now taking sides in a world where states are shifting to a more confrontational posture to each other. Chips, and chip-making technology do not move around the world freely: there are borders and checkpoints, sanctions and restrictions. The big tech companies – Apple, Meta, Amazon, Google and the rest – are now seen not as the saviours of the world, but more sinister exploiters of privacy, data, and peace of mind, and their products are deteriorating into ad-infested time thieves. People are going back to looking at separate websites for what interests them or what they want to buy rather than waiting for Apple, Meta, Amazon, Google and the rest to tell them what they want. 

In shipping, those tech platforms that have proved successful are those which are tools to assist professionals in what they already do rather than replace them. And even AI – whatever you take that to mean – is being seen as less about creating new ideas as processing large amounts of data very quickly. I have not seen much about autonomous ships or data-driven solutions recently. The more interesting things that are out there concern using AI and other technology to change the hardware itself, and measure the effects. This is true particularly in the field of decarbonisation.

But when technology is now taking sides, there is the weaponising of technology too. 

Two announcements this week made me think that we are entering a dangerous world where we will all be affected. The first was a comment from the Director of the FBI that it was “laser focused” on Chinese efforts to insert malicious software code into computer networks. Christopher Wray said he was acutely concerned about “pre-positioning” of malware. “I’m sober and clear minded about what we’re up against . . . They already have built economic espionage and theft of personal and corporate data as a kind of a bedrock of their economic strategy…” but espionage generally – for strategic purposes – is increasing.

Then later in the week came the signing of an executive order by President Joe Biden President giving the US Coast Guard greater powers to police cyber security at ports. He also announced the replacement of the nation’s Chinese-built port cranes with Japanese-designed ones over concerns that they could contain embedded spy devices, or other even more sinister things. Anne Neuberger, Deputy National Security Advisor for cyber and emerging technology explained:

“These cranes, because they are essentially moving the large-scale containers in and out of port, if they were encrypted in a criminal attack, or rented or operated by an adversary, that could have real impact on our economy’s movement of goods and our military’s movement of goods through ports.” 

The Administration has earmarked US$ 20 billion over the next five years to get the 80% of Chinese built cranes currently used in American ports replaced by those built by a US subsidiary of Mitsui. The Chinese built cranes use Chinese software, and the concern is that at a flick of a remote switch somewhere, not only could they scan all the networks available to it for information concerning infrastructure and supply chains, they could also remotely disable the cranes themselves. 

This is good news for Mitsui, obviously, but also creates a new environment for shipping where potentially only trusted manufacturers can make and use equipment to be used in allied countries. 

The implications are profound. What about ships built in China, especially those built with Chinese equipment that use Chinese software? Will these ships be able to spy for China? Will they be able to be messed around with when calling in US or other allied countries’ ports whoever is operating or managing them? Will the US and their allies insist that Chinese built vessels are barred from using their ports? Or at least be swept for malignant devices, before loading or discharging? Amongst all the other documents and certificates to be presented to shippers and receivers, will they have to include makers’ lists and cybersecurity health checks?

It may sound a little far-fetched but some serious lines are being drawn in the sand at the moment, and whilst I may be exaggerating a little bit, I don’t think by too much. In a world when we are genuinely worried that our phones are listening to what we are saying, it seems natural to assume that port cranes – and ships for that matter – could be doing the same thing.

So in this brave new world, with technology seen to be more malign and threatening rather than the bringer of world peace, it seems that the conservative and protective nature of shipowners has been proven correct. Navigation, whether through the seas themselves, around the shifting boundaries of confrontation and conflict, or even amongst geopolitical great power games is becoming more difficult. Those that have the ships have to protect the ships themselves, and their crews, and they have done well to be cautious in the face of the tech evangelists who it seems have moved on to different causes to proselytize. In this difficult world, I find it comforting to remember the words of a shipowner friend of mine: “Never be in a hurry to make a mistake.”

Simon Ward