Today morning I woke up to news that about 22,400 pages with details of the Scorpene submarine have been leaked through The Australian newspaper. These submarines are to secure the defense capabilities of the country and here their complete details are out in the public domain.
What a sad day for the country when our secrets have been easily handed over to known / unknown enemies.
As the day progressed, our Government woke up too and started a day of outrageously ignorant statements, bordering on the edge of ridiculousness.
The Defence Minister, Mr Parikar, came up saying “this is not a leak it is a hack”.
He had also said that he came to know about the incident from the media so maybe no one read the article. It clearly says that the documents seem to have moved out of France sometime in 2011. They travelled to SE Asia and then to Australia. They documents were sent in a CD (horrible security)
Dear Sir – pray how did you know within a few hours that it is a hack and not a leak!
It is a shock and a shame that the French company sent out the documents in 2011 for commercial use (??). This is supposed to be a company engaged in building defence equipment and even an unborn child will know that this sort of information has to be kept in absolute secrecy. I sincerely hope that DCNS is kicked out of business by the French government and burned to the ground. This is what can be termed as a cardinal sin.
Then again the Honb’le Minister went ahead and underplayed the incident saying:
- We need to ascertain if it related to us – sir, the very first report said that the pages were marked “Restricted Scorpene India” and then there is a cover page! What more do we need to see to “ascertain’ who this belongs to.
- Case of hacking, not 100% leaked – and how did you know, sir, that this is a hacking case and not a leak. Did you not read the very first news report which talks about 2011!
- Final Integration lies with India – sir, ok so we will do the final integration but will that include changes in the all those features which are security sensitive and can compromise the stealth of the submarine. Is it that easy?
- We will find out who did this – why do we make such statements! How about a reality check and move on to be less macho.
The nation needs pragmatic and strong responses but every statement sounds casual and makes one wonder why the Government cannot react intelligently. This is an incident of national concern and the French company has goofed up real bad and need to come clean – and they are not doing this in any manner.
First DSCW called it “economic warfare” (what a load of bull…..). Now DSCW has put out the lamest statement about the leak.
Hey guys… The leak has happened in 2011 and it seems that the documents went out to a SE Asian country as a commercial act. Was DCNS using the Indian documents to sell their submarines to the other countries – this is what needs to be investigated.
Consider the following – both these countries say this has no “bearing” on their program! Nice. :
- Malaysia – The Naval Chief has said that their security is not affected as the leaked data has no bearing on them.
- Australia – Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne said his officials believed the leak had “no bearing” on the Australia’s submarine program.
The references cited below provide information about the contents of the 22400 pages and the weaknesses that will be exposed. This is being downplayed by a number of retired officers and being flagged as dangerous by some – this is a clear indicator of a coverup being attempted. The reasoning is simple – how can there be two different opinions about the security ramifications against the leak of restricted data. If such an exposure is not a threat to national security then why classify it “restricted” ?
References
- Our French submarine builder in massive leak scandal
- Scorpene data leak: India to seek report from French shipbuilder
- Scorpene Leak: Safety of Indian Crew Depends on Radiated Noise Frequencies Remaining Secret
- Over 20,000 pages of top-secret data about India’s mega submarine project leaked, says The Australian
- Scorpene submarines documents leak case of hacking: Manohar Parrikar
