2021年6月，“埃弗特森”号护卫舰的船员出现在乌克兰南部敖德萨港的甲板上。据荷兰地区广播公司Omroep Gelderland报道，该机构通过军事邮件向舰上发送一个蓝牙追踪器，成功实时追踪了荷兰皇家海军“埃弗特森”号防空护卫舰。该护卫舰目前正作为法国“戴高乐”号航母打击群的一员在地中海部署。
该广播公司在其网站上写道，追踪器是在船上分拣邮件时被发现的，但此时Omroep Gelderland已经追踪了“埃弗特森”号24小时。据该媒体报道，荷兰国防部表示正在采取应对措施。此前，《世界报》曾于3月报道，由于一名法国军官佩戴的联网手表同步了数据，导致该军官在“戴高乐”号航母甲板上进行跑步时的坐标被泄露。
奈梅亨拉德堡德大学国家安全法助理教授罗温·詹森表示：“你确实希望能够拦截此类追踪器。目前商业卫星图像之所以延迟发布是有充分理由的。你肯定不想让恐怖分子轻易发送类似包裹并实时跟踪船只位置。否则你将面临被导弹袭击的风险。”
该广播公司描述称，他们根据国防部关于如何向军事人员发送邮件的在线指令，利用军事邮政服务将这种通常用于找物品的蓝牙追踪器装在信封里寄给了护卫舰。虽然国防部会通过X射线扫描包裹检查是否有违禁品或危险品，但该媒体注意到在线视频显示信封并未被扫描，因此决定将追踪器夹在明信片中进行测试。
Crew members of the frigate Evertsen are seen on deck at the port of Odesa, southern Ukraine, in June 2021. (Yulii Zozulia/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)PARIS — Dutch regional broadcaster Omroep Gelderland was able to track the Royal Netherlands Navy air-defense frigate Evertsen in real time by sending a Bluetooth tracker to the ship by military mail. The frigate is part of the carrier strike group around France’s Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier currently deployed in the Mediterranean Sea.The tracker was discovered while sorting mail on board, though only after Omroep Gelderland had been tracking the Evertsen for 24 hours, the broadcaster wrote on its website on Thursday. The Dutch Ministry of Defence said it’s taking measures in response, according to the broadcaster.The tracker incident comes after a Le Monde reported in March it was able to locate a French officer taking a 7-kilometer run around the deck of the Charles de Gaulle while the carrier was at sea, through data from the officer’s connected watch via the running and cycling app Strava.“You do want to be able to intercept such a tracker,” Rowin Jansen, assistant professor of national security law at Radboud University in Nijmegen, told Omroep Gelderland. “Commercial satellite images are currently released with a delay for good reason. You certainly don’t want to make it easy for terrorists to send a similar package and track a ship’s location in real time. You then run the risk of having missiles fired at you.”The broadcaster described sending the Bluetooth tracker, a gadget used for example to find keys, to the frigate in an envelope using the military postal service, following online instructions from the MoD on how to send mail to military personnel.While the ministry checks whether prohibited or dangerous items are sent by mail by X-ray scanning packages, Omroep Gelderland noted that online videos showed envelops not being scanned, so decided to pack the tracker in a postcard, with the gadget going undetected and simply mailed.“In a large-scale conflict, everyone needs to ask themselves: What can I contribute to the safety of our men and women?” said retired Lt. Gen. Mart de Kruif, as cited by the broadcaster. “So you should no longer rely on existing rules, but on what is necessary. We’re still a bit naive, and that mindset needs to change.”Omroep Gelderland mapped the route of the tracker from the Dutch naval base in Den Helder to Eindhoven Airport, and then on to the port of Heraklion in Crete, where webcam images showed the Evertsen moored at the quay.With the frigate departing the port on March 27, the broadcaster said it was able to track the vessel sailing west along the coast of Crete before setting an eastward course. The tracker then went permanently offline 24 hours later near Cyprus, it said.The MoD has made adjustments in response to the reported incident, including no longer allowing greeting cards with batteries to be sent to the Evertsen, and the
