Ottawa man watching spy ships for fun

An Ottawa-based IT security consultant is keeping an eye on the world's military and spy ships.

Steffan Watkins called it his hobby, bordering on obsession, which he is able to do from his home office.

“It's piecing together open-source information from transponders, whether it's people's vacation pictures or things they inadvertently take pictures of in the background, and sort of meshing together the information,” he told Ottawa Today with Mark Sutcliffe on 1310 NEWS.

“Strangely, a lot of this [spy ship information] is overt, and it's only thought of to be covert,” Watkins added.

For example, he said he tracks a Russian spy ship which travels up and down North America's east coast each year. 

“Last year, they stopped in Jamaica and the Russian embassy in Jamaica had it posted on their website,” he explained. “So it wasn't very 'spy' or 'covert' at all. It's more an international waving the flag sort of exercise. They come in, they collect their intelligence and they go back. And they do it routinely, about two months a year.”

Watkins said tracking these ships is like doing puzzles, and he enjoys comparing his information with what is being reported by international media.

The Ottawa IT security correspondent read a tweet from a FOX News correspondent in the United States last week, which said that a certain American military ship was moving into the Mediterranean Sea, so Watkins did some research and was able to call the reporter out on his information because, based on his own research, the ship was actually located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

“Anytime you see anything to do with a ship or a plane, I just want people to know that you can fact check that, and you don't just need to take the journalist at face value because they could have been lied to by a government official,” said Watkins.

Listen to the full conversation with Steffan Watkins: