Imagine seeing one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world almost empty, before realizing that it isn't empty at all. The ships are still there, but the data has disappeared.

Analysts monitoring the Strait of Hormuz have watched vessels vanish only to reappear someplace else hours later. Others appear to be sailing across inland airports or drifting through the Iranian desert.

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) has quietly become part of the information infrastructure that global trade depends on.

So what happens when one of the world's most trusted sources of maritime information can no longer be accepted at face value?

In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner breaks down why the tracking system the entire shipping industry runs on can no longer be trusted and who's actually exposed:

- Why self-reporting makes AIS, the backbone of global ship tracking, scalable and vulnerable to manipulation

- The difference between the information provided by AIS and other systems like radar and GPS

- Why insurers, commodity traders, and sanctions regulators are all pricing risk off data that may be fictional

Links:

Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/

Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193

Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com

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