But the ocean is very very huge to find it still.

You don't have to search the entire planet. A carrier's general location is always semi-public. There are websites dedicated to tracking them, just like jets. And carriers roll with an entire strike group of 8-10 ships and 5-10K personnel, which are together impossible to miss.

A carrier strike group isn't meant to be stealthy. Quite the opposite. It is the ultimate tool for power projection and making a statement. If it is moving to a new region it will do so with horns blaring.

Obviously troops shouldn't be broadcasting their location regardless, but this particular leak isn't as impactful as the news is making it out to be.

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torginus 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOSUS

Am I supposed to believe we live in a world where this exists, yet carriers are impossible to find and track on the sea?

Besides, modern fighter jets have radars with 400km detection ranges against fighter sized targets.

A dozen of them or more specialized sensor aircraft could cover entire conflict zones.

	▲	robotresearcher 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Of course it's possible to find a giant ship. The interesting parts are that this vector is crazy cheap using public APIs, and the irony of the location source being the voluntary-or-ignorant active telemetry from a US service person. It's possible to go to the moon, launch ICBMs, and make fusion bombs. It's news when something possible gets cheap and easy. It's also newsworthy when one of the most powerful and expensive weapon platforms in history doesn't have its infosec buttoned down.

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justsomehnguy 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And American carriers never operate alone, it's a whole Carrier Battle Group there.

	▲	cwillu 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The battle group doesn't cruise around in formation, for specifically this reason.