You need more than the Flag 🇮🇳

Описание: Strait of Hormuz is one of the most sensitive maritime chokepoints in the world, where geopolitical tensions, naval surveillance, and global oil shipping routes intersect. In such high risk waters, a ship’s national flag alone does not determine its identity. Modern maritime security relies on systems like the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which broadcasts a vessel’s position, speed, course, name, and its 9 digit Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI). The first three digits of the MMSI represent the Maritime Identification Digit (MID) that reveals the country of registration. India uses MID 419, while countries with very large maritime fleets such as the United States operate multiple MID blocks including 338, 366, 367, 368 and 369.

The reason some countries receive additional MID prefixes is explained by the 80 percent exhaustion rule used in global maritime communications. A new MID block can be allocated only when the existing one is more than 80 percent used and projections show that 90 percent exhaustion will soon be reached. Because the United States assigns a very large number of maritime identities, it has multiple MID codes, while India continues to operate under a single MID block. Maritime authorities and naval forces do not rely only on flags when verifying vessels. They cross check AIS signals, MMSI registration, IMO numbers, vessel ownership databases, and historical ship tracking data. Techniques such as AIS spoofing, AIS blackout, identity masking, and documentation manipulation exist in global shipping, but they carry serious operational and legal risks in monitored sea lanes like the Strait of Hormuz.

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