The commanders and generals of the U.S. army sent out a warning, letting all troops know that they should be careful when using the new Facebook feature that locates where the account is being used from. This poses a major security threat to the troops. If the troops were to access this "locate tool" they could post were they currently were therefore posing an easy way for enemy troops to locate and attack the U.S. troops with ease. One of the major threats are those caused from Blackberry's or iPhones in which location services can be used via a network connection all the time using location services on either of these devices. The reason they feel this is threatening is because the enemy could easily locate where the main base station's are located, it is also much more of a threat because of the increasing popularity of Blackberry's and iPhones. On most of the programs you actually have to activate the service and list different locations. A main security issue is those people that activate the program un-aware that there security settings are at "everybody" meaning that there full profile is un-protected and available for all to see.
I believe that this warning sent out is extremely right, you would never want the enemy to know your position, it would make you look like sitting ducks. I personally do not use this location feature on facebook, I feel that its not right i do not want people to know where i am all the time, when I want to let people know where i am i just tell them, I don't need them snooping through my profile to see where i wrote my last post. I believe that soldiers should all have this off in the first place, it would risk the lives of all the other soldiers in his or her area. Another good point is that Facebook automatically sets it to off meaning that the people using it have to make a conscious decision whether to let the whole world know where they are. Although this may be cool, and it could be a sense of pride to say that the solider is writing from Afghanistan, it is a safety hazard and for that reason I agree with the commanders and believe that location services on social networking sites should be turned off at all times.
I think your exactly right, Marc. The public these days has access to everything. We have such minimal privacy, and something so unnecessary has a location finder on Facebook seems rather stupid to me. Especially if this puts the U.S. military at risk, it seems ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI think that this seams to be an overreaction.First of all I would hope that American and allied forces are deployed together in battle groups and entrenched in operation bases, which would be hard to conceal but even harder to attack. So the threat of terrorist locating and "hunting down" single soldiers would be minimal. Secondly the information of location offered on Facebook is seriously minimal. Nowadays with the proper knowledge and a decent computer, even amateurs can track small bits of data like a photo or text message. The "threat" of Facebook to soldiers is a gross exaggeration.
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