US Army warns vs geotagging security risks on social media

Is a badge on Foursquare worth your life?

This was the question the United States Army posed to its personnel recently as it warned of the danger of social geotagging to military security.

 

With more smartphones and online services automatically indicating the location of their owners or subscribers, the Army warned soldiers could be giving away their whereabouts to enemies.

 

"Someone with the right software and the wrong motivation could download the photo and extract the coordinates from the metadata," it said.

 

Steve Warren, deputy G2 for the Maneuver Center of Excellence (MCoE), cited a real-world example from 2007, when a new fleet of helicopters arrived with an aviation unit at a base in Iraq.

 

Some soldiers took pictures on the flightline and uploaded the photos to the Internet, allowing the enemy to determine the exact location of the helicopters inside the compound and subsequently conduct a mortar attack.

 

Four of the AH-64 Apaches were destroyed.

 

Worry over Facebook Timeline

 

Staff Sgt. Dale Sweetnam of the Online and Social Media Division said geotagging is of particular concern for deployed soldiers and those in transit to a mission.

 

"Ideally, Soldiers should always be aware of the dangers associated with geotagging regardless of where they are," he said.

 

Worse, he said Facebook is now rolling out Timeline, a new layout that includes a map tab of all the locations a user has tagged.

 

"Timeline presents some unique security challenges for users who tag location to posts ... Some of those individuals have hundreds of 'friends' they may never have actually met in person. By looking at someone's map tab on Facebook, you can see everywhere they've tagged a location ... Honestly, it's pretty scary how much an acquaintance that becomes a Facebook 'friend' can find out about your routines and habits if you're always tagging location to your posts," Sweetnam said. 

 

He said a good rule of thumb when using location-based social networking applications is "do not become friends with someone if you haven't met them in person."

 

Giving info to the enemy

 

Kent Grosshans, MCoE OPSEC officer, said the adversary could be a hacker, could be terrorists, could be criminals; someone who has an intent to cause harm.

 

"The adversary picks up on pieces of information to put the whole puzzle together," he said.

 

Grosshans suggested disabling the geotagging feature on the smartphone and checking security settings to see who one is sharing check-ins with.

 

"If your husband's deployed and you go ahead and start posting all these pictures that are geotagged, now not only does an individual know your husband's deployed and he's not at home, but they know where your house is," he said.

 

"Before adding a location to a photo, Soldiers really need to step back and ask themselves, 'Who really needs to know this location information?'" he added.

 

UK Army's mobile phone ban

 

The British army has banned the use of all mobile phones in operational zones like Afghanistan, and cautions against soldiers taking pictures on smartphones in any circumstances, the British Broadcasting Co. reported.

 

Daniel Sherman, of defence think tank Royal United Services Insitute, warned that anything personal posted by soldiers on a social media site, such as family pictures, could be used against them by the enemy if they are captured in action.

 

"That kind of thing could be used to the enemy's advantage to weaken their spirit," he said.

 

The UK Army also has guidelines about the use of social media sites by soldiers both in the UK and on deployment abroad, and social media training is given in barracks. — TJD, GMA News