Cell Phone Geotags Used by Insurgents In Iraq to Target Helos
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  1. #1
    Registered User slgrieb's Avatar
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    Cell Phone Geotags Used by Insurgents In Iraq to Target Helos

    Yet another fine post from from Defensetech.org:

    Insurgents Used Cell Phone Geotags to Destroy AH-64s in Iraq



    Here’s a battlefield safety issue that some people have been warning about –and others have been ignoring — for a while now; an enemy using social media and cellphone geotagging to identify the precise location of troops on a battlefield.

    When you take a photo with your cellphone, the gps coordinates of the location you took the picture is embedded into the image. When you upload said photo onto the internet for all to see, people can pull the location data from that picture. If you think this is just people being paranoid and that the Taliban would never do this in Afghanistan, think again. Insurgents figured out how to use this to their advantage in Iraq years ago. In 2007, a group of Iraqi insurgents used geotags to destroy several American AH-64 Apache choppers sitting on a flightline in Iraq.

    From an Army press release warning of the dangers of geotags:

    When a new fleet of helicopters arrived with an aviation unit at a base in Iraq, some Soldiers took pictures on the flightline, he said. From the photos that were uploaded to the Internet, the enemy was able to determine the exact location of the helicopters inside the compound and conduct a mortar attack, destroying four of the AH-64 Apaches.

    During Israel’s 2006 war in southern Lebanon with Iranian-backed militia (more like a full on army) Hezbollah, Iranian SIGINT professionals tracked signals coming from personal cell phones of Israeli soldiers to identify “assembly points of Israeli troops that may have telegraphed the points of offensive thrusts into Lebanon.”

    This is just one more example of low-end cyber warfare that can be as deadly as expensive software worms designed to infiltrate an enemy’s most heavily defended networks.





    March 15th, 2012 | Around the Globe, Cyber Security Center, Future Wars, The Deadlies | Comments (69)



    Read more: http://defensetech.org/#ixzz1pVB7b0Wd
    Defense.org

  2. #2
    Driver Terrier NooNoo's Avatar
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    It is pure arrogance to think your enemy is stupid.
    Never, ever approach a computer saying or even thinking "I will just do this quickly."

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    Registered User Niclo Iste's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by NooNoo View Post
    It is pure arrogance to think your enemy is stupid.
    Makes you wonder why the Sun Tzu isn't mandatory in training for grunts and leadership.
    One Script to rule them all.
    One Script to find them.
    One Script to bring them all,
    and clean up after itself.

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    Registered User CeeBee's Avatar
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    On all field phones we had in the military it was written something like "Beware! The enemy is listening!"
    Protected by Glock. Don't mess with me!

  5. #5
    Registered User Niclo Iste's Avatar
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    I remember when meeting a retired intel officer he made a very important statement that he still lived by.

    "If you don't want someone to know something NEVER use an electrical communications device and if possible don't even write it on paper either."

    He used to do communications interception so I'm going to assume he had a reason for that belief.
    One Script to rule them all.
    One Script to find them.
    One Script to bring them all,
    and clean up after itself.

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    Registered User Guts3d's Avatar
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    What astounds me is that in the Air Force, we are encouraged to use Facebook, MySpace, etc. Everytime I think that the military has done the stupidest thing ever, they do something worse.
    " I don't like the idea of getting shot in the hand" -Blackie in "Rustlers Rhapsody"

    " It is a proud and lonely thing, to be a Stainless Steel Rat." - Slippery Jim DiGriz

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