The U.S. Air Force declared a warning among all its servicemen and women today that popular services which make use of geolocation namely Facebook Places, Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt etc. could involuntarily disclose a sensitive location to the enemy forces. Previous precautions were for civilians and enlistees, and were only as remote as quoting "loose lips sink ships." But today's warning has is serious, as it was also posted in a confidential internal website earlier this month, the Air Force claimed that "careless use of these services by airmen can have devastating operations security and privacy implications," reported by the Associated Press. To spread the words, this warning is promoted by the Air Force and conveyed by all the senior commanders and requested them to spread the word out to their forces, reported the Associated Press.
Military officials are specifically concerned about the scenario. Where enemy can use the features of a location-based website easily and track troop members who have smartphones. From where they can easily utilize through networking services and commence an attack and even cleverly avoid an already planned attack by the forces. Explaning the sensitivity of the matter, U.S. Army had planned to deliver the same warning, next week, to all key persons related to these location-based sites, according to the AP.
The Department of Defense released a policy memorandum, this February, on the same topic as it highlighted the safe and effective use of Internet-based facilities, including social networking services and other interactive web 2.0 applications as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment