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U.S. Forces In Iraq Ban GPS Phones
Brian Enigma writes "According to a report last night on NPR and these two articles, Central Command has banned a particular satellite phone from reporters. It seems that it not only has a GPS--to help locate which satellite to use--but also (if activated) transmits the users location back to the phone company. Eavesdropping this signal is nontrivial, but still possible."
And why shouldn't they?
Maybe they don't have to intercept the signal. Maybe they only have to hack into the telephone company and read their locations from their computers.
How does dropping bombs on crowded markets prevent phone eavesdropping?
For the embedded reporters, in order to be where they are they had to agree to follow a few common sense rules... some of the most important being that they aren't allowed to report on any future movements they may know of, and that they're never allowed to reveal the exact location of the unit.
These particular phones do just that... transmit the GPS location back to the telecom provider, people outside of the military who have no clearance to be handling such secret info. Yeah, it's likely that the telecom provider can be trusted, but why trust somebody to keep a secret when you can just not tell them the info in the first place?
The exact GPS location of our troops is a military secret, and for a good reason too!
Seriously.. if the Iraqis want to know exactly where a lot of US troops are, what they're doing, and where thery're going, all they need is a TV with CNN, Fox News or MSNBC.
I'm all for freedom of information, but the ammount of apparently strategically useful information being flooded over public airwaves is a bit disturbing.
^nA! Creatures in my Head
1. It isn't news because it's a story that's at least two weeks old.
I had a heated discussion with at least one sceptic who didn't believe it was at all possible just here on slashdot only last week.
Suffice to say that Twirlip of the Mists didn't believe that the US military would do anything to harm journalists going about their daily business of informing us about this war and that the journalists who first reported this story must have "misunderstood" what the Pentagon meant when they said that all independent transmissions were legitimate targets. Bless his cotton little socks.
2. It is news because not all journalists in Iraq are "embedded" with US or British units.
A journalists main objective (the bias of his or her parent organisation aside) is to get to the truth. It's pretty hard to do that if you only see what the US and British commanders on the ground want you to see. Just as you shouldn't trust everything that's broadcast by Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine on Iraqi TV, you also shouldn't trust everything that the mainstream press's embedded journalists report. To get a more accurate picture you have to do what the military themselves teach their commanders to do with their intelligence reports; look at lots of different news sources, filter out the garbage and actively search for the truth rather than just accept what's handed to you on a plate.
Accordingly, the less superficial news gathering services and agencies have a lot of journalists in Iraq that aren't embedded.
(Remember, CNN, NBC, CBS or whoever are commercial news broadcasters. It's in their interests to tell the American public what they believe the American public wants to hear. Nobody wants to eat their dinner whilst hearing about how a US patrol killed fleeing women and children, so the networks don't show them that side of the war.)
Sorry if this seems like a rant but the amount of ignorance that the general public has about this war (and, unfortunately, this is especially true of the average American) is frightening.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Or, they could just use Iridum (however you spell it) like the other journalists in the NPR piece.
Considering over half of the fatalities have been from the US, I'd be worried to.
It's no wonder Canada refused to be a part of this war considering they were bombed by the US in Afghanistan.
Exactly. Someone should tell congress this before they pass anymore privacy-invading laws!
neurostarsomeone mentironed the iraqis prolly don't have gps weapons - and that's irrelevant.
if you hand me your lat/lon within 100m, i can find you - maybe with a missile, maybe with a truck, maybe with a lot of stuff. and i can do it with a $100 gps, close enough to kill you. i don't want this happening to our troops so that some media diva can be avant garde.
truth is the npr story mentioned some whiney reporters having to use a plain old sat phone and dictate stories to a copy desk and pitching a fit. they need to understand they are just barely able to do this period, they do not have a god given right to be ther, and that there is a more than acceptable risk of becoming pink mist on no notice.
suck it up, do your job, and listen to the professional warriors.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Signal Ops with Hum Int is very powerful. In this case the Hum Int may be the bigger concern.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Maybe you should stop reading so much Chomsky and come back down to reality here. We all recognize the fallibility and bias inherent to any reporting, and that most commercial American media outlets are very cautious about specific images of dead people and blown up babies they are willing to put on the screen because of how the public would perceive it. But normal people don't see conspiracies to withold information from the American public around every corner - most journalists still have basic integrity and dedication to the truth, and try to police their own bias (sources like Fox News, who embrace their bias, excluded - but even then, at least you know it's there and can filter out all the gungho patriotic fervor stuff).
We heard earlier this week that Russian contractors were in Bagdhad training Iraqi military how to use GPS satellite blocking devices. I assume they could have also sold the Iraquis other technologies as well.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Ever since 9/11/01, the american media self-censors. And it has said that publically. Grandparent post isn't a 'commie', he's just telling it like it is...and if you accessed multiple news sources, you'd know that too.
/none!/ on CNN and was blasted all over the middle eastern press. In my estimate, the casualty rate was anywhere between the UK and the middle eastern estimates...but at least I know it happened, unlike many in the US.
One real good example is a friendly fire incident (yet another one, but this one was quite hefty) that happened three days ago. Got one mention on the BBC,
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
That was the initial estimate during the war. Afterwards, the number was found to be a couple of orders of magnitude lower. Iraqi units that were bombed had far fewer soldiers than had been estimated, and they were smart enough to mostly stay away from where the bombs were dropping.
It is important to get this news. You're right that American media isn't carrying it.
Just curious. Does anyone know if the Arab media carrying the reports that Iraqi Military and Paramilitary are firing on civilians trying to leave Basra? I couldn't find any reference to it from English-language Arabic news sources on news.google.com, but then the English-language Arabic news sources don't seem to be much referenced on news.google.com, lately
There were lots of English-language Arabic News source there a few days ago. Somebody mentioned this this here, and I have to say it does seem like these source have dried up on news.google.com.
It's like when MS talks about improving the user experience or whatnot. They always have ulterior motives. The end result may be an improved user experience, but in the process it may involve bundling something to kill a competitor.
Same deal with the government. Usually what they say is true prima facie, but there are usually many other things going on, and it's naive to assume otherwise.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Uh-huh. And given the dozens of reports, even in the Middle Eastern media, of Iraqi Fedayeen militias firing on Iraqi civilians who tried to leave cities, how do you know that these were shot by US Marines?
These particular civilians, this particular story? Well, the reporter was stationed with U.S. troops and talked to those around him who had some semblence of an idea what had happened there. If there had been any mystery over what had happened there (and if there was some sort of cover-up attempted, that's what the reporter would have been told, that it was unknown who did it or believed that Iraqi fighters did it) the reporter would have reported it as such. At least you would expect so. There isn't any detail over whether the reporter arrived with new troops to be with troops already there or whether the reporter had arrived with troops who found that scene.
It was a strategically important bridge, right? The US/UK troops would had to have been in control before the event happened, or there would have been a recent battle for the bridge while the 12 bodies were still lying there. There was no mention of a recent battle in the article.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
And again, to call your choice of what you say `censorship' is an act of doublespeak of which Orwell's MiniTrue would be proud indeed.
Of course you choose what you say based on your audience. If you say `I eat puppies' in polite company you will be stared at. This doesn't mean that you have been `censored' from saying it. As long as you make the choice, however, you have not been censored.
Umm, no. Summarizing events necessarily results in loss of detail.
Or are you suggesting that every time you take less than eight hours to answer the question `what did you do at work today' you are lying?
I'd really love to see the iraqi commando dressed up as a 5 year old girl in yellow dress.
You idiots, he didnt WRITE THE STUFF, he quoted it from http://www.iraqwar.ru/
p g
Whos a MORON NOW.
or is this guy YOU ?
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/prowarprot.j
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Serious Consequences was not == Permission to start war
It was more like next resolution may be permission to start war.
(Remember that US have not got that resolution -- at least yet.)