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Military Operation Canceled Because of Facebook Update

Posted by samzenpus on from the private-facebook dept.

Churam writes "The Israeli military had to cancel an operation (translated from the original French) because a soldier had given some operational details on Facebook. From the article: 'An artillery soldier who was involved in this operation — the arrest of Palestinian suspects — Facebook announced on the imminence of it. "Wednesday, we're cleaning Katana and Thursday, God willing We return to the house," wrote the soldier on his Facebook page, referring to a village near Ramallah.'"

5 of 8 comments (clear)

  1. and god willing by v1 · · Score: 1

    I will get out of military prison before christmas...

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    1. Re:and god willing by Max+Threshold · · Score: 4, Funny

      Don't you mean Hanukkah?

  2. Military? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It sounds more like police operation by the military than an honest-to-god military operation.

    Of course, under these circumstance, one would be even more likely to cancel an actual military operation, ie an actual operation against an enemy military that posed a serious threat.

    But I suspect the main thing is that a soldier would be less likely to blab about such an operation.

    1. Re:Military? by kailSD · · Score: 1

      Military? Forget that, you should note that the soldier concerned is in the bloody artillery!

      Perhaps "arrest" means something else in the IDF. ;)

  3. Re:I'll bet this is a bogus story by muridae · · Score: 1

    AC has a point, here. Pretty basic SIGINT stuff, and Facebook apps do provide an awful lot of information if done correctly.

    Try it, write an app and get others to install it on their Facebook profile. The things you can learn about friends is scary.