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Fitness-Tracking App Reveals Locations of Secret Army Bases (theguardian.com)
Coisiche shared this story from the Guardian:
Sensitive information about the location and staffing of military bases and spy outposts around the world has been revealed by a fitness tracking company. The details were released by Strava in a data visualisation map that shows all the activity tracked by users of its app, which allows people to record their exercise and share it with others. The map, released in November 2017, shows every single activity ever uploaded to Strava -- more than 3 trillion individual GPS data points, according to the company. The app can be used on various devices including smartphones and fitness trackers like Fitbit to see popular running routes in major cities, or spot individuals in more remote areas who have unusual exercise patterns.
However, over the weekend military analysts noticed that the map is also detailed enough that it potentially gives away extremely sensitive information about a subset of Strava users: military personnel on active service... In locations like Afghanistan, Djibouti and Syria, the users of Strava seem to be almost exclusively foreign military personnel, meaning that bases stand out brightly. In Helmand province, Afghanistan, for instance, the locations of forward operating bases can be clearly seen, glowing white against the black map.
One analyst analyst predicted that after this discovery, "A lot of people are going to have to sit through lectures come Monday morning."
Another military analyst told the Guardian "U.S bases are clearly identifiable" -- though he added that the map "looks very pretty."
However, over the weekend military analysts noticed that the map is also detailed enough that it potentially gives away extremely sensitive information about a subset of Strava users: military personnel on active service... In locations like Afghanistan, Djibouti and Syria, the users of Strava seem to be almost exclusively foreign military personnel, meaning that bases stand out brightly. In Helmand province, Afghanistan, for instance, the locations of forward operating bases can be clearly seen, glowing white against the black map.
One analyst analyst predicted that after this discovery, "A lot of people are going to have to sit through lectures come Monday morning."
Another military analyst told the Guardian "U.S bases are clearly identifiable" -- though he added that the map "looks very pretty."
Welcome to the Internet Of Things!!!! Every issue of www.iotmagazine.com publishes at least 3 distinct major security holes.
I have never before heard of analysts being tasked with analyzing other analysts. Thank you for making me aware of this new occupational opportunity.
And this is why letting some company track your data is a bad idea. This would probably have been avoided if this company didn't track their users and then publish the data.
Cause god knows spotting a military base with a shit load of military hardware in it and a dirty great big barbwire fence is impossible without these fitness apps.
Saw an article on how the military was stationing drones all over the country to spy on people. It just corresponded with all the various Army and Air Force bases. Where else to you think they keep drones when not deployed. They have to train somewhere.
If you are in a sensitive area and you have a smart phone turned on then you aren't smart enough to be allowed in a sensitive area. If we are near people who potentially want to kill me and you turn your fucking position broadcasting device on beside me, I will turn it off after I take it off of your recently deceased body.
Why would anyone in a military base in a sensitive location be allowed to have an app that tracks your location? Why would they turn it on?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Are their troop concentrations now a matter of public knowledge as well? Do they simply not use these devices? Or do they have their own private infrastructure for this kind of thing, along with the sense not to let private companies have access to the data?
I know hindsight is 20/20, but I'm sure people in the Pentagon get paid lots to anticipate and thwart this kind of dumpster fire. This looks REALLY bad on them - kinda like strapping on a pair of cleats and stepping on your own dick.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
What part of radio silence is hard? The radio or the silence?
The description of the sources is not attributed in the summary, but it sounds like a story about British press spying on US military. Or am I reading too much into it?
This sort of thing isn't new. Both the US post I was stationed at and the one in Iraq were both unmarked in Google maps and even the sat images were blurred for the one in Iraq. But you could have a nice look around both of those posts because military personnel had posted images to pixorama or whatever Google Maps was using as a photo overlay at the time(perhaps by way of social media posts?). Finding the pic of the on post Subway in Iraq was the only way I could ever find where exactly the post was. There's a wealth of unchecked meta data to be used out there. Just not always correlated for you like the Google maps thing and this Strava thing.
You've been told OVER AND OVER AGAIN that these fucking 'fitness bands' just exist to be yet another surveillance-and-data-collection device for asshole corporations to gather data on you, YET YOU BUY THEM ANYWAY! Morons, you're all FUCKING MORONS.
A friend of my has a free app that soldiers find useful in their missions and was telling me how he would notice location requests coming from odd out of the way places and then would here about some military operation happening there.
Always reminds me of the Batman and Robin in the batcave.
they'll be able to find us and take us out in an instant. We might as well be implanting chips to make the job easier for them :(
Did anyone else see Elon Musk's video on the immediate dangers of A.I. and how just facial recognition coupled with tiny weaponized drones could allow for a very effective policy state? Fear-mongering or is time to call up Larry Niven's A.R.M.?*
*The science fiction writer Larry Niven thought that certain technologies would become just so deadly and available to so many people that they would have to be outlawed outright. Since this was a global task, the United Nations had a special police force, A.R.M., that would be entrusted with this task. Maybe it's time for some black helicopters?
Why is this a big surprise?
This is why Apple has it mostly right. Your data stays on your phone and even if you upload it to iCloud, it's not automatically broadcast to all to see.
Why don't users have the option to store everything on their computer? No cloud update.
I'm still using an old Polar Heart rate monitor because it comes with a Windows program (Polar ProTrainer) to store and display all my workouts. I love the fact that my data isn't in the cloud. That is a HUGE selling point for me.
I feel amazing between the contrast of the two parts of Korea. But there's indeed some tiny bright spots in the North one.
Perhaps now the information collected under loose "we can share it with anyone" agreements is of detriment to the State (when used by an enemy) something good will come of it. Mandatory, perhaps also with discretionary, geo-fencing of the data collection, or on-device-only options, for example. Not just Strava but all of these services. Unfortunately, this data works both ways: the "Good Guys" can use similar methods against "Bad Guys." Maybe our "Good Guys" feel that exploiting this data is more valuable than protecting their own troops/targets.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
I don't understand.
https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14.11/127.41159/39.18004/hot/all
Inside north korea, either starting or ending just off the shore of a port, then messing around the port a bit ;)
I would love to see the base commanders go Full Metal Jacket on the soldiers for being so dumb. Fucking meat heads.
What, you're telling me that the Taliban doesn't already know where the US is active in Afghanistan? If they do (they do), then this ballyhoo is bollocks, at least in that example.
From the summary, this doesn't look to be a real time map, so I doubt old Strava data is of any significant tactical concern. If I'm wrong, please explain, I'm not just trying to be contrarian.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Soldiers locations outside the base are sensitive. The idiots have their trackers and it publicly displays their running routes and times outside the base.
How many soldiers are inside the base on duty vs outside the base, also revealed.
Where they go, who they visit, what they do. All revealed.
Pretending this isn't sensitive information doesn't make it any less sensitive.
FFS, carrying a GPS tracker that then publishes your location track on a public website is insane for anyone, anywhere. It would allow any person with ill intent towards you to know where you are. Want to rob an apartment? Just see the trace of when people go for their exercise from the apartment building and you know when its empty. Want to stalk someone, .... helpful stalker app here. Have any bitter ex boyfriends....
> I would love to see the base commanders go Full Metal Jacket
> on the soldiers for being so dumb. Fucking meat heads.
No one will be punished... because it was the idiot higher-ups at the Pentagon who were handing out free FitBits to their soldiers. And no, Trump was not president in 2013.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
> But the Pentagon has encouraged the use of Fitbits among
> military personnel and in 2013 distributed 2,500 of them as
> part of a pilot program to battle obesity.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
One lousy cyclist?? How do those out-of-shape bums expect to chase down the escaping aliens?!?
Seriously though, it looks like the heat map goes to the granularity of a single single user? I think the app lets you do that already, but it's more than a little creepy from the whole privacy angle. I'm not sure how I'd feel about my daily route sitting there on a map.
I stole this Sig
I like this.
Where interest in mental health is ridiculed because complete and utter insanity is the norm or even mandatory to be part of the community,
and the people are still stuck in the 80s, before psychology rebuilt itself on top of neurology, dumping all the Freudian bullshit.
Congratulations on being a 3rd world backwater shithole, Murica!
Hey Vlad (if I may) you surely don't wanted Hillary to be elected: She called you "the new Hitler", simply "forgetting", that your brother was killed during Hitler's siege of Leningrad. But I'm sure, you didn't forget that, right? She would have "nuked" you already anyway, and Iran, too. So, be careful with your wishes ;-) Nasdarovye!
Fun to explore the map. Can see circles for all the local high school tracks. In Cozumel, can see where the cruise ships are parked and the people running on the decks. Can see the cruise ship paths across the Gulf. Can see my wife and Joe at the hotel....
Privacy is dead!