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.
It’s astounding that the military would allow soldiers to use an app like this. They are really clueless.
Source: Fitness tracking app Strava gives away location of secret US army bases | Technology | The Guardian
You have to question, first of all, if the base commanders require mandatory training on what services, like Strava or Facebook, are and are not appropriate to use on soldiers’ mobile devices. If they mandate such training, good. If not then this is a huge failure.
If they do mandate such training (and ongoing training, as well) it then boils down to personal responsibility. Any policy of this sort is only as good as the responsibility of each member of the team. Humans remain the biggest weakness in the chain.
Training is important, but I think there should be one soldier with a level of responsibility for checking these things. It’s just sloppy.
You have to question, first of all, if the base commanders require mandatory training on what services, like Strava or Facebook, are and are not appropriate to use on soldiers’ mobile devices. If they mandate such training, good. If not then this is a huge failure.
If they do mandate such training (and ongoing training, as well) it then boils down to personal responsibility. Any policy of this sort is only as good as the responsibility of each member of the team. Humans remain the biggest weakness in the chain.
Training is important, but I think there should be one soldier with a level of responsibility for checking these things. It’s just sloppy.