canklecat

Analysts have often described IS guys as young, tech savvy and social media savvy. If they weren't so busy with nihilistic destruction they'd be assets to any developing nation.

And they have a significant advantage over us, Russians or any foreign intel: IS, Taliban, rebels, insurgents, freedom fighters, whatever we call them or they call themselves -- they're actually there on the ground and they blend in. They know stuff we couldn't possibly know, regardless of our high tech toys.

They're perfectly capable of assembling seemingly disparate bits of information to identify potential individuals for kidnappings and targets for assaults.

That's why the best hope for intel in insular cultures is to recruit and convert an insider. And even that is very risky. The asset may turn out to be playing the players, pretending to assist us while misdirecting us. Happens all the time. It's as old as espionage itself.

Linguistics are a major clue. People tend to write the same way online no matter how many aliases, pseudonyms and handles they adopt. That's why trolls are pretty easy to spot for forum mods. For years AI linguistic tools have been available to quickly sift through mountains of text to identify similarities, which can then be studied by human analysts.

The same tells can help identify a soldier, intel asset or double/triple agent who posts to discussion forums under an alias, but carelessly uses similar words and phrases when posting to Strava or about his/her physical activities under another alias or real name.

Keep in mind that the U.S. and every major nation has infested social media, news comment sections and many niche forums with operatives using multiple sockpuppets to sway opinion, disrupt conversations, give false impressions of majority opinion and consensus, or to poison the well and make discussions impossible. While these professional operatives are given scripts and talking points they can vary posts to suit their own wording. This leaves them vulnerable to linguistic cues.

If that same operative posts casually to social media (which Strava is) under his/her real identity, and tends to use similar wording, phrases, unique spellings or misspellings, these cues may be linked to his/her trolling and sockpuppet activities online, or even to meatspace conversations and interviews.

A savvy analysis may recognize these tells and realize a person he thought was a member of his military unit uses the same unique phrasing as other persons on both pro- and anti- discussion forums and comment sections, and, according to Strava, was in one location when he/she claimed to be elsewhere.

A crude but familiar example occurs in the movie "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" (and the atrocious and miserable remake), when the surviving member of the hijack gang -- a disgruntled former employee -- gives himself away with sneezing and coughing because he has a cold.

It seems to be working again this evening. Usually I need to reload the page to see my new segment, then wait about an hour for my previous activities on that segment to show up.

SHBR

This site is no exception.

This is why its so important to think for yourself.

Understand the implications of social media, technology, and most importantly behavior.

Also realize that religion and politics are fantastic social control mechanisms, very few people escape from their beliefs that were installed since childhood.

One of the strongest beliefs people have is money. This supersedes everything, yet its almost impossible to function in modern society without it.

The Internet is the ultimate surveillance system, most of the general public will volunteer all of their personal information without a second thought.

The public is expected to be open source, the military is intended to be closed source.

Critical mass rides and military bases, thats an idea.

autonomy

Oh boy. This story has been blown out of proportion by media who does not understand how Strava works and what the purpose of the website is. All those screenshots, e.g. Royal Navy Nuclear base, the tracks follow roads. So what? There are many people on those roads. Fine, in Afghanistan where nothing else lights up I can see that being a problem.

But the whole point, the raison d'etre of Strava is that I'm giving it my location data so it can analyze and keep track of my workouts. I chose to do this. Naturally, common sense dictates that anything you put out there can become public. Back in the day when I manually uploaded GPX tracks to the website, I manually trimmed the start/stop locations to exclude my home and work. Then I stopped caring and just relied on the exclusion zones. I even logged out and looked at my workouts to ensure that exclusion zones worked. Any workout that I did not want to share I would either not upload or I would mark private - this does require a certain level of trust in the technology but for anything sensitive I just kept it offline. I am not using my full real name on the site either.

If you are a deployed member of special forces on a military base, you better not be uploading your geographical location to a public profile! If you are, the least you can do is make the workout or your profile private! It will not be impossible for hackers to obtain this information but at least hide it from the world. This is an issue of military personnel sharing too much information, like posting pictures on Facebook. This is an issue of people doing a dumb thing without thinking. The media is making it sound like Strava took people's private information without their consent and posted it for all to see. THAT IS NOT HOW THIS WORKS! The only question I would have of Strava is do the algorithms respect users privacy settings while calculating heat maps? Judging from my own exclusion zones around my work and home, they do.

There's nothing that can be done about this now, the cat is out of the bag. I'm guessing that Strava is going to be under fire for a little while and maybe in the future we'll get a "don't use my data for global heatmap calculation" check box.

And now for the final kicker, I haven't tried it but I'm pretty sure this would work:
1. Create a segment on one of these bases
2. Create a GPX file simulating a run on this segment - you can even make several with different dates/times
3. Upload to Strava and
a. Look at the top athletes on the segment
b. Look at the fly-by analysis to try and catch private users' rides... because I'm pretty sure that Strava will still show a private user's public ride if it overlaps yours

P.S. The first Strava heat map came out in what, 2015? This is news now? I guess it's because Joe Schmoe is now using Strava (have several runner friends who are more into it than my riding friends)

SHBR

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

In the beginning you have a choice, then mass adoption happens, then it becomes mandatory.

I'm opting out, for as long as its still possible.

Scarbo

Strava, under fire. Curious. I know that we are all Winning at everything these days (at least, we are told so, constantly); but it makes one wonder just how the military engagement is going in Afghanistan is lil ol Strava is of ostensible concern. Maybe, one day, our eventual failure will be laid at its feet. At least, partially so.

Graveyard of empires going back to Alexander the Great. The Duke of Wellington, himself, warned of "perennial" entanglements once the Indus was crossed. No snowflake, the Duke.

Scarbo

I'm with you.

SHBR

Full spectrum dominance is already here.

Shackle up slaves.

Lazyass

In summary:

We've learned that Strava usage may allow people to track US troop movements in places we do not want them tracked. The DOD is looking in to it. That's it. Thank you.

bobwysiwyg

Agree.

Rollfast

If ISIS cycles I guess we're doomed?


Prolly is P&R then. But nobody thinks it's Foo either.


But if ISIS had bikes, wouldn't they be happier, or would they complain that troop carriers didn't follow the three foot rule?


MAN...