The Ease of Tracking Mobile Phones of U.S. Soldiers in Hot Spots

[douglas9]

WASHINGTON—In 2016, a U.S. defense contractor named PlanetRisk Inc. was working on a software prototype when its employees discovered they could track U.S. military operations through the data generated by the apps on the mobile phones of American soldiers.

At the time, the company was using location data drawn from apps such as weather, games and dating services to build a surveillance tool that could monitor the travel of refugees from Syria to Europe and the U.S., according to interviews with former employees. The company’s goal was to sell the tool to U.S. counterterrorism and intelligence officials.

But buried in the data was evidence of sensitive U.S. military operations by American special-operations forces in Syria. The company’s analysts could see phones that had come from military facilities in the U.S., traveled through countries like Canada or Turkey and were clustered at the abandoned Lafarge Cement Factory in northern Syria, a staging area at the time for U.S. special-operations and allied forces.

The discovery was an early look at what today has become a significant challenge for the U.S. armed forces: how to protect service members, intelligence officers and security personnel in an age where highly revealing commercial data being generated by mobile phones and other digital services is bought and sold in bulk, and available for purchase by America’s adversaries.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ease-of-tracking-mobile-phones-of-u-s-soldiers-in-hot-spots-11619429402?mod=djemalertNEWS

[thucythucy]

1. Our affluence and technology so often do us in.

I recall seeing a documentary on the Vietnam War, in which a Vietcong veteran recalled how it was often easy to track American soldiers in the field by the odor of their cigarette smoke.

During WWII soldiers were given free cigarettes. I don't know if that was the case in Vietnam, but I was stunned to hear this about Vietnam, wondering how many additional casualties we suffered because of this simple, yet devastating oversight.

[GP6971]

2. The free cigarettes were in

the C Rations. If I recall correctly, 3 per ration.

I went through my Advanced training in 1971 and we were given C Rats while out in the field. Most of ones we got were made in the late 50s and early 60s so my guess is the troops in Vietnam received them.

[thucythucy]

3. My older brother was a Vietnam vet

who passed away in 2010. He smoked like a chimney most of his life, so I imagine he smoked all the while he was in-country (1967).

Such a simple oversight, and yet most likely so costly to us as well.