OPSEC & PERSEC Reminder

BLT20051

Please do not post days, months, times, locations of deployments. These things are too specific. Saying "he leaves soon, or this summer, or in the fall" is ok.  It absolutely IS a big deal and I will moderate them.

Please do not post you/your spouses name, rank, MOS. If you have your name in your SN you should really consider starting over with a new one.

This website is very public, there are no security features to it. There have been times when people have been found based just off the information found on this website. Why would you want to advertise where you are and that your significant other is deployed and you are home? It is all about puzzle pieces, give one here and there and eventually they can be put together. I know policies often vary by branch but this is something I take very seriously. I personally have been held in country because someone had to tell their Facebook friends when we were coming home. That extra two weeks while waiting for a new flight, sucked. I will do everything I can to prevent that from happening to my brothers and sisters in arms. Why risk it?

ETA - Here's a story that I witnessed first hand from The Nest.

A semi regular poster had been posting about her ugly custody battle with her STBXH and all the drama that it entailed.  After a while, a few people started to question her and whether she was making some of it up. A poster from the board then used the few pieces she had mentioned(where they live, a recent school her H had gone to, etc.) to find the OP on Facebook. She then contacted the poster's husband to ask if any of the story was true. This lead to a giant board war, people being banned, and many friendships ruined. The OP had never given out specific details but we all knew just enough about her to get in contact with her or her H and someone felt it was necessary. The shiit absolutely does happen. Crazies are out there.

Also, you can tell me I'm uptight and too strict, that is fine. I know my policy(Army) and will enforce them where I see fit.

BLT20051

www.kolotv.com/news/headlines/Scam_Artists_Use_Facebook_To_Con_Grandparents_143425266.html

m.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/18/fictitious-femme-fatale-fooled-cybersecurity/?page=all

www.kfor.com/news/local/kfor-authorities-warn-military-families-of-cruel-hoax-20110922,0,4102043.story

articles.cnn.com/2011-03-02/world/germany.shooting_1_military-bus-shooting-incident-bus-driver?_s=PM:WORLD

All stories of why you should be careful what you say/post.

 

 

iluvmytxrgr

PERSEC is just as important as OPSEC is, ladies.  It is not hard to put pieces together.  Google searches give a ton of info.  There are predators out there who would gladly take advantage of you or hurt you because they can.  When you put out that your husband is leaving soon and will be gone for 6 months, it puts a flag for those people to watch you.  They will pay attention to what you post.  

There have been mulitple instances of people posting little bits of info over periods of months and some one finding them.  Two recent instances were at Ft Lewis(second time that I know of) and Ft Benning where a man showed up at a house of a deployed soldier and tells the wife her soldier has been KIA.  The wife allows the person in and is then raped, beaten and robbed.  

None of us need to give any more information than necessary to have our questions answered or vent.     

kyrgyzstan

In college, I took a class that was basically on Intelligence (as in military intelligence, and para-military intelligence). One of the things we did was talk about the different types of intelligence gathering, to include open source intel. An assignment was to put together a dossier on someone that was completely based on open source intel. Had I been on the bump at the time, I easily could have used a poster from here. It's all about puzzle pieces. People think that if they just post one piece of the puzzle, it's no big deal. The problem is that it's easy to find the rest of the puzzle. Location, use of last name in a screen name, and other casually dropped, seemingly innocuous  details come together to paint quite the complete picture.