Mobile Device Geotags & Armed Forces

In recent years it has been noticeable that the amount of people carrying a smart phone has increased exponentially. This is down to their low price and availability; even children as young as 12 have a smart phone. However, most people who own a smart phone are not aware of the data hidden in even the simplest and most innocent things they do on their phones. This includes armed forces staff. This article will look at the issues and possible repercussions of the availability of such easily obtained data.

Let’s consider a scenario:  in this case an armed forces staff member is on patrol. they take a picture of themselves and upload it to a social media. Their personal profile on this site is not secured or has limited access that allows anyone to view their photos. A militant group happens to be doing some research on their “enemy”. They use advanced search on Google then happen use the correct collection of words or phrases, and just happens to find this picture. What could possibly happen?

First off, the basics:

What is a geotag?

The method of geotagging is the addition of geographical data into the meta data of an object, in this case a picture that has been taken by armed services personnel.

A geotag on a photograph from an Iphone, for example, captures the GPS coordinates of the location it was taken using Longitude and Latitude.

Obtaining geotag information

Using free tools that are widely available on the internet it can take seconds to reveal the geotag information. It requires very little effort and absolutely no training. Ideal for militant groups who would want to find this information relatively quickly.

Below is an example and for this example I will be using a picture of the blue ball in snooker, but imagine this photo was a team photo taken in a base on foreign soil.

Here I’m using Evigator’s TAGView software

(available @ http://www.evigator.com/)

1 – Locate the image and open it using the Open Image Icon.

2 – Press Open

3 – The Image will be analysed and you will have a screen similar to below:

4 – Sample data from the analysed picture.

As you can see from the above, highlighted is the geotag data & various information about the device the picture was taken on. Also note the mapped location of where it was taken. To get this information was less than 3 seconds once loaded into the program. 

Security Risks & Repercussions

So what are the security risks? Well, as already pointed out the information could reveal any number of things: barracks, bases, patrol points or even patrol patterns. This information not only puts the staff member who uploads the pictures in danger but their entire deployment group.

Potential death is not the only issue, with profiles being insecure it could lead to that one member being profiled by the militant group, this then leading to potential blackmail, kidnap or endangering family members.

What should the armed forces be doing?

There are many things the armed forces could be doing. The key thing to do is offer the training necessary to remind their staff of the issues of geotags and smart phones. They could put a ban on any personal phones completely. However, some service men and woman would still find a way to take them into active duty.

A one hour basic training session that shows the dangers is all that is needed. The session could cover basic security settings of their social networking profiles and turning off the location services on any of their devices.

A one hour session could be the difference between life and death in most cases during deployment.

This article has been geared towards the idea of militant groups, however its not just militant groups, it could be anyone; stalkers, thieves, even an enraged ex could use these techniques.

 

Part 2 will be released soon.