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I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email.
Original content copyright © 2003 - 2007 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed.
Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com
Interesting coverage of the recent OPSEC memo from Gen Schoomaker from UPI:
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker circulated a memo to all Army personnel last week, saying that "we must do a better job" at operational security -- "OPSEC" in military parlance.The article is interesting in that it's a near complete misrepresentation of the General's actual words. Note the portion of the quote that actually appears in quotation marks - those are the General's words. Then note the reporter's added fabrication: ...and especially on their Web logs or online diaries, wrote Gen. Schoomaker. No he didn't."Some soldiers continue to post sensitive information" on the Internet, and especially on their Web logs or online diaries, wrote Gen. Schoomaker, giving as examples "photos depicting weapon system vulnerabilities and tactics, techniques and procedures.
Here's the only reference to blogs in the memo:
SOME SOLDIERS CONTINUE TO POST SENSITIVE INFORMATION TO INTERNET WEBSITES AND BLOGS, E.G., PHOTOS DEPICTING WEAPON SYSTEM VULNERABILITIES AND TACTICS, TECHNIQUES, AND PROCEDURES.(Apologies for the ALLCAPS - in original.)
"Especially blogs" is an embellishment from the reporter. That bloggers would key on the term is understandable - it's a big red flag to them. However, comma, in the world of GI's on the internet bloggers represent a very small tip of a very large iceberg. Perhaps one of every 2,000 GIs in Iraq has a weblog (that's an educated guess, btw, it could be as few as one in 4,000, perhaps as many as one in 500) - but rest assured that at least 90% of the troops post pictures to one of the many non-blog sites designed to host them, or have some sort of web site or space they can call their own.
Want to guess what percentage have email access? At least one "Army Leader" does - the message was labeled for distribution to "all army leaders" (an earlier message included with the current one was addressed to all O5s and above) - and although the message in question is marked "FOUO" (for official use only) it's now readily available via the internet. Ooops.
Just putting things in perspective here - the "Army declares war on blogs" theme is perhaps interesting fodder for bloggers (and apparently UPI reporters) - but it doesn't approach the reality of the situation, and from reading the actual memo "the Army" knows it. The problem is most likely too large for any but two possible solutions. One: deny internet access to deployed troops (major morale blast there) or two: train, educate and insist on strict adherence to security standards. Looks like which option is implemented is in the hands of lower level commanders. As noted here before, their responses may vary.
(Bonus error in linked article: Blackfive is mis-identified. Heh. The New York Times did the same to me last week.)
