Comment by aleph_minus_one
2 days ago
Why even allow any mobile phone for the US solider if it could cause any arbitrary problem for the US military if the location data, name, unit, rank, ... of the respective soldier was published and permanently updated on a publicly viewable website?
It should be obvious that the US military has good reasons why this would be the death for many military strategies. So, why doesn't the military than treat every soldier who has a mobile phone near to him where the above could cause military problems to be a saboteur (perhaps even with the accusation of being a spy of a hostile nation) who should be charged by a military tribunal?
There are MANY problems that are too politically or practically difficult to tackle for the US Military and personal cellphones aren't close to the top ten. It's far easier to force everyone to register their cells to be automatically blacklisted from data collection than it is to justify tens of thousands of NJPs and court martials every year, many of which will include officers and senior enlisted.
The US Military doesn't win through stealth or secrets either. Their advantage from the beginning until now has always been funding and logistics. With the Internet, satellites, and now AI, OPSEC is a fool's errand outside of very specific operations anyhow.
Probably because the intelligence community is also at the other side of this equation. The strategic advantage of a smartphone duopoly completely inside US jurisdiction is immeasurable.
> Why even allow any mobile phone for the US solider if it could cause any arbitrary problem for the US military if the location data, name, unit, rank, ... of the respective soldier was published and permanently updated on a publicly viewable website?
By this logic, why keep anyone around after the SF86 hack[0]? Simple answer: Costs. It's a lot more expensive to lay off everyone with a security clearance (especially, if they're regular employees) and make a whole new batch of people go through the security background checks. We're probably talking billions - not to mention the issue with downtime of no one being around to do anything.
> So, why doesn't the military than treat every soldier who has a mobile phone near to him where the above could cause military problems to be a saboteur (perhaps even with the accusation of being a spy of a hostile nation) who should be charged by a military tribunal?
...because they (they being the military, in general) have - relatively - planned for this in places that they physically control (and the threats levels demand it) by essentially making all buildings that need to be secure giant faraday cages[1].
What that doesn't account for is people outside of the buildings[2], which is probably what they're hoping to address with this change. (Too little, too late, I think - as that data's already out there.)
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Office_of_Personnel_Manag...
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_inform...
2 - https://www.wired.com/story/phone-data-us-soldiers-spies-nuc...