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Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

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Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#151

Post by ehsankia »

trenning wrote: post #52
Johnny555 wrote: post #17

An OPSEC violation has once again made a case for why using TikTok should be a punishable offense in the military, It's not clear why TikTok is singled out here, this could just has easily been posted to Facebook or Instagram or one of the other myriad of social media platforms, or pushed automatically to someone's open photo album in the cloud. If OPSEC is important, don't let people bring their personal camera phon…

There's also no indication from this article that the video came from a service member. You can hear other heavy equipment vehicles in the background and the truck driver is definitely not driving anything owned by the military so also likely a contractor. Angry old man FB vibes from that article

The whole thing makes no sense either. If it was some top secret shit, it wouldn't be carried uncovered in the open like that. I'm sure chinese satellites are probably filming all military bases 24/7 already and probably have much higher resolution view of whatever that truck was carrying.

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#152

Post by hourislate »

Kretinsky wrote: post #124
kbenson wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's not necessarily the same, but also think that it's bad to have any social media in a top secret context. That said, it's pretty obvious the bias the source has: - "and posted it to the Chinese government-affiliated platform." - "social media platform tied to America’s top adversary" The problem here is people sharing stuff publicly which they are obviously not supposed to. The rest is just theater, even…

As a non-american, it's always interesting to see the point of view of the major military power. Why is China "America's top adversary"? Aside from the OPSEC issue, which is understandable, why does the author - and I guess it's a widespread view - considers China as America's utmost adversary? Can't there exist two rich and prosperous countries? Why does the author uses such jingoist terms? How should other countrie…

I am under the impression you are not familiar with the HAN culture? It doesn't allow for sharing or 2nd place, it's a winner take all and destroy everyone else. The China of today is determined to rule the world and I mean the entire world.

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#153

Post by SonicScrub »

blunte wrote: post #69

But in these (dis?)information games, it wouldn't be difficult to setup a fake scenario like this just to make one's opponents feel really underpowered. Imagine the fun of building a nice cool futuristic mockup, putting in on a trailer, and then leaking it to tiktok. It would cost so little and be so fun. This is obviously comical speculation, but anything is possible.

Reminds me of The Ghost Army in the lead up before D-Day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Army

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#154

Post by jjk166 »

ta988 wrote: post #119

Why are radar signature tests made in the open (not a tunnel)? And if you need it in the open, why don't you fly it?

Tunnel would reflect the radar signals, obfuscating the data. You would also be highly limited in the size of models you can test by the size of the tunnel.

To test in flight you'd need a functional aircraft as opposed to a cheap mockup. Further an aircraft in flight has to move quickly to stay aloft, and its exact position and orientation can't be precisely controlled. A model on a pylon stays put exactly where you want it for as long as you need it to.

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#156

Post by kbenson »

falcolas wrote: post #144
kbenson wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. So it people tagging pictures or leaving reviews on Yelp. Is your suggestion that off-duty people during their personal time should not use social media for purely personal ends with personal info, as long as it's for things that are not already to not be done while working with security clearance? Otherwise, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Given that fitbits and their ilk have exposed the specific locations and layouts of airbases, perhaps they should be a bit more careful with what technology they use, even in their offtime.

Checking them in at a locker at the edge of base is probably sufficient, at least for an airbase. It's not like you can actually hide those in the days ubiquitous satellite imagery, right? For some other types of facilities, maybe check them in off-site somewhere before you transport people in (because otherwise how secret can it be if you can just follow someone's car?).

Letting people transmit GPS coordinates while walking around a military facility though? Yeah, maybe that's not a good idea.

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#157

Post by [deleted] »

Miserlou57 wrote: post #90
tablespoon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I heard on reddit that some thought it could potentially be the fuselage for the new B-21 Raider, the replacement for the B-2 bomber that already kinda looks like a pretty futuristic aircraft. I thought the B-21 was going to be a pretty conservative program, so it's design will mostly follow the B-2's. It's a weird angle, but this doesn't really look like that to me.

Not to mention, the thing on the trailer is tiny. The B-2 is not.

[deleted]

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#158

Post by kbenson »

falcolas wrote: post #148
kbenson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Publicly posting confidential information is definitely bad. Bringing a device that can covertly collect enemies for adversaries is even worse. If you aren't posting top secret data, you also aren't sharing it with enemies on accident .

There’s no requirement for you to actively post data to break opsec - often it happens behind the scenes. See the fitbit/airbase incident. https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/apps/a15912407/s...

Sure. I was a little less clear in this thread than I was in the other. I'm more making a case for a more sane policy on what apps people can run, or even devices they can have, to make it so this is not a problem that's normally possible. Whether the info is shared with China or the U.K. isn't really a distinction worth making if it never should have been shared with either, period (and let's not act like the U.K. wouldn't want to know just as much, we do with out own allies as shown through some of our exposed wiretapping programs).

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#159

Post by ClumsyPilot »

fragmede wrote: post #116
tablespoon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would assume that once a photo hits any social media, the Chinese and other adversaries (and allies) have already scraped it. Don't all the social media companies make it hard to scrape their sites, especially in bulk? It's definitely impossible to contain something once it's all over a bunch of blogs like this, but it might be possible to contain some things if caught early enough. There's also the private messa…

Facebook makes it difficult , but this where the question of "who's your adversary?" comes in. It's one thing to have to change user agent away from curl and rate limit, but when you're a nation-state and can afford to pay teams of people to do nothing else but collect information on your adversaries (in this case, the US military), having an actual person (so the traffic looks organic - because it is) who's full tim…

Additionally, how much efffort does Facebook spend on this, given the abundance of bots, Cambridge Analytica data debacle, etc.

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#160

Post by interestica »

SonicScrub wrote: post #153
blunte wrote: post #69

But in these (dis?)information games, it wouldn't be difficult to setup a fake scenario like this just to make one's opponents feel really underpowered. Imagine the fun of building a nice cool futuristic mockup, putting in on a trailer, and then leaking it to tiktok. It would cost so little and be so fun. This is obviously comical speculation, but anything is possible.

Reminds me of The Ghost Army in the lead up before D-Day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Army

Reminds me of Dummy Tanks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_tank

"In one operation in September 1944, the British deployed 148 inflatable tanks close to the front line and around half were "destroyed" by fragments from German mortar and artillery fire, and by Allied bombs falling short."

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