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things people do that make me shake my head and say "opsec fail"
I may add to the list as i think of new things
1) stick figures on the back of the car to represent the family(or turtles) etc.
Cute sure, but ... if you're headed out now someone can look at your car and see "gee, Mom, Dad, Junior, Juniorette... everyone's here so no one's minding the house."
2) GPS - putting home on the map.
Someone breaks in they know you're not home. and you provided them a map to your empty house.
(combine with #1 for even more bonuses to the thieves)
3) Beggars right outside the base gate here.
Most likely just beggars but... gee if you need to gather some intel on targets coming and going... why bother casing it yourself. Offer the beggar some cash to do it for you.
People don't always look at the obvious spots really. some of the "fantasy" stuff in those spy novels... came from real scenarios.
4) Putting military awards on the back of the car.
Eh. Yes they're earned but part of me also says... "are you sure you want *everyone* around to know you're military? Are they trustworthy?"
These are all things I see around here. Now granted I won't say the Navy's any better... but it just strikes me as a bit "ummm, you sure you wanna do that?" cos it goes against some of the things we were specifically taught.
things like not putting rank on mail boxes, not putting rank on bags, not driving the same way to work every day, or leaving at the exact same time. being conscious of where your hotel room is in the building*, not answering the phone military-style.
and in the navy they don't usually train something unless they've seen it go wrong. meaning "learn from my mistakes"
but i do remember back on my first ship, being told that there was a case when terrorists had been caught casing areas. what i was told was that they abandoned their original target because "it was too hard" - meaning that the crew was too observant of what was going on around them.
if anything they used that for motivation for training us. every day we had security drills. got mad at myself once in one drill where i knew something didn't look right (why does that sailor have two guns on him?) and i went near him anyway instead of running to another area. So I got "killed" by the "disgruntled sailor" (never gonna fall for that shit again believe you me!)
but that's some of the things i think about when i look at the base here. most likely the things i see won't ever be used against people.... but it could be.
cos the greatest hackers didn't hack computers... they hacked people.
* seriously, they had specific instructions on where to have your room placed and to refuse anything in a "danger area" (tho more for overseas in danger areas than in a normal US city)
I may add to the list as i think of new things
1) stick figures on the back of the car to represent the family(or turtles) etc.
Cute sure, but ... if you're headed out now someone can look at your car and see "gee, Mom, Dad, Junior, Juniorette... everyone's here so no one's minding the house."
2) GPS - putting home on the map.
Someone breaks in they know you're not home. and you provided them a map to your empty house.
(combine with #1 for even more bonuses to the thieves)
3) Beggars right outside the base gate here.
Most likely just beggars but... gee if you need to gather some intel on targets coming and going... why bother casing it yourself. Offer the beggar some cash to do it for you.
People don't always look at the obvious spots really. some of the "fantasy" stuff in those spy novels... came from real scenarios.
4) Putting military awards on the back of the car.
Eh. Yes they're earned but part of me also says... "are you sure you want *everyone* around to know you're military? Are they trustworthy?"
These are all things I see around here. Now granted I won't say the Navy's any better... but it just strikes me as a bit "ummm, you sure you wanna do that?" cos it goes against some of the things we were specifically taught.
things like not putting rank on mail boxes, not putting rank on bags, not driving the same way to work every day, or leaving at the exact same time. being conscious of where your hotel room is in the building*, not answering the phone military-style.
and in the navy they don't usually train something unless they've seen it go wrong. meaning "learn from my mistakes"
but i do remember back on my first ship, being told that there was a case when terrorists had been caught casing areas. what i was told was that they abandoned their original target because "it was too hard" - meaning that the crew was too observant of what was going on around them.
if anything they used that for motivation for training us. every day we had security drills. got mad at myself once in one drill where i knew something didn't look right (why does that sailor have two guns on him?) and i went near him anyway instead of running to another area. So I got "killed" by the "disgruntled sailor" (never gonna fall for that shit again believe you me!)
but that's some of the things i think about when i look at the base here. most likely the things i see won't ever be used against people.... but it could be.
cos the greatest hackers didn't hack computers... they hacked people.
* seriously, they had specific instructions on where to have your room placed and to refuse anything in a "danger area" (tho more for overseas in danger areas than in a normal US city)
The point is close enough that, if I tell the GPS to take me there, I won't need it anymore long before arriving, but it's not where I live. (And the guy who used to own it is armed to the teeth, and so would make a poor target. Still, I've considered moving it to, say, Wal-Mart.)
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