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posted by FatPhil on Monday January 29 2018, @03:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the sharing-is-caring,-right dept.

Strava, a smartphone app that tracks "athletic activity" using GPS, published an interactive heatmap of user activity around the world. That heatmap included some U.S. military bases:

Military personnel around the world have been publicly sharing their exercise routes online - including those inside or near military bases.

Online fitness tracker Strava has published a "heatmap" showing the paths its users log as they run or cycle. It appears to show the structure of foreign military bases in countries like Syria and Afghanistan, as soldiers move around inside.

The US military is examining the heatmap, a spokesman said. Air Force Colonel John Thomas, a spokesman for US Central Command, told the Washington Post that the US military was reviewing the implications.

Strava said it had excluded activities marked as private from the map. Users who record their exercise data on Strava have the option of making their movements public or private. Private data, the company said, has never been included.

The "private" option is for people who like to track their step count during sexual activity, not protecting the operational security of the military base you're stationed at.

Also at The Guardian, which contains more examples than the BBC for those who don't want to enable JavaScript to view the interactive one linked to above.


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  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday January 29 2018, @05:19PM (8 children)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Monday January 29 2018, @05:19PM (#629883)

    however no armed guards to prevent access to the bowling alley, library, or PX (essentially a socialized government on-base department store)

    Even just in the last 5 or 6 years. When I went down to my alma mater last Halloween, I found that the replacement cafeteria on campus, you can apparently only get into by swiping your campus ID. The old cafeteria, you could just walk in and pay with cash if you were some random person on the street. *Why* exactly does a cafeteria need to be secured?!

    One could argue it had something to do with the same building also being a dorm, but I think the doors to the dorm wing were keycarded as well anyway.

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 29 2018, @05:33PM (7 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 29 2018, @05:33PM (#629896) Journal

    You cannot be allowed access to the dorms, because you might be a cereal killer or rapist.

    You cannot even be allowed access to the students in the cafeteria because you might promote unacceptable ideas to the kiddies. And it might poison their young minds and affect how they vote.

    --
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    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday January 29 2018, @05:38PM (3 children)

      by tangomargarine (667) on Monday January 29 2018, @05:38PM (#629899)

      You cannot even be allowed access to the students in the cafeteria because you might promote unacceptable ideas to the kiddies. And it might poison their young minds and affect how they vote.

      I mean, if that were their reasoning they should lock up the academic buildings, library, and student center, too.

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      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday January 29 2018, @06:17PM (2 children)

        by VLM (445) on Monday January 29 2018, @06:17PM (#629917)

        academic buildings, library, and student center, too.

        Yeah funny you should mention that...

        Where I live this is mostly an anti-homeless thing. So state-U suburban expensive suburb branch campus about three blocks from where I live, no lockdown. The state-U branch in the old "big city" has guards to keep the homeless out. Take a non-credit night class by home, you don't even need a parking permit and no door is ever locked, take a non-credit night class by work and the guards make it feel like you're going thru an airport checkpoint. "papers please" checking your ID and all that.

        An army base would be an interesting place for a homeless person to live. Wasn't an issue back when I was in, back when bases were pretty much wide open.

        • (Score: 1) by starvingboy on Monday January 29 2018, @08:15PM (1 child)

          by starvingboy (6766) on Monday January 29 2018, @08:15PM (#630002)

          ? Having spent some time on military bases in my youth, you had to have a base ID in order to actually do anything. Sometimes they'd check just going into the BX, and you definitely needed one in order to buy anything, from candy to movie tickets.

          Carrying your ID was a rite of passage as a base kid.

          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday January 31 2018, @12:25PM

            by VLM (445) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @12:25PM (#630919)

            Yeah, maybe both true. In retrospect looking like a 19 year old enlisted I might have been waved thru everything to save time, I don't remember ever showing a ID.

            Seriously though, like they check ID at the on-base Burger King or the post library or post museum or the bowling alley? I guess if they did, they did, but ...

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday January 29 2018, @07:19PM (1 child)

      by frojack (1554) on Monday January 29 2018, @07:19PM (#629971) Journal

      You cannot be allowed access to the dorms, because you might be a cereal killer or rapist.

      Cereal killers would be trying to get into the cafeteria.

      They probably came from the dorm. Who knows what goes on in those dorms.

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      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 29 2018, @07:23PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 29 2018, @07:23PM (#629976) Journal

        I know what goes on in the dorms. That is the rappists I mention along with the cereal killers.

        Imagine rappists unable to get their rap music to rhyme, in the dorms! Poisoning the minds of the kids.

        --
        The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @07:37PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @07:37PM (#629985)

      cereal killer

      Like this guy!
      https://mashable.com/category/cookie-monster/ [mashable.com]