SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Brian Everstine writes at Air Force Times that US intelligence officers were able to locate and bomb an Islamic State command center based on a photo and comments in social media. "The [airmen are] combing through social media and they see some moron standing at this command," said Gen. Hawk Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command. "And in some social media, open forum, bragging about command and control capabilities for Da'esh, ISIL, And these guys go 'ah, we got an in.' So they do some work, long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three JDAMS take that entire building out. Through social media. It was a post on social media. Bombs on target in 22 hours."
Carlisle was careful to not go into great detail about the how the information was gathered and what additional effort went into targeting those bombs. It's easy to imagine that in addition to the information gleaned from the initial post that the Air Force used satellite and drone reconnaissance data. It's also possible that US intelligence could have actively engaged with the original poster in order to draw out information. Attackers and researchers have shown time and time again that simply asking a target for information—either by posing as a trusted individual or using carefully created phishing attacks—works even better than fancy information-stealing digital attacks.
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AnonTechie on Saturday June 06 2015, @10:20AM
Seems Suspicious that the US Intelligence Officers would leak this info to the media. If this is as useful a technique as they claim, they should use it to take out many such targets and they would not let media know how they acquire these targets. Old saying: "Fore warned is fore armed"
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Saturday June 06 2015, @10:44AM
Seems Suspicious that the US Intelligence Officers would leak this info to the media.
i agree. the air force may in fact be trying to trick ISIS into discarding/forbidding cell phones or scale back their social media campaign. then again, this is a general and sometimes they do stupid things like reveal information they shouldn't. he said it in a speech on monday so maybe he didn't think the information would go anywhere.
(Score: 1) by deadstick on Saturday June 06 2015, @01:22PM
More generally (sorry), I think it a certainty that his statement was only the skin of the onion. He just dumped the onion in ISIS's lap and invited them to find the layer of truth...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday June 06 2015, @06:49PM
You are probably correct, and it is probably working, because ISIS is reportedly now banning cell phones in many of the places they occupy.
So either way, trick or real, it has a desired effect of hampering the communications capabilities of the enemy.
It just has to work a few times to get them back to using motorcycle mounted runners or short range walkitalkies.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @10:52AM
Part of our government's PR philosophy is to pat itself on the back whenever possible to counter the negative effects of all the illegal & immoral activities that keep geting exposed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @11:38AM
> Seems Suspicious that the US Intelligence Officers would leak this info to the media.
My response to General Hawk Carlisle is ... pics or it didn't happen.
(Score: 1) by Beige on Saturday June 06 2015, @12:51PM
Perhaps. To me it reads like a bit of a one-off, such as a burglar who forgot his drivers license at the place he broke into. Basically, what the person did was so stupid that you don't expect anyone to do it again, and there is no great tactical loss in warning would-be criminals not to fall asleep at the crime scene, not to break into a police station, etc.
On the other hand there may be some propaganda value in showing that people who volunteer for ISIS are naive.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @01:46PM
It is funny how we think how inept, dumb, and mired in a bureaucratic morass they are when it suits our needs, but we then think of them as cunning, organized, and coordinated when it suits other needs. No matter what, we can find evidence to support whatever we think of them.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @02:25PM
> No matter what, we can find evidence to support whatever we think of them.
Well, perhaps that is because there is more than just one of them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @04:07PM
Congress has been considering letting parts of the intelligence community lose their authorization to spy on the internet, because Americans don't like the idea of government spying on them through social media.
Suddenly we get a patriotic story about how our fearless and crafty internet soldiers managed to defeat some terrorists somewhere exactly because they were monitoring [foreigners instead of domestics] on social media.
And you wonder why the story gets released?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 06 2015, @04:58PM
BINGO! Yes, it does seem likely that this story was released for the benefit of Congress, and those scared ninnies who will write to Congress, imploring them to enable our fearless military and intel to continue spying on everyone in the world. Makes sense to me!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2015, @01:20AM
Your phrasing appears to be choosen to deliberately conceal the facts.
There is no reason to believe the photo was not made public on social media. Ergo no reason for special spy access required. If their goal was to sell special spy access, they would have said that's what they used.
> because Americans don't like the idea of government spying on them through social media.
Of all the spying things that people have been unhappy about, spying on them through social media is at the bottom of the list. Its all the other stuff, stuff that people think of as private like phone calls, email, text messages and web-browsing that people are unhappy about. Someone looking at publically posted pictures on instagram, not so much.
But kudos for pulling in least four conspiracy-theorists to mod you up on the basis of misleading framing. Of course, being a sucker for misleading framing goes with the territory for conspiracy-theorists.