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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 her

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 phones (or smart glasses or camera enabled watch or whatever other personal surveillance people choose to carry) near whatever you're trying to protect.

alana314 5y ago
Unless it's cropped, it was shot in landscape so probably not TikTok
yellow_lead 5y ago
TikTok is singled out here because it was where it was shared. The author would likely also agree to other social media use being banned in the military. >If OPSEC is important, don't let people bring their personal camera phones (or smart glasses or camera enabled watch or whatever other personal surveillance people choose to carry) near whatever you're trying to protect. 100%
- freeflight 5y ago
  > The author would likely also agree to other social media use being banned in the military. Yet the author demands that people should be punished for merely using TikTok, not all social media, even if its use doesn't compromise OPSEC in any way.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Bud 5y ago
    Use of TikTok should be punishable, of course, but for reasons of good taste, not OPSEC reasons. ;)
dcow 5y ago
The slant I picked up on is that Chinese authorities operating TikTok is the problem because the president can’t just dial Zuck and say “take that shit down immediately or else”. But in general I agree and find the slant annoying. I do think there is some discussion point buried in here about whether or not it’s strategic for the US to build dependencies on foreign software services… but… not sure if it’s a productive one at the moment. It is really kinda orthogonal to OPSEC.
- TheDudeMan 5y ago
  Getting pictures deleted from the internet is not a thing. Doesn't matter if you are the president or Zuck.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Precisely, if Mark Zuckerberg could delete pictures from the internet the photo of him wearing sunscreen[1] would never have been allowed to spawn so many memes. 1. https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-04/27/20/asset/5bc9aff542d8/sub-buzz-855-1619555313-21.jpg https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-04/27/2...
    - anonymousiam 5y ago
      He was pretty effective at taking down the Hunter Biden stories right before the election.
  - laumars 5y ago
    You’re missing the point. The GP was commenting on their impression of the slant the article was taking (and I agree with their point there). They were not suggesting the article’s slant was correct, in fact they specifically stated that they disliked the way the article was slanted. Maybe they could have been more explicit in the way they worded their reply. But I think given the question they were responding to and the typical audience of this forum, it should have been obvious to most people that the GP wasn’t trying to imply pictures can be deleted from the internet. Or at least obvious to anyone that read the OPs question and the source article.
marcos100 5y ago
Strava famously outlined hidden military bases.
kindle-dev 5y ago
The TikTok app may have camera access and location access. It could capture images and send them to China when it detects its on a military base without the user even knowing. It’s so annoying to see “what about X” comments on every story with almost no thought put into the response.
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  You nailed it
- chitowneats 5y ago
  Did you watch the video? Someone is clearly recording this object intentionally. The camera pans and zooms to follow the truck. Whether this is secretly being sent to China via TikTok is somewhat irrelevant if an individual is breaking protocol by intentionally taking video on their smartphone.
  - kindle-dev 5y ago
    I was responding to the comment asking why TikTok should be banned vs. other social media.
    - chitowneats 5y ago
      Yes. I was agreeing with the parent comment that the social media platform is irrelevant. Presumably, video taken of secret military hardware is not ok in any circumstance. It's the smartphone, the attached camera, and the individual that is at fault.
    - beezle 5y ago
      I suppose then that it is OK for foreign governments to ban FB, Insta, etc? After all, we all know what lengths the US via NSA will go to.
      - wonnage 5y ago
        It is and it's stupid that Americans insist on their companies running with unfettered access to every country like it's some unalienable right
tclancy 5y ago
Do they anywhere? My neighbor works at a government facility for building and repairing … machines and he surrenders his phone every morning. Something smells weird here, but I suppose not everywhere has perfect security all the time. I just wouldn’t want to be the person that proved that.
Frost1x 5y ago
>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. There's an additional layer here that's often ignored: that specific piece of information that leaked is the same regardless of what platform it was released on, but if it was released on a foreign government controlled platform, that government might start monitoring aspects of data being collected by TikTok that aren't being posted for the user or look at historical data if it's being collected. More detailed location data, who their friends are, where they typically go, and so on. Not all of that additional data is probably going to be available to them on Facebook, just the video. The information in the video may be more valuable when it's incorporated with a series of other data points that may be attainable from TikTok for that now closely monitored account. Sharing this information to begin with isn't good but it's even worse if you're now potentially leaking additional data unknowingly. Maybe the guy who recorded that begins taking photos at some specific base, maybe their TikTok friends include some coworkers that include some videos in on a boat in the South China Sea... it's possible to start linking more information together that could be valuable to an adversary.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kbenson 5y ago
  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 if technically somewhat worse. If you solve the root problem, the variation that makes it slightly worse this time is solved at the same time.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    Even if they don't share, it is a piece of spyware they have on their phone, called Google Android. I believe PLA uses its assets within Google, and other American dotcoms to the fullest extend, and they already pulled every info they can through their Android Store accounts on them. Even a running meme of spy agency, the Saudi Army intel wing managed to have their men operate within Google for years. Imagine now what Chinese could.
trenning 5y ago
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
- ehsankia 5y ago
  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.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    It might be a fake or a prop aircraft, with the "leaked video" a disinformation tactic.
23B1 5y ago
You're totally right, but for whatever reason the culture of clout-chasing is especially bad on military TikTok. It's bad. Real bad.
brian_herman 5y ago
Yeah, I am not sure why cameras are even allowed in this area. It doesn't make any sense. It is common in companies with sensitive information to ban the use of snapchat glasses and google glass in their offices.
mdoms 5y ago
TikTok was singled out because this is an article about a video that was posted to TikTok. Weird thing to get confused about.
jws 5y ago
It's not clear why TikTok is singled out here… Completely unbased in facts, I know nothing factual, but… as a hypothesis… The government whose laws govern a media sharing service could certainly say "All content generated in this list of geofenced areas must be flagged to the legal observing authority XYZ, even if geotags are not a part of the ultimately published content." Country A would probably care a bit less about services governed by their own laws. Even if such a secret law existed it wouldn't be used against them. Whereas Country A might care more about services in adversarial Country B where it can be used to turn an intractable search problem into a targeted search.
ta988 5y ago
That's something that has always amazed me. Even visiting an embassy you are not allowed to have any kind of electronics, and in secret/confidential operations you can take your personal phone?
asiachick 5y ago
This seems short-sighted to me. In my fiction, in 10-20-30yrs we'll all have eye implants ala Black Mirror and we'll be so dependent on them that telling people they have to turn them off will be untenable. Anytime I see "no photography" signs I can't help but think "living in the past". For example the immigration line in nearly every Airport says "no photos" and yet everyone in line is on their portable camera, um, I mean smartphone. It's like the people that wrote the sign are stuck in the 1970s and haven't bothered to look up at what people around them are actually doing. It's the same in museums, sometimes there's an area "no photography allowed" and you can see them trying and utterly failing to enforce what is effectively unenforcable. If there are only a few patrons and they have a guard in every room they might stop 80%. But on a crowded day I doubt they catch 30%. It's ridiculous to see them try.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  In museums it's usually the flash photography they have the main issue with. For the bleaching effect to paintings and disruption to other visitors.
nivenkos 5y ago
Because the US Tech industry wants to shore up its protectionism. Remember when Zuckerberg wanted the Trump admin to ban TikTok completely? It's crazy that the EU follows suit for so much of this stuff (against Huawei, etc.) and then end up with no industry at all with all the high-paying jobs in the US.
bordercases 5y ago
> 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. They do the same for other social media data.
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
It might be a fake or a plant, with the "leaked video" a misnformation tactic. The whole thing a planned ploy. Like a FOUND FOOTAGE Hollywood film,
tarsinge 5y ago
Yeah the video is available on Twitter where it’s still up. It’s just an additional opportunity to blame TikTok.
BatteryMountain 5y ago
Maybe they can wrap their super-top-secret object in say, a blanket or a tarp...
TrackerFF 5y ago
Most likely, that's already the case. This seems like a classic violation of non-electronics/photography zone.
numpad0 5y ago
> If OPSEC is important, give people secure phones for shitposting to auditable on-prem private social. FTFY. Don’t understand why militaries don’t.
LatteLazy 5y ago
China panic >> Common Sense or effective policy.

alana314 5y ago

Unless it's cropped, it was shot in landscape so probably not TikTok

yellow_lead 5y ago

TikTok is singled out here because it was where it was shared. The author would likely also agree to other social media use being banned in the military. >If OPSEC is important, don't let people bring their personal camera phones (or smart glasses or camera enabled watch or whatever other personal surveillance people choose to carry) near whatever you're trying to protect. 100%

freeflight 5y ago
> The author would likely also agree to other social media use being banned in the military. Yet the author demands that people should be punished for merely using TikTok, not all social media, even if its use doesn't compromise OPSEC in any way.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Bud 5y ago
  Use of TikTok should be punishable, of course, but for reasons of good taste, not OPSEC reasons. ;)

dcow 5y ago

The slant I picked up on is that Chinese authorities operating TikTok is the problem because the president can’t just dial Zuck and say “take that shit down immediately or else”. But in general I agree and find the slant annoying. I do think there is some discussion point buried in here about whether or not it’s strategic for the US to build dependencies on foreign software services… but… not sure if it’s a productive one at the moment. It is really kinda orthogonal to OPSEC.

TheDudeMan 5y ago
Getting pictures deleted from the internet is not a thing. Doesn't matter if you are the president or Zuck.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Precisely, if Mark Zuckerberg could delete pictures from the internet the photo of him wearing sunscreen[1] would never have been allowed to spawn so many memes. 1. https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-04/27/20/asset/5bc9aff542d8/sub-buzz-855-1619555313-21.jpg https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-04/27/2...
  - anonymousiam 5y ago
    He was pretty effective at taking down the Hunter Biden stories right before the election.
- laumars 5y ago
  You’re missing the point. The GP was commenting on their impression of the slant the article was taking (and I agree with their point there). They were not suggesting the article’s slant was correct, in fact they specifically stated that they disliked the way the article was slanted. Maybe they could have been more explicit in the way they worded their reply. But I think given the question they were responding to and the typical audience of this forum, it should have been obvious to most people that the GP wasn’t trying to imply pictures can be deleted from the internet. Or at least obvious to anyone that read the OPs question and the source article.

marcos100 5y ago

Strava famously outlined hidden military bases.

kindle-dev 5y ago

The TikTok app may have camera access and location access. It could capture images and send them to China when it detects its on a military base without the user even knowing. It’s so annoying to see “what about X” comments on every story with almost no thought put into the response.

imwillofficial 5y ago
You nailed it
chitowneats 5y ago
Did you watch the video? Someone is clearly recording this object intentionally. The camera pans and zooms to follow the truck. Whether this is secretly being sent to China via TikTok is somewhat irrelevant if an individual is breaking protocol by intentionally taking video on their smartphone.
- kindle-dev 5y ago
  I was responding to the comment asking why TikTok should be banned vs. other social media.
  - chitowneats 5y ago
    Yes. I was agreeing with the parent comment that the social media platform is irrelevant. Presumably, video taken of secret military hardware is not ok in any circumstance. It's the smartphone, the attached camera, and the individual that is at fault.
  - beezle 5y ago
    I suppose then that it is OK for foreign governments to ban FB, Insta, etc? After all, we all know what lengths the US via NSA will go to.
    - wonnage 5y ago
      It is and it's stupid that Americans insist on their companies running with unfettered access to every country like it's some unalienable right

tclancy 5y ago

Do they anywhere? My neighbor works at a government facility for building and repairing … machines and he surrenders his phone every morning. Something smells weird here, but I suppose not everywhere has perfect security all the time. I just wouldn’t want to be the person that proved that.

Frost1x 5y ago

>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. There's an additional layer here that's often ignored: that specific piece of information that leaked is the same regardless of what platform it was released on, but if it was released on a foreign government controlled platform, that government might start monitoring aspects of data being collected by TikTok that aren't being posted for the user or look at historical data if it's being collected. More detailed location data, who their friends are, where they typically go, and so on. Not all of that additional data is probably going to be available to them on Facebook, just the video. The information in the video may be more valuable when it's incorporated with a series of other data points that may be attainable from TikTok for that now closely monitored account. Sharing this information to begin with isn't good but it's even worse if you're now potentially leaking additional data unknowingly. Maybe the guy who recorded that begins taking photos at some specific base, maybe their TikTok friends include some coworkers that include some videos in on a boat in the South China Sea... it's possible to start linking more information together that could be valuable to an adversary.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kbenson 5y ago
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 if technically somewhat worse. If you solve the root problem, the variation that makes it slightly worse this time is solved at the same time.
- baybal2 5y ago
  Even if they don't share, it is a piece of spyware they have on their phone, called Google Android. I believe PLA uses its assets within Google, and other American dotcoms to the fullest extend, and they already pulled every info they can through their Android Store accounts on them. Even a running meme of spy agency, the Saudi Army intel wing managed to have their men operate within Google for years. Imagine now what Chinese could.

trenning 5y ago

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

ehsankia 5y ago
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.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  It might be a fake or a prop aircraft, with the "leaked video" a disinformation tactic.

23B1 5y ago

You're totally right, but for whatever reason the culture of clout-chasing is especially bad on military TikTok. It's bad. Real bad.

brian_herman 5y ago

Yeah, I am not sure why cameras are even allowed in this area. It doesn't make any sense. It is common in companies with sensitive information to ban the use of snapchat glasses and google glass in their offices.

mdoms 5y ago

TikTok was singled out because this is an article about a video that was posted to TikTok. Weird thing to get confused about.

jws 5y ago

It's not clear why TikTok is singled out here… Completely unbased in facts, I know nothing factual, but… as a hypothesis… The government whose laws govern a media sharing service could certainly say "All content generated in this list of geofenced areas must be flagged to the legal observing authority XYZ, even if geotags are not a part of the ultimately published content." Country A would probably care a bit less about services governed by their own laws. Even if such a secret law existed it wouldn't be used against them. Whereas Country A might care more about services in adversarial Country B where it can be used to turn an intractable search problem into a targeted search.

ta988 5y ago

That's something that has always amazed me. Even visiting an embassy you are not allowed to have any kind of electronics, and in secret/confidential operations you can take your personal phone?

asiachick 5y ago

This seems short-sighted to me. In my fiction, in 10-20-30yrs we'll all have eye implants ala Black Mirror and we'll be so dependent on them that telling people they have to turn them off will be untenable. Anytime I see "no photography" signs I can't help but think "living in the past". For example the immigration line in nearly every Airport says "no photos" and yet everyone in line is on their portable camera, um, I mean smartphone. It's like the people that wrote the sign are stuck in the 1970s and haven't bothered to look up at what people around them are actually doing. It's the same in museums, sometimes there's an area "no photography allowed" and you can see them trying and utterly failing to enforce what is effectively unenforcable. If there are only a few patrons and they have a guard in every room they might stop 80%. But on a crowded day I doubt they catch 30%. It's ridiculous to see them try.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
In museums it's usually the flash photography they have the main issue with. For the bleaching effect to paintings and disruption to other visitors.

nivenkos 5y ago

Because the US Tech industry wants to shore up its protectionism. Remember when Zuckerberg wanted the Trump admin to ban TikTok completely? It's crazy that the EU follows suit for so much of this stuff (against Huawei, etc.) and then end up with no industry at all with all the high-paying jobs in the US.

bordercases 5y ago

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

It might be a fake or a plant, with the "leaked video" a misnformation tactic. The whole thing a planned ploy. Like a FOUND FOOTAGE Hollywood film,

tarsinge 5y ago

Yeah the video is available on Twitter where it’s still up. It’s just an additional opportunity to blame TikTok.

BatteryMountain 5y ago

Maybe they can wrap their super-top-secret object in say, a blanket or a tarp...

TrackerFF 5y ago

Most likely, that's already the case. This seems like a classic violation of non-electronics/photography zone.

numpad0 5y ago

> If OPSEC is important, give people secure phones for shitposting to auditable on-prem private social. FTFY. Don’t understand why militaries don’t.

LatteLazy 5y ago

China panic >> Common Sense or effective policy.