Pokémon GO was an intelligence tool, claims Belarus military official A defense ministry official from Belarus has claimed augmented reality game Pokémon GO was a tool of Western intelligence agencies. Alexander Ilanov, head of the department of ideological work at Belarus's defense department, this week appeared on a local TV talk show and was reportedly asked about the most likely targets for …
Phones are a good way to get into trouble. All sorts of data on Russian incursions into Ukraine has been gathered from smartphone pictures and Russian soldiers' social media posts. Including tracking the Russain SAM launcher that shot down MH17 from Russia, into and then back out of Ukraine.
There was also a Ukrainian battalion in 2015 that had their mobiles on and got slaughtered by Russian artillery - teaching the Ukrainian military valuable lessons about electronic warfare and how to keep your units safe on the frontline. Ironically they were taught that lesson by some of Russia's most competent troops from Southern Military District - but large amounts of the Russian army didn't get the memo - and Ukraine did it right back to them, at scale, in 2022.
The comment about Strava in the article reminded me of various special forces soldiers (who are often very serious about their exercise regimes) - who were running laps of the perimeter fences of their bases. Suddenly outlining their bases for all to see on Strava maps. Oops.
More fun news, there are lots of pictures of Russian soldiers taking selfies after being transferred to for training near the border, and gues what Ukraine see them and sends a few bombs to remove that exact place.
How stupid do you have to be to take selfies of the secret base you are living and training and post them on the internet...not thinking the Ukrainians might find that useful. Im compeltely ignoring the penalties from the Russian gov itself who also supposedly punish these idiots, well if they werent already killed by UKR.
How stupid do you have to be to take selfies of the secret base you are living and training and post them on the internet
Anyone can be that stupid. Common sense isn't that common. Which is why you train. And you have an ops manual - which is basically a list of all the fuck-ups that previous people have made (and often paid in blood) - so you can be taught not to do the same thing again.
By definition, trainees haven't had the training yet. And probably don't particularly want to be there, so discipline is a serious problem and they'll only obey rules when they're made to. Plus they've been fed a relentless diet by the Russian government of news about how Ukraine are losing and aren't that good - and any day now Russia will be beat both Ukraine and the evil NATO that back them. So why worry?
Also the same thing happened at the start of the war, where various international volunteers were in Lviv and some of them were posting on social media about what they were up to in Ukraine. I'm guessing probably the idealistic/foolish ones rather than the foreign military veterans. That place got bombed by the Russians pretty quick.
I think the funniest one was the Russiain journalist who posted on Twitter a photo of himself entering the secret FSB headquarters in Donetsk - he was going there to interview them for Russian TV. Ukranian artillery obliterated the building within minutes of him posting it.
There's a sign on the A12 at Kelvedon Hatch in Essex, which says, "this way to the secret nuclear bunker." Bit of a giveaway that... It's a Cold War bunker that's now a museum.
>How stupid do you have to be to take selfies of the secret base you are living and training and post them on the internet
Or be a super-fit super-secret agent at a super secret base somewhere
And then run around the perimeter fence every morning and upload you route to Strava
ias: By definition, trainees haven't had the training yet.
cow: Supposedly many are aware and have been told by their trainers not to send selfies and supposedly are also told not to have phones because they will punished...
They may be many things but they are not unaware of the penalties and reasons why taking selfies is dumb.
They may be many things but they are not unaware of the penalties and reasons why taking selfies is dumb.
CowHorseFrog,
18 year-old young men are not famous for their willingness to obey authority. Especially if that's an authority that's just conscripted them, and they don't really want to be there.
18 year-old young men are also famous for thinking they're immortal and their inability to properly assess risk.
Add in either bad instruction (telling people to do things without telling them why) or lack of belief in what the instructor says (many people have no idea how traceable modern electronic kit is) and you've got the perfect reason for homesick kids to want to communicate with home.
"there are lots of pictures of Russian soldiers taking selfies "
There are various 'find the view' competitions online, eg one i know of is 'view from your window' on the daily dish. The simple premise is to find where a photo was taken using just the photo visual, no metadata. Types of architecture, vehicles, road signs, trees and foliage, satellite dishes, skylines and much more can be pieced together even by someone not local, especially when they can be compared to a wealth of other online aerial photo / streetmaps type of photo. For someone who is a relative local it would probably be even easier.
For my part I remain astounded that anyone can derive even a town, let alone a specific window in a specific building, from a photo!
jmch: For my part I remain astounded that anyone can derive even a town, let alone a specific window in a specific building, from a photo!
cow: Really ?
Most poorer eastern european towns like those in Russia are not filled with boring glass buildings that all look the same like in modern western countries.
WHen you realise that it wouldnt be impossible to find a town given a photo.
But as you mention its not impossible with some thought and examination of the clues.
Not only location, but also the surroundings: Pokemon Go only works with the camera, meaning that the server knows the location and the 360° view, something like Google Street (or whatever it is called now). What I have read is the the pokemonsters mainly appear where the Google Street cars couldn't go. Therefore, having many Pokemons appearing close to military bases, randomly of course, wouldn't be inconceivable.
Even if it is not currently used as a surveillance tool, it's still probably a good idea for militaries and governments to not install smartphone apps from adversarial countries.
Except in the case of Belarus and Russia, where I personally think they should all install as many foreign apps as they can.
First, it's not just the Russians who have been caught by bad phone or social media discipline. Some years back a soldier in the IDF ruined a planned operation by setting his Facebook status to "off to raid the village of [whatever].", or the equivalent.
Second, about 25 years ago, the US banned the toy "Furby" from secure installations.
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Every military on the planet has issued statements about Pokemon GO, including all branches of the US military.
I'm not sure how the theory it's a CIA tool has been debunked. I mean, there's at least enough ties that if I where head of a non-US national intelligence agency I would be not permitting it.
John Hanke, founder and CEO of Niantic was the previous founder of Keyhole, Inc, which was invested in by In-Q-Tel a venture capital firm started by the CIA.
Gilman Louie, board member of Niantic, is on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, and has been awarded National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency medallion, the CIA Agency Seal Medallion (twice), CIA Director's Award, the Director of National Intelligence Medallion, amongst others.
Does that mean it's a CIA tool? I'll leave that to the reader to decide, but that's some pretty heavy connections with US intelligence.. and of course, the CIA has never lied.
I'm bipolar and remember the untreated times of paranoid fear and terror. Fortunately, there are medications that help a lot. Sounds to me like Mr. Paranoid needs some therapy and treatment.
For that matter, so do all the people ranting about "location services." Unless you're in an active operation, no one gives a rats patoot where or when you visit the latrine.
There have been cases where police investigating a crime have asked for all cellphone location data near the area and then picked out an appropriate suspect.
A former prof of mine was an expert witness on radio propagation showing that the cell phone tower triangulation inside a large mall wasn't the super-precision perfect solution the police and cell company imagined.
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