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.
>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.
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.
As a non-american, it's always interesting to see the point of view of the major military power. Why is China "America's top adversary"?
Aside from the OPSEC issue, which is understandable, why does the author - and I guess it's a widespread view - considers China as America's utmost adversary? Can't there exist two rich and prosperous countries? Why does the author uses such jingoist terms? How should other countries consider America, then?
I can't speak for the author or to popular anti-China narratives in the U.S., but from a traditional geopolitical perspective China poses a threat because of territorial claims independent of Taiwan, most importantly its claims over the South China Sea. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratly_Islands_disputehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_So... Those claims pose a grave threat directly to global shipping and to regional fishing and mining rights, and indirectly to the largely peaceful maritime waters status quo globally.
Over the past decade China has also been making increasingly brazen land grabs along and near the Indian border. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute and, most recently, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/07/china-bhutan-border-vil... Relative to the South China Sea that's slightly less of a concern geopolitically (ignoring the potential for another full blown war between India and China), but does evidence China's actual (not simply rhetorical) aggression.
Finally, North Korea is a protected state of China. The only reason North Korea has nuclear weapons is because China prevents military and, to a lesser degree, economic retaliation. China permitting North Korea to develop and possess nuclear weapons is a violation of China's role as a nuclear super power, especially in light of the proliferation risk North Korea poses. By contrast, the U.S. killed Taiwan's nuclear program the moment it was discovered, and strongly opposed both the Israeli and Pakistani programs up until they were already an accomplished fact. (Note that the U.S. had far more leverage with Taiwan--it could threaten to retract its defense umbrella, which would have passively permitted immediate Chinese invasion--whereas with Israel and Pakistan the only viable options would have required direct retaliation.)
Foreign policy and military analysts in the U.S. and, I would assume, China understand that the global economic tussle between the U.S. and China are distinct from the geopolitical security issues. (Strongly related, of course, but the calculus nonetheless significantly different.) The masses and certain political factions in each country don't tend to draw such distinctions, though.
> Those claims pose a grave threat directly to global shipping and to regional fishing and mining rights, and indirectly to the largely peaceful maritime waters status quo globally.
European here, so this may be caused by selective reporting in different regions of the world, but here news is equally often about US military presence in the South China Sea. Looking at a globe and seeing the distance between US homeland and the South China Sea, I wonder who gave the US a mandate for military manoeuvers near the coast of another country? And how this makes China the aggressor?
My understanding is that when it comes the US maneuvers in international waters of the South China Sea, the purpose is actually defensive. Part of international maritime law determining the owner of waterways includes considerations for actual control of areas.
By navigating international waters against China's wishes, the US is demonstrating to the international community that China does not control access to those waters. This prevents China from making claims that those waters should no longer be international and instead be China's.
So this isn't the US going off to provoke China (or if you still wish to see it so, at least not for no reason). This is the US exercising rights granted by international treaties in order to prevent China from making effectively false claims to those waters under those same treaties.
Is it purely a coincidence that it's right around the time the US is losing hegemony in that part of the world to China?
How would the US react if China sent ships to secure the waters between the US and Mexico.
Likely we’d find it amusing, as China is mostly incapable of projecting force outside of its immediate region and I shudder to think about the condition of their coastal navy after a cross pacific journey.
That said, I believe your point is valid, but the comparison breaks down once you look at the nuance of the situation. If Mexico feels they can get a better deal by partnering with China to do joint fleet ops in the Gulf of Mexico then I’d say the US has done a very poor job of treating its neighbors correctly, and that needs to be reevaluated. It’s the same answer I have for China - Theyre doing a poor job of being a good neighbor to others in the region.
A more direct answer is that the US is doing the job on behalf of its traditional allies in the region who have claims over parts of the South China Sea which helps to maintain US soft power in the region.
The illegal land grabs in the South China Sea make China the aggressor.
The US navy presence is a reaction to that, and very welcome by almost all of the states on the coast except China, given that without the promise of US opposition, they would all rapidly become members of the Greater Chinese Coprosperity Sphere like Hong Kong and Macao did.
> here news is equally often about US military presence in the South China Sea.
You're misreading your news. The US is doing miliary manuvers in international waters specifically to asser that they are not near the coast of China and are free travel for all. Meanwhile, the Chinese are claiming islands that are no theirs (or building islands out of the sea floor) and putting military installations on those islands. They then claim that as part of China, and trying to assert more ownership of the ocean because of that. The US doing maneuvers near them is a statement that those claims are not recognized.
The British recently did the same thing in waters near Crimea to deny Russia's ownership.
Wouldn’t that be 230 miles, or are there distinct international agreements that put China’s territorial borders eleven times closer their shores than other countries with a coastline?
China's land border with Vietnam terminates at the shore of this sea, so of course in that area the "territorial waters" don't extend so far. It's the same as e.g. Canadian waters located right next to USA. In addition, China and Philippines are separated by about 400 miles at their closest points, so that would curtail a 230 mile perimeter for at least one of those nations.
The Russians did/do this all the time, although mostly on the East Coast. There wasn't any reaction until they started moving missiles to Cuba though...
Another European here, but with a different perspective: never seen any mainstream news suggesting US Navy is posing a threat to the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan or Taiwan (or even China). It seems the narative is mostly the same as in the US. Do you have examples of news reporting otherwise ?
Yes the bias is obviously also pro US, anti China, but that has been true since forever. It was the same at the beginning of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions of the US, for example.
Nevertheless the facts themselves also tend to get reported, e.g.:
The US has defense agreements with at the very least Taiwan and the Philippines and more distantly Japan. Allowing China to claim the South China Sea would seriously hamper the US' ability to meet the obligations in those treaties. Not to mention that ensuring products produced in that area are able to be shipped through the South China Sea is absolutely essential as is evidenced by the effects of the current chip shortage. If access to TSMC products was suddenly cut off by China it would cause massive issues across the world and especially so in the US.
But is China really threating the US directly in anyway through military confrontation? Taiwan, China sea matters are localised to the close neighborhood of China.
Does the US desire peaceful coexistence with China or not? Reading some of the hawkish, cold war style jingoism coming out of US media makes one wonder?
The US supports all kinds of non-democratic groups when it benefits them, though. Most likely the reason is just that they don't want to lose any power to China.
An increasing desire and capability to export their illiberal practices abroad. For example, using their weight to prevent the Dalai Lama from speaking at foreign universities. It’s naive to think that an even more powerful China wouldn’t continue to suppress free speech abroad as much as it does at home.
How is what China does to the Dalai Lama any worse than what the US does to Julian Assange? Isn't it equally naive to assume that an even more powerful USA wouldn't continue to summarily execute people abroad as much as it already does?
> How is what China does to the Dalai Lama any worse than what the US does to Julian Assange?
Among other things, we're allowed to discuss what the US has done with Julian Assange on this here US-based website without much fear of a dawn raid by the FBI over it.
Nothing justifies it when the US does evil. The important difference is that as a society, in the US we have remarkable capacity for self-criticism and the power to loudly rebuke our government. We're far from perfect, but we can at least acknowledge the atrocities committed in our names, and hopefully account for them and try not to commit them again. The same is not true in Chinese society. Currently, it is only external pressure that keeps them in check. There won't be internal resistance to the Chinese governments expansionist behavior, because it simply would not be tolerated. The PRC will even use its power to silence criticism from abroad, much less tolerate it at home.
Again, we're not perfect, but we hear about almost every drone strike that harms civilians, or the abuses our prisoners of war face in Guantanamo bay. Does anyone in China rebuke the government for stealing land from neighboring countries[1] and building on it?
I think you have a decent comparison, but debate about what the CIA did in the US is widely reported in the US while. There is no free press in China. Pressure to stop China will only come externally, whereas pressure to stop US can come from within and external.
Also China is continuing to carry out a genocide that is unparalleled in this century.
Lets be real, America has allowed the use of capitalism to enslave entire generations of people and they are clueless to the fact about it. In fact many praise it and go deeper into debt so they can rock the newest iPhone 13, only 36 months of payments spread out. I can handle that!
In the US a Genocide has been underway for decades. The cost of healthcare will break people. A trip to the doctor can easily wipe out life savings, what little there is for most people. Considering more than half the US population lives paycheck to paycheck to nearly paycheck to paycheck lifestyles, its easy to see how Most Americans are nothing more than slaves that go to work and back home in a endless cycle. That is not freedom. And sure they can quit, and live out in the streets if they wanted. Its a shit life.
Americans are so caught up in thinking the government is the bad guy here. No the real bad guy is the companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Exxon, Verizon, ATT, Capital one, Chase, any CC company, plus the many Pharma companies. The list can go on and on.
With no protection for allowing people to get into 10-20k+ worth of CC debt at 22-28% APR, People will always be slaves.
Honestly its easy to see the USA as a Cancer. I dont blame China for wanting to break away from the ideals of the western world. Now they have made a lot of bad choices. But at the same time the USA is largely responsible for keeping the middle east a 3rd world society.
Americans enjoy living in a bubble, They love to think they are free. They are not free!
I'm an American, and I'm just as much of a slave to the system as the rest of you. The system is so rigged that any true free speech is easily spun around. Just look at all the crazy trump supporters, Slaves not only to unchecked capitalism but to also propaganda labeled as factful free speech.
I wonder why the bad things the US does internationally never get blamed on capitalism, yet when people write or vent about China it's always about these darn Communists.
Are these after-effects of the red scare?
China is an authoritarian dictatorship with their own flavour of communism I guess. Blaming everything they do on commmunism as a whole is very uninformed.
I believe this has to do with any system where the government has too much control. Communism appears to me like a system that promotes the government’s freedoms over an individual.
Have there ever been peaceful capitalists who ran a country?
Don't get me wrong, I can't really stand uber-authoritarian Communism. But I don't see how communist/marxist theory is bad as a whole. Would certainly help erase a lot of issues we have on our earth.
Unfortunately, people at the top always start to misuse their power to stay there. But that's also the case in capitalist America, so then again, why is communism such a problem for many americans?
> Taiwan, China sea matters are localised to the close neighborhood of China.
Or the close neighborhood of the Philippines, a major US ally with a mutual defense pact. Or Taiwan, a major US ally and trading partner. Or Vietnam, a growing trading partner. There are ongoing disputes between and among those groups.
A huge amount of shipping goes through the South China Sea, including most oil for S. Korea, Japan and the US West Coast. Meanwhile, goods bound for Europe and the Suez from those places also go through there. Something like 10% of the worlds shipping. Letting China just call "dibs" on international waters and set up a chokehold would be weird to allow.
I don't think anyone is urging war with China. But stopping their advance in it's tracks.
Meanwhile, China has been aggressively expanding its influence worldwide, in South America, Africa and Afghanistan.
> Meanwhile, China has been aggressively expanding its influence worldwide, in South America, Africa and Afghanistan.
In contrast to the U.S.? When other countries did this in the past and present, it was ok, but not for China? The U.S. can invade and occupy countries on the other side of the world, but it's aggressive for China to occupy an unoccupied island off its own coast?
I'm not thrilled with China's behavior, but the U.S. needs to stand down until they can act from the high moral ground. They have a lot of work to do to rebuild a working compass. Until then, nobody can trust their navigation.
> The U.S. can invade and occupy countries on the other side of the world, but it's aggressive for China to occupy an unoccupied island off its own coast?
Invading countries with a diplomatic alliance like NATO behind you is as close to "okay" as you can get. A small country got beat up, but there was no risk of WWIII. And there was an attempt to install a democracy in place of a dictatorship and get out.
China claiming the territory owned by their neighbors is about slowly stealing land (and sea) and making them part of China. It's completely different.
But really, the US's moral high ground is a distraction. This thread is about whether China is taking actions that could be a threat to the United States.
> This thread is about whether China is taking actions that could be a threat to the United States.
This thread is about the U.S. producing a war plane. Somehow China is threatening the U.S. just by knowing about a weapon produced by the U.S.? China is the threat?
Whatever, if not thread, the posts you are responding to were about that. There are many posts that deal with the plane. This is focusing on China/US relations, as an offshoot conversation.
> China claiming the territory owned by their neighbors is about slowly stealing land (and sea) and making them part of China. It's completely different.
Yes, the United States did that in the past. It did it by fighting a war with Spain. That's why I would also agree with someone who said the US was a threat to Spain 120 years ago.
Or did you miss:
>> But really, the US's moral high ground is a distraction. This thread is about whether China is taking actions that could be a threat to the United States.
> Taiwan, China sea matters are localised to the close neighborhood of China
We don't have a defense treaty with Taiwan so it's not like we'd have to intervene to the degree we would if Egypt decided they wanted to have a go at Israel or something, but we've had a standing agreement since the 1970s to arm them as the situation dictates, so we're not entirely detached from it.
No but any credible claim that the US has to defending interests in SEA / East Asia would evaporate once that happened. China understands this. If Taiwan goes, then that's it for the US's Asia strategy.
Anyone who cares about democracy in their own part of the world should be paying attention to what happens in China. Unlike the 20th century fascist and communist dictatorships (including Chinese communism of that era), China today is neither self-destructive nor economically unsound.
Jingoism is definitely present and infuriatingly becoming more financially viable for media companies pitching towards those parts of the populous, but it is important to recognize that that is the minority. Anecdotally, most people in my area, a college town in a republican state, are apathetic by means of being unaffected and uninformed. Even the chinese and korean people I've spoken with pretty frequently don't seem to particularly care or be informed. It is kind of weird, because it freaks me out and I follow it very closely; worrying about ww3.
Opposition to Xi Jinping in the executive branch is widespread, that is also definitely true. I think our hawks and their wolf warriors have created a feedback loop.
> China permitting North Korea to develop and possess nuclear weapons is a violation of China's role as a nuclear super power,
While this is true, the US had a hand in helping the DPRK obtain the necessary tools to do so way back in 1994:
In 1994, President Bill Clinton agreed to a deal with North Korea aimed at curbing their desire to develop a nuclear weapon, an agreement which the networks at the time hailed as a sign that “the Cold War is really over.”
Under the 1994 framework, which North Korea eventually violated, the U.S. helped the rogue regime build a new nuclear reactor that would not be capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium in exchange for international access to its nuclear facilities, although the United States caved and the inspections would not start for several years.
Crucial inspections are being delayed five years while the rest of the deal is implemented. American officials say the delay is a small price to pay for getting North Korea to shut down its entire nuclear program
But Kim Jung Il’s regime gets to keep what intelligence experts believe it already has, at least one bomb. And it does not have to permit inspection to nuclear waste sites for 5 years.
The very framework designed to prevent the DPRK from obtaining a nuclear weapon actually laid the groundwork for them to not only obtain nuclear technology, but to fast track their program to produce even more nukes.
To be fair, I deployed on US Navy ships twice. It is better to think of it as fking with eachother. We tail them for a week or two, they tail us. Russians fly an aircraft over us, we do it over them. I think it is more about showing off than actually threatening. Media only presents this when Russians or Chinese approach us, but not the other way around.
Your link claiming China is threatening a nuclear attack on Japan doesn't even mention nuclear weapons, directly or indirectly.
China has a "no first use" policy on it's nuclear weapons, and therefore has publicly committed not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear state like Japan. (The US, in contrast, has a policy of allowing first-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.) For details on China's policy, you can see e.g.: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25751654.2018.1...
I purposefully used the Global Times (CCP state run news source) for all those links - it is interesting reading what they directly want the world to read.
Anyway the original message was much more colorful. This video from Chinese military channel https://youtu.be/7vKf5SXnsHA
Yes they pulled it after 2 million views. The Japanese exception to no first use message was delivered pretty clearly though.
When was the last time PBS or NPR called for expanding nuclear capabilities 10x? In China it was last year.
CCPs no-first-use is just window dressing on the MAD status quo of the world. Perhaps it makes them think they look moral? Their cavalier way of discussing it is disgusting.
It is worth asking if China is being practical or paranoid when it comes to shoring up its nuclear arsenal. As an American, I see the US as a democracy with a penchant for electing an unstable leader of the armed forces with a severe personality disorder who casually talks about using nuclear weapons.
Seems like a practical move to make sure they have solid rocket motors and warheads not in storage. That guarantees MAD regardless of who the US elects, thus all generals on both sides will truthfully say any nuclear confrontation is unwinnable.
Because, leaving the US aside, China spends more on it's military than the next five largest countries combined (3/5 of which are US allies).
Meanwhile, China seems to be aggressively staking claims in the South China Sea (which is important for the US and it's Asian allies) and there's a perpetual risk of war over Taiwan. China is also growing it's influence in places like Africa and Afghanistan, as well as using Belt and Road money to intermesh themselves anywhere you can.
Maybe "rival" or "top potential adversary" would be a better phrase. But the idea is that there is a western block and a Chinese block (and a Russian block) exerting power on the world, and that's zero sum. It's not violent, but the competition is still there.
> How should other countries consider America, then?
Whatever else you think of America, with it gone or taking a step back from world affairs, there's a power vacuum that China and Russia will fill. At worst, they should think of it as the lesser evil. I would go further than that and call America good, but that seems offtopic at this point.
Everyone is an expert on the Internet, this is some guy's opinion, not a statement of official US government policy.
Also makes it sound more dramatic, especially with the Air Force General "looking impressed" hot take. The fact of the matter is that it would be a bigger problem if a top secret aircraft was sitting outside exposed to the sky in full daylight in the first place, where Gen. Kelly's and presumably everyone else's surveillance satellites could count the rivets on the thing.
You know they do have to fly these things for real testing. Only so much can be simulated with computers and wind tunnels. It's not a matter if it's exposed, it's a matter of when and where it's exposed. Security through obscurity is very much still a legitimate thing for a lot of aspects.
We're not quite to a point yet where you have continuous ultra high resolution satellite imagery of the ground where you could feasibly record these things and eventually find them. Chances are you just don't have the data unless you know all the places to look. In the not too far off future it might be a bit more difficult. We're getting closer to that point for sure given export controls on AI software used in geospatial imagery analysis:
Part of this I suspect is geared at stifling an adversary from utilizing lower resolution imagery data to identify targets of interest to point higher resolution imagery or other sensors and agents at to collect intel.
Well, there's a slight difference between "flying these things for real testing" and being carted around on a flatbed where yahoos with a smartphones are around to take videos and post them.
Presumably, if it actually requires some level of security clearance, either it should have been covered for transport, or the yahoos with smartphones should have been cleared of the area to at least reduce the chance of something silly like this.
Not a whole lot you can do if you need to fly it and it's going to be in or around public areas, nor much you can do about satellite imagery, but that doesn't mean ignore all opsec.
exactly. contractors or not gotta checkin there phones before entering places where anything top secret may be. if this was real heads would roll you would expect.
It's because China is on its way to take the top spot economically while also being powerful enough militarily so that it cannot be touched by the US. The US is trying its best to drag out #1 for as long as possible because much of the US' influence depends on it.
Just need to ask yourself who costs the wealthy the most income if they stop playing ball. At one point it was the Middle East with oil supply cutoffs. Now it’s China with supply chain manipulation and market competition.
China is America's enemy because they are achieving rival status and America can't just walk all over China like they do most South and Central American countries, its allies, etc. The bad stuff China does is just frosting on top for the narrative.
They are allies because they have common enermies.
War and ideaology is mans worst attributes and will only lead to the cultures downfall.
That is why humans are stuck in a cycle of repeating mistakes from the past. Blinded by there own ego. In a constant battle of picking sides, where winners reinforce positions, rewrite history and loosers are always waiting to take the crown back at the slightest slip up. Like that will be the final staw, like they will be last king to end all kings.
Unfortunately for the US, China has used its own tactics against it. through the greed of capitalism it has lost grip of its influence and let its competitive advantage be exported.
When push comes to shove, i would rather be taking a blue pill for virility then then eating a tiger penis. The US detains only the illegals in there own countries, while China simply invades, moves in and purifies. The US gives lethal injections, while China sends you to concentration camps then sells your body parts highest bidder.
The lesser of two evils in this case is clearly the country with more diversity and acceptance for other points of view. No way a black person would ever be considered pure enough to lead China. China out-racists the US on every measure, as it does in systemic corruption.
No communist has ever lived in its final utopia. Just as no captialist ever has. Or ever will. After a certain point, every culture that defines itself on war will fade.
I am under the impression you are not familiar with the HAN culture? It doesn't allow for sharing or 2nd place, it's a winner take all and destroy everyone else. The China of today is determined to rule the world and I mean the entire world.
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.
Yes. So it people tagging pictures or leaving reviews on Yelp. Is your suggestion that off-duty people during their personal time should not use social media for purely personal ends with personal info, as long as it's for things that are not already to not be done while working with security clearance?
Otherwise, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
Given that fitbits and their ilk have exposed the specific locations and layouts of airbases, perhaps they should be a bit more careful with what technology they use, even in their offtime.
Checking them in at a locker at the edge of base is probably sufficient, at least for an airbase. It's not like you can actually hide those in the days ubiquitous satellite imagery, right? For some other types of facilities, maybe check them in off-site somewhere before you transport people in (because otherwise how secret can it be if you can just follow someone's car?).
Letting people transmit GPS coordinates while walking around a military facility though? Yeah, maybe that's not a good idea.
For example you can easily guess everything about ones family members, his work schedule, browsing history, ruffle his personal email/facebook — stuff that often gets mixed with work correspondence, financials, home location, other gadgets, other people in his first circle — people often meet with other servicemen off duty.
Yeah already stuff like contact information can be highly informative.
I think we need to arrange for an age in which great powers learn a lot about each other through internet services, similarly to how we had to arrange to satellite imagery becoming available of each other.
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.
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.
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.
> I would assume that once a photo hits any social media, the Chinese and other adversaries (and allies) have already scraped it.
Don't all the social media companies make it hard to scrape their sites, especially in bulk? It's definitely impossible to contain something once it's all over a bunch of blogs like this, but it might be possible to contain some things if caught early enough.
There's also the private message angle: something shared through PM on a US social network may be able to be contained to the US, while anything shared on a foreign network may be able to be accessed by a foreign intelligence service, regardless of sharing settings.
Facebook makes it difficult, but this where the question of "who's your adversary?" comes in. It's one thing to have to change user agent away from curl and rate limit, but when you're a nation-state and can afford to pay teams of people to do nothing else but collect information on your adversaries (in this case, the US military), having an actual person (so the traffic looks organic - because it is) who's full time job it is to just refresh that one Facebook group (never mind actually automating it), paying for a US Visa, a house, an ISP, all of their food needs. Against that level of advarsary (never mind trying to get your spies hired at Facebook as senior engineers), what sort of countermeasures do you imagine is possible by Facebook?
Like, FB is the largest information platform in the world. Even if they are 99% successful at removing these kinds of content, that 1% is gonna fuel a lot of stories like this.
Make sense. Probably Tik-Tok (etc) has employees who are US intelligence assets too, safe to assume seems like.
Now I wonder if every large US social media company also has employees who are intelligence assets of US agencies. I'm not going to say 'safe to assume', theoretically America likes to think of itself as having that kind of domestic secret policing, but I wonder.
I feel it's pretty safe to assume. All a US agency needs to gain an "asset" in a tech company is find an employee with the right blend of patriotism and trust in the intelligence agencies.
They might not have full-time undercover spies, but they almost certainly have assets.
I mean Google/Alphabet has an entire division whose job is essentially to be an adjunct of the US State Department. Searching for job postings requiring security clearances at any BigCo always yields some interesting data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(company)
Don't all the social media companies make it hard to scrape their sites, especially in bulk
When you can throw unlimited developers and real humans at it, it's not so hard to scrape. I'd be willing to bet money that there are Chinese affiliated agents (possibly based in the USA or other countries) in every military related Facebook group.
Additionally, there's corporate tools that can do this. We use one at work that monitors mention of our brand names etc so that our customer care can reply. It's called Sprinklr. It does all the major platforms.
In fact there's dozens of tools just like it. I'm not sure whether they're scraping the platforms or get legitimate access. But whichever it is, it's dozens of companies to infiltrate and get a link into their feeds. Trivial for a nation state actor.
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.
While Tiktok is technically slightly worse, focusing on that rather than the gaping real problem of publicly posting top secret info is missing the forest for the trees.
Solve the problem of people posting this to social media and it won't matter if the company is US owned and operated or foreign owned and operated because neither will have anything to work with.
I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Publicly posting confidential information is definitely bad. Bringing a device that can covertly collect information for adversaries is even worse.
> I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Publicly posting confidential information is definitely bad. Bringing a device that can covertly collect enemies for adversaries is even worse.
If you aren't posting top secret data, you also aren't sharing it with enemies on accident.
Sure. I was a little less clear in this thread than I was in the other. I'm more making a case for a more sane policy on what apps people can run, or even devices they can have, to make it so this is not a problem that's normally possible. Whether the info is shared with China or the U.K. isn't really a distinction worth making if it never should have been shared with either, period (and let's not act like the U.K. wouldn't want to know just as much, we do with out own allies as shown through some of our exposed wiretapping programs).
Who is disputing that you shouldn't share secret information on social networks? TikTok's ties still changes the potential impact of this breach. That's relevant information that gives context to the basic facts of the case that we usually call "the news".
I don't think you're understanding what the person you're replying to is saying.
If the app is made by an adversary, you don't need to post it publicly for there to be a problem. The app has the ability to send it directly without you even knowing.
By "Solve the problem of people posting this to social media" I mean the more general "you shouldn't be accessing apps that are security problems while in a secure area, which I covered in a separate thread on this article.
In that respect, whether it's TikTok or any other social media makes little difference. If it's use of apps like that is prohibited, then it's either not a problem or it's a personnel following policy problem.
That said, if people really think TikTok is a problem they should be worried about some other app that's ties are far less known that might get far less public scrutiny and do far more. By the time we're nitpicking which specific social media platform is the worst to have posted to in this case, we're so far down the path of problematic behavior that we're in absurdist territory. The fact that someone's walking around with the equivalent of a video camera taking movies of what appears to be top secret material is the problem, and whether they put it up on TikTok or YouTube, or sell to the Washington Post or to RT is just bikeshedding mostly irrelevant details.
The solution to this all is probably along the lines of "don't allow smartphones in secure areas" or only allow smartphones that have been vetted by security.
Responding to your other comment: the app has access to your camera. Nothing is stopping it from using your camera, without your knowledge, and then uploading what it captures while a user browses their TikTok feed.
Then don't allow people to keep smartphones while in secure areas?
My point is, the problem is posting to social media, or using a device that's insecure. There's plenty of apps that a user could be tricked into installed that are much worse than TikTok and that will have much less public scrutiny.
That TikTok is affiliated with the China in some way is a red herring. There's no reason to solve the problem of TikTok if you solve the general problem of people using unapproved applications (which all social media would obviously be unapproved in secure areas) or insecure devices.
Otherwise what you'll find is that Facebook as some Cambridge Analytica type situation going on, and some Chinese shell company ends up using it to get special access and details, and the same thing as this happens through Facebook and China has special additional info and "TikTok fix" helped solve exactly nothing.
Bringing up that TikTok is associated with China in the article is useful in showing people some of the ramifications of the problem. Focusing on that as the problem leads people to think banning TikTok is the answer, when it clearly is not, since it doesn't go nearly far enough in combating the problem.
On a base with top secret information, I'm amazed there would be private phones in operation there. The government may be pretty stupid about some things, but they absolutely know the 1000+ threat vectors within modern mobile phones.
The permissions of the app are one thing, whether the app does it is another. In theory what you say would be possible, yes, but does the TikTok app have a feature which allows remote enabling of the camera, i.e. without user interaction? The code is public and can be decompiled. TikTok is not in charge of application distribution either, Google is, so if they add such a feature, people might notice.
Modern apps are obfuscated and use certificate pinning to avoid network traffic introspection. It's really not simple to decompile an app into something understandable.
I'm not making China out to be an omniscient bogeyman. The U.S. has used companies to gain access to secure systems in other countries. It's just a reality that ANY country can do this. To deny that is to either be a shill, or woefully ignorant.
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.
Yes, of course it's ok. The role of a government is to do what is in the best interest of its citizens. If there is a possible threat from a foreign adversary, the government should deal with it.
There's a difference between the government banning an app from a country entirely, and banning anyone in their military from using an app or even a smart phone or anything with a camera, especially inside a military base!
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
It looks like a radar target. They mount them on sticks out in the desert and fire radar at them to study and tune stealth shapes. They are mounted on single sticks so they can be rotated/tilted to various angles. That's what the single central mount thing is, the 2" thick triangle bit with the two bolt holes. The leading edge of that mount also has a classic curve associated with some radar target mounts. It prevents direct reflections by the mount.
Whether a clearance is revoked will depend entirely on the specifics of the object. Maybe it is part of a new stealth fighter program. Maybe it is something for NASA. Maybe it is just a blue sky physics experiment researching an idea about wave propagation over a surface. The fact it is being moved during daylights and isn't covered by a box/tarp tells me it isn't anything too top secret.
Exactly, I know lots of people who work on radar for defense contractors. They are unreachable during the day because their cellphones and other electronics are taken away during work hours. Most likely this is not a highly classified project, or if it is someone might be looking at criminal charges.
But in these (dis?)information games, it wouldn't be difficult to setup a fake scenario like this just to make one's opponents feel really underpowered.
Imagine the fun of building a nice cool futuristic mockup, putting in on a trailer, and then leaking it to tiktok. It would cost so little and be so fun.
This is obviously comical speculation, but anything is possible.
Tricking your adversary into spending a huge R&D budget studying ESP is money well wasted: it’s unlikely to yield anything of value that can be weaponized against you.
If a SciFi weapon would break the laws of physics, and you can prove the equations unsolvable, leaking documents suggesting you solved them is money well wasted: your adversary is unlikely to get anything of value out of pursuing that weapon.
Pretending your stealth tech is better than it is… Is tricking your adversary into trying to be competitive with stealth tech you yourself aren’t competitive with. That’s a…questionable move. You might trick your adversary into developing better stealth tech than you.
> Pretending your stealth tech is better than it is… Is tricking your adversary into trying to be competitive with stealth tech you yourself aren’t competitive with. That’s a…questionable move. You might trick your adversary into developing better stealth tech than you.
You are tricking them into thinking money spent on stealth is a better gamble than it is (but being a gamble, it might still pay off). That siphons money from other projects.
> Is tricking your adversary into trying to be competitive with stealth tech you yourself aren’t competitive with
What you are "tricking" them is that you are flying over their airspace and they can't do anything about it. Secret projects are kept indoors longer, testing schedules are delayed, effort is put into hairbrained stealth detection tech, etc.
This presumes stealth tech is the goal, rather than a higher order tech that makes results of the research-triggering feint strategically immaterial.
For example, I suspect Apple feinted Amazon into chasing voice assistant tech and products, distracting Amazon from more serious matters like ARM-based SoC and AR.
It's like you're an entire comment forgot the Cold war existed, we're both sides extensively studied ESP and psychic abilities and repeatedly tried to out bluff each other with various technologies.
Comical speculation? Pretend weapons were invented in the Second World War (and probably prior). I agree, it would cost fuck all and be a right laugh. Next week they're going to do the Millennium Falcon.
"In one operation in September 1944, the British deployed 148 inflatable tanks close to the front line and around half were "destroyed" by fragments from German mortar and artillery fire, and by Allied bombs falling short."
> I showed this to Gen Mark Kelly, Air Combat Command chief. His immediate reply was that he had no idea what it was. And then he took my laptop and stared at it for about 20 seconds. His expression was (WARNING: my impression) somewhere between confused and impressed.
Idea: He was confused because it wasn't lensing. It's probably a target drone for craft which can lense, and which are dropped off at their destinations not by truck, but by theoretical gravity physics.
I'm surprised that there's only one other person in this thread discussing the possibility that this is a deliberately coordinated release of information by the military. I've never worked for the US military, however I doubt that if you're working in close proximity to classified hardware they just let you loose with a smartphone in your hand. The person filming this would surely have been easily identifiable, and subsequently punished. Even the most ignorant civilian contractor would surely have understood the full ramifications of their actions doing this. I think it seems to contrived.
If my country spent trillions of dollars on weapons and still felt the need to resort to this kind of tactics to make their enemies feel underpowered then I'd feel even more disappointed with how my tax dollars are spent. I expect North Korea or Hamas to engage in this rather than the US.
I think its pretty likely they don't care, otherwise they have other options then testing it in literal broad daylight, uncovered in a RCS site that has construction happening.
> I doubt that if you're working in close proximity to classified hardware they just let you loose with a smartphone in your hand
There is nothing except for speculation by the media outlet who benefits from it being perceived as classified that there is anything classified in the picture.
it's kind of funny how concerned people are about secrecy and data storage when people just pull out their phones and put that stuff out in the open. Reminds me of the military base that was exposed through strava heatmap data a few years ago. One really has to wonder how far OSINT can go.
It is not so unlikely that the person responsible will be going to prison... if this wasn't an intentional leak. People with access to classified information, even just present in places where classified things happen have security clearances and are very well informed about what they can and can't do and the consequences of such. Low grade accidental leaks happen all the time and often result in huge fines to employers or employees. Posting pictures of things though... is an entirely different matter than accidentally sending something to the wrong entity or mislabeling classified information.
Though it might not actually be anything particularly secret after all, the fact that somebody was hanging around taking phone pictures attests to this.
The area where the video was taken looks like it was from a construction site (trenches, rebar, and 2x4s visible). Was it taken by a contractor that was part of a crew pouring concrete and saw something cool?
Also, given it was out in the open in broad daylight, I'm assuming a spy satellite could have gotten a picture.
I wonder if one way to deal with this is just make a lot of plausible cool-looking decoys.
I may be underestimating our adversaries but I’d imagine we know exactly where all of their satellites are at all times and could just wait to pull it out until a window of clear skies (I don’t think they have 24/7 coverage of the entire United States)
There are already restrictions on our civilian satellites taking high res pictures of our military installations.
China has quite a few Yaogan optical satellites in orbit but they are much smaller than the Russian and US ones and are about the same size as commercial EOSs and thus much more limited.
China does launch a fuckton of them tho often 3-4 at the time on a single rocket however I would bet that their military usefulness at this level of detail is rather limited. They are probably around the same class as the Israeli satellites which means that they’ll be sufficient for strategic intelligence about facilities and large developments but won’t have anywhere near the resolution that the space telescopes pointed downwards class satellites have.
Not just on TikTok, I saw it on YouTube clips from outside the USA. I've know people who've worked on such bases and have heard how strict they were with orders to stop and look away or at the ground when an alarm went off. Well I was pretty surprised to see it and like others, the thought crossed my mind that it wasn't an accident. Furthermore, it looked familiar...I think I saw another diagram picture about a year ago, possibly on a military-tech YouTube channel, possibly by an eastern-european creator. There was discussion at the same time that the next generation was not just approved but already created.
The open source arms control people over at arms control wonk[1] regularly talk about using Russian social media as a place to learn about base layout, details, etc. It's very hard to check that every person within vision range isn't going to snap a photo.
The assumption is constant training and hearty penalties would dissuade one from such leaks, however, here we are.
I wonder what other mechanisms could be used to stop actions like this?
> An OPSEC violation has once again made a case for why using TikTok should be a punishable offense in the military
This could have happened with literally any social media platform.
Yet the consequences demanded out of this apparently solely focus on "Chinese government-affiliated platform" and how people in the military should be punished for merely using it.
How is that gonna fix the actual problem? Right, it wouldn't, even with TikTok banned from the phones of all military personnel, they have literally dozens of alternatives with which they can do the very same OPSEC oopsie.
That’s the rhetoric. They’re not stupid. They probably already have many measures but they’ll take a serious look at preventing all cellphones from entering the compound now.
This is completely useless to our adversaries. The US runs disinformation campaigns so that in the case of an actual leak, the enemy would have no idea whether what they’re looking at is real or fake. They have to either disregard it or risk spending vast amounts of time and money chasing a decoy.
Whoever posted this (plus all their friends) are gonna be closely monitored, server-side, by the CCP.
Not just the buddy list, but also phone contacts, people who have send them TikTok videos using links (links to videos on TikTok include info about the sender), and people associated by IP address.
I suspect the various comments about "better OPSEC" miss the underlying point - we as citizens realise there is no such thing as privacy, but governments have not caught on there is no such thing as secrecy.
Even with Office of Personel management, wikileaks etc, the vast amounts of data poured out pibkically over the past two decades should tell anyone watching who got their avionics engineering degrees, where they celebrated their house warming party, which retirement lunch they were at with five other avionics engineers, which construction company won which contract ... this sort of stuff should be bread and butter for all intelligence agencies and A struggle to see how anything much can be kept secret in this world.
Apart from the special interest for TikTok, the article has very carefully misleading wording: there is no actual evidence of military projects, military facilities, military personnel, secrets, and violation of secrets. It is only suggested.
The marked "video viewpoint" looks like a generic parking lot/courtyard, accessible to any visitor; the object could be a radar-only Lockheed experiment, not a next-generation USAF project; the "OPSEC violation" is probably placing guards close to interesting things in the buildings instead of severely bothering visitors at the entrance to keep cameras out.
It’s most likely a scaled model otherwise it would make it smaller than most current drones the X-47B is pretty darn big it’s wingspan is larger than an F-18
It definitely has some interesting bulges and the flap at the bottom looks like an odd shape for a landing gear. My guess would be scram jet. What’s more interesting to me is the propulsion. Nuclear salt water rocket seems totally within the realm of current or near current technology.
See link skunkworker's post above. It is probably not a working vehicle, but a test shape. Also, it is probably upside down, and what you think is odd landing gear is just a stand for the shape.
This reminds me of what happened with Strava's global heatmap many years ago, that exposed military bases and where staff moved most frequently.
Strava at the time was high aggressively told they were at fault for "leaking" this information. But this is a problem more so with staff clearly using Garmin, Fitbits, Apple watches, mobile phones etc to log their activity and upload it to publicly available sites.
Strava also excluded the GPS activities from the heatmap where users marked the activity as private or opted out for data sharing.
I heard on reddit that some thought it could potentially be the fuselage for the new B-21 Raider, the replacement for the B-2 bomber that already kinda looks like a pretty futuristic aircraft.
> I heard on reddit that some thought it could potentially be the fuselage for the new B-21 Raider, the replacement for the B-2 bomber that already kinda looks like a pretty futuristic aircraft.
I thought the B-21 was going to be a pretty conservative program, so it's design will mostly follow the B-2's. It's a weird angle, but this doesn't really look like that to me.
"The content of this webpage may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written consent of Bright Mountain Media, Inc."
We all worry about the super powers such as China tracking the West and using secret "hacking" methods to obtain intel about the military, politicians etc.
The reality is that they're "attacking" in plain sight by having created one of the most viral apps ever to exist. Everybody has installed TikTok, and they're effectively running around recording information about everything and sending it back to China.
Really? It’s not a prop from a movie nor the light of Venus reflecting off swamp gas?
More like let’s keep a bunch of Chinese analysts busy for a few days looking at low quality video. I’m pretty sure the US military can make sure ground troops don’t have camera phones at sensitive sites. Pat them down before they arrive on site, return their stuff after their shift ends. Done.
If they really wanted to hide it, they would cover it like they do it with new cars when testing them on public spaces. And construction workers would have been much more vetted what they have in their pockets. This is not TikTok failure, but a infosec failure on the project of this thingy.
> It is unknown what project the object is tied to, though speculation has ranged from a new Boeing product to even the famed “TicTac” UFO sighted by Naval Aviators in recent years.
Tunnel would reflect the radar signals, obfuscating the data. You would also be highly limited in the size of models you can test by the size of the tunnel.
To test in flight you'd need a functional aircraft as opposed to a cheap mockup. Further an aircraft in flight has to move quickly to stay aloft, and its exact position and orientation can't be precisely controlled. A model on a pylon stays put exactly where you want it for as long as you need it to.
Censoring things outside kicking people out of platform is not exactly simple problem. Specially images of objects. The data for sufficient ML to censor things would likely be bigger issue than leaks themselves.
If they have surveillance program for the whole internet, they kick presidents off Twitter and censor YouTube videos, isn’t it pointless to spy on all Americans if you can’t keep top secret stuff off tic tock?
Check your damn phone at the gate. What's so hard about that?
Having said that, there are way too many secrets out there. Maybe if the system was more open we'd have a fighting chance of cutting off waste, fraud and abuse before it metastasizes into a debilitating nightmare like the LCS. But then, I guess preventing any ebb in the flow of cash into the system is the whole point, isn't it?
I'm sure it's just because I'm too old to be in the target demographic but 9 times out of 10 when I see a Tik Tok video online (I don't have an account) the level of narcissism and lack of decorum on display is sickening.
In about 5-10 minutes of use, the TikTok algo will nail your preferences and you won't see those videos anymore. It's the most well-tailored social media platform I've seen. Eventually you will only see what gives you positive vibes (or whatever vibes it is you want to chase.)
There is far more to TikTok than a lot of the garbage you hear about online. It’s kinda like the Reddit in that regard - the default content sucks, but there’s some decent deep stuff.
Maybe you should get an account, then you'd see things tailored to your taste. TikTok is like blogs, Twitter, Reddit, Discord, YouTube etc. in the sense that what and who you follow makes a huge difference. Curation is the name of the game. And it hands down has the best recommender among all these services.
Indeed, and you aren’t the only one who feels that way. There’s a relatively popular YouTube channel dedicated to documenting narcissism on social media
Whenever someone talks about TikTok, I remember how MySpace was attracting users because someone has a very sexual images on it and it's the same how TikTok is now promoted.
because that drives 'engagement', so it is what naturally rises to the top of the heap. meatier content is less controversial. I'm not a user of TikTok either, but I'm under the impression people make some really impressive/funny/charming little videos to share.
I remember when this issue came out on social media, we even had military checking in at bases all over, now its gps on fitbit exposing peoples locations on social media.
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.