Well, wouldn't you know, in Iraq there were all these square paths on the map. Yes, it was Americans jogging just inside the perimeter of small bases.

Just like with the aircraft carrier, these bases were not secret but it shows how locations can leak unexpectedly.

Tinder provided 1-mile granularity, so OPFOR would roam around until they had enough points to locate the headquarters. Then, they'd artillery it out of existence. The brigade commander was most displeased—moving a brigade headquarters is not for the weak or fainthearted.

One of my favorite examples are the soldiers who leaked classified information to win arguments on online forums [1]. Similar incidents have occurred with a Minecraft Discord [2].

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65354513

[2]: https://www.ign.com/articles/how-classified-pentagon-documen...

[0] https://www.navalgazing.net/Carrier-Doom-Part-1

[1] https://www.goonhammer.com/star-wars-armada-naval-academy-wa...

It's not built for hiding at all, that's what submarines are for (and that's where our nukes are).

It does make me wonder how a warplane stops a merchant vessel without blowing it up if the radio doesn’t work. Do they drop a buoy with a giant inflating stop sign on it? Fly Tholian-webs perpendicular to the sailing path?

At one time I guessed that too, but I've heard navy people explain that it's actually pretty effective. Imagine saying 'pretty hard to hide in North America from a satellite' - it's actually not hard because the area is so large; there aren't live images of the entire area and someone needs to examine them. Oceans are an order of magnitude larger.

A significant element of security for naval ships is hiding in the ocean. US aircraft carrier planes have a ~500 mi effective radius without refueling; even if you see a plane, all you know is that the ship might be in a ~3,142 square mile area. And remember that to target them, you need a precise target and the ships tend to be moving.

With ML image recognition at least some of that security is lost. Also, the Mediterranean is smaller than the oceans, but the precision issue applies. And we might guess that countries keep critical areas under constant surveillance - e.g., I doubt anything sails near the Taiwan Strait without many countries having a live picture.

Clouds. (Radar sats can see through clouds but can also be jammed.)

But even on a clear day, most of the people looking to target a carrier these days (Iran/hamas etc) don't have their own satellites. But a real-time GPS position accurate to few meters? That could be tactically useful to anyone with a drone.

An active fitness tracker might also give away the ship's readiness state, under the assumption that people aren't going to be doing much jogging while at battle stations.

Precise location, yes. At least in the US Navy this is an important part of the carrier's protection. (Having destroyers between the carrier and potential threats is another.)

They probably lack the ability to figure out which specialists are on board.

Or does getting told by Russia count?

I think people tend to lack imagination about how some piece of intel could be used by an adversary.

And furthermore identifiable information of a particular individual, which people can use to for example find out what unit he is deployed with, which may give you information about what the mission is about and so on.

In WW2 when transmitting morse code individual operators used to have what was called a 'fist', skilled listeners could identify and track operators by their unique signature. This was used during world war 2 to track where particular individuals and units were moved which gave people a great deal of information not just where but what they were up to.

If you leak the Fitbit information of a guy who foreign intelligence has identified as being part of a unit that's always involved in particular operations you didn't just give something obvious away but potentially something very sensitive.

Or is this article perhaps better interpreted as an example of a dangerous behavior that could be happening also during those sensitive times (in which case, it is unlikely that French media would be even running a story with a map of the sensitive location)?

I imagine they are in no rush to get closer to Lebanon. So maybe they are running in circles

I'm told with a lengthy night on uppers can you can get your 24/hr burn up to the 7000-10000.

For facilities where this actually matters, controls are put in place to try and prevent that type of thing. You aren't actually allowed to bring an Apple Watch into a SCIF, and there are processes in place to try to screen to prevent you from doing that.

If there was a "secret base" that didn't screen for people bringing outside devices it's likely because they didn't think that someone listening in on the conversations happening inside the base, or being able to use external devices to locate the base was big enough of a threat to warrant the hassle of adding screening.

You can't actually implement app blacklists and packet inspections for a wireless device you don't control. And if you want to prohibit people from having and using devices you don't control in specific locations, you implement controls to prevent that from happening.

If you allow sailors or soldiers to have personal electronic devices in the first place, you've already accepted the risks they represent.

This really is a non issue.

For example, the fact that devices with wireless radios, microphones, and cameras with both hardware and software of unknown provenance are allowed on an aircraft carrier are much bigger security risks than the fact that the device was using an exercise tracking app. There's much, much, much, much more valuable information on an aircraft carrier that could be compromised by these devices than the boat's location (which is not really secret).

I'm willing to make a bet that the Captian of the Aircraft Carrier and the Admiral commanding the strike group prefer the fitness benefits their sailors get from having such devices / apps then they do from the security risks they represented.

If the risk was real enough... the devices wouldn't be allowed on the boat in the first place.

This just seems like people overreacting to what is really a non event.

With how bad the human experiment generally is, I rejoice in the fact that our own stupidity will be our undoing. Imagine if we did things correctly.

There was no declaration of war by anyone so far, and I doubt Iran would wait for an official letter telling them they're allowed to sink a US allied carrier, especially now that they killed the leader's wife, son, dad, and a bunch of relatives (plus the only dude who the US could reasonably negotiate with)

Because the UK isn't really in the war, and doesn't want to be?

And for what, exactly, a pat on the back from Trump? (who will then inevitably turn on them after a week and blame them for anything that goes wrong in the war.)

If escorting ship traffic was so straightforward with only upside, the US would be doing it already. Instead of trying to get someone else to take that risk.

There is no war; there is a speical military operation, an excursion or a preemptive retaliatory defensive strike.

Historically there was a problem where user's data was aggregated into a global view. But these days you'd have to follow the user on Strava to get this sort of track.

I suspect that a journalist at Le Monde has a naval buddy on Strava and posted the story.