Soldiers overseas have recently been warned to not “check-in” to war on Foursquare or Facebook Places. According to CNET, “The Associated Press report Wednesday said that the Air Force posted a "warning issued on its internal Web site this month" to alert troops to the potential risks of geolocation services, informing them that there may be "devastating implications for operations security and privacy" if soldiers' locations are easily pinpointed on a map.”
Stateside, the new trends in social media have already spawned websites like “Please Rob Me,” a site that points out when a person is not home, through the aggregation of public tweets showing the person is out, “checking-in” elsewhere. The government has a point. Maybe a website won’t be created, but checking in to a fighter jet or a civilian camp could dangerously draw attention to where they are since most of these applications have maps and coordinates associated with them.
Danger aside, should I be upset that the soldiers in Sulaymaniyah can check in on Foursquare, but I can’t even get 2 signal bars in midtown Manhattan? Damnit, AT&T!
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