Tech News on G4You have been poked by al-QaidaMarch 04, 2008By Adam Swimmer - G4 Canada |
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Last week the Canadian military issued a statement that soldiers shouldn't post any personal content on social networks, such as Facebook because al-Qaida might be spying on them. The memo, obtained by CBC News stated soldiers should not appear in uniform or make reference to their military connection. The worry is that such information could turn the soldiers and their family into potential targets. And, of course, it makes perfect sense. Osama bin Laden needs something to pass the time between making those videos he sporadically sends to Al Jazeera and hanging out with that evil muppet Bert. So, why wouldn't he log onto Facebook with the dial-up connection on a circa 1980s computer with a 300 baud modem left over from the Russian invasion, to look for a random, unknown soldier to target? While he's waiting for his henchman to pull off the job, he could add quotes from his favourite TV characters to his profile and turn his Facebook friends into vampires and pirates. Maybe he's even added SuperPoke! or some other application to customize his poking: "Osama has terrorized Adam." "Adam has converted Osama to Judaism." It's utterly ridiculous to think al-Qaida would be using social networks to spy on soldiers, if only for the fact that nothing of importance ever happens on them. MySpace is just used to promote bands and porn. And Facebook (the most popular one in Canada) is just a place to waste a vast amount of time by playing silly games, answering trivia and sending pointless messages, notifications and invitations to one another. No one is posting secret battle plans or itineraries on military family groups. I mean, they're already in the military. They're certainly not stupid enough to post online mission details they can't tell they're loved ones in person. I guess someone might post a battalion's location. But seriously, how hard is it to find Canadian troops in the Afghan desert? They're the ones driving down dirt roads in convoys of poorly-armoured vehicles in broad daylight. The insurgents, on the other hand, are harder to spot. They can be relatively incognito as they secretly plant landmines and blow themselves up in restaurants, cars and police stations. Now if al-Qaida had family groups on Facebook and posted tidbits about their actions – that would be a security breach that the U.N. forces could capitalize on. But then social networks are probably an example of that Western decadence that Islamic extremists reportedly want nothing to do with. It's been suggested that the military memo may be, in fact, just a form of censorship, a way for the military to control information divulged by its soldiers about Afghanistan, regardless of its significance. In some respect, I actually hope this is the case because then our military doesn't come off as so unintentionally comical. But then again Osama, if you are out there, I challenge you to a game of Scrabulous! Or maybe Scramble, but I'm not very good at that one. |
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