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From the email bag this morning...

By The Armorer on September 22, 2007 | | Comments (9)

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First, the email:

Gentlemen

As you all know the US Armed Forces has worked hard to "OPSEC" us out of victory; not intentionally in my view, but rather because they have trouble understanding the information war battlefield. Towards that end MNC-I has a screen saver installed on all SIPR and NIPR computers ( I did not see it in my first year as the Marines we worked for did a whole different thing.)

Anyway several of the screensaver shots discuss taking care in blogging. The Blackfive, Mudville Gazette, and Arggh!! mastheads are the blogs used on all the screen shots. You guys are famous!

Yet, who got invited to the White House? Cognitive dissonance abounds. Okay, that's overstating it a bit, sure.

Now, this is interesting on several fronts. Army IO doctrine is written around where I live, and I've been trying to engage them locally for some time. They seemingly aren't interested. The visit with the President last week has generated some interesting email... with military people who have an interest in the subject - but no one who is in charge of the subject, or the people who work for them. Gosh, it's not like there'd be a TDY cost to cover this late in the fiscal year...

The emails are all expressing frustration at how hard it is to get the message out, and how the more senior types don't get it.

I had a senior Army PAO-type tell me (and he's one of the ones who *does* get it) that the Army doesn't target "the people" in it's PAO efforts, etc. The target is Congress. I can see that.

So, I'm on the military affairs advisory council of a member of the House Armed Services Committee - and the blog got me there. I, and others, are read in the White House, and I got invited to go sit with the President for an hour - and developed contacts at higher levels in the Administration (I don't delude myself about having influence there, but I have a high degree of confidence that people with oomph will at least read them. comes what may from that reading). And the blog got me there.

And CENTCOM PAO, the MNF-I PAO, OSD PAO, and even the Fort Riley PAO are making great strides in trying to understand how bloggers fit in the picture and how they can be used to the Service's advantage. There are real risks, and real benefits, just as there are with Old Media.

But 1st IO's bias is clear - we're not just a screen-saver. In 1st IO's "Here is the Enemy!", oops, I mean their "This is a Blog." briefing deck, we few, we happy few, we band of auld milbloggers are prominently featured, at least graphically. In the text and example portion, they just pounded the crap out of Neil Prakash.

Yet, in the recently released report on OPSEC on the 'net - as analyzed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, NETCOM found:

According to the documents released to EFF, the 13-month review by the AWRAC found 26 security violations on the personal blog sites and 1,965 breaches on official Web sites.

In other words, official websites (many of which are owned and directed and controlled by Colonels) are 75 times more likely to goof it, than the blogs, mostly written by Majors and below, with a few exceptions... like a certain Sailor I know. (You can see the whole PowerPoint deck those shots came from by clicking here, visiting the EFF and saving off the .pdf)

OSD is taking a lead here - they showed up and participated at the Milblogger Conference this year, and they will represented on a panel at the Milblog track of the Blogworld Expo (SWWBO and I are attending, btw).

One simply wonders when the Doctrine Writers will engage... not me, but *anybody* - rather than just read the academic papers and wriggle uncomfortably. Because the InfoWar at the blog-level is happening Right Now. And the services aren't engaging very well.

Talk about asymmetric warfare...

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9 Comments

By John S. on September 22, 2007 8:20 AM
Their chart lacks two important data points: (a) OPSEC violations by the NY Times and WAPO; (b) OPSEC violations by members of Congress The PAO/OPSEC fairies view "new media" as an enemy, and clearly do not understand that they can help prep the battlespace if they can get off their lazy, tradition bound butts and at least drop a few words on target. The MSM is clearly working for the enemy, and the PAO community needs to align themselves with those who are working on "our" side. While OPSEC violations need to be avoided, there must be acceptance of occasional inadvertant errors. Although friendly fire sometimes (and very regretably) causes friendly casualties, a 100% "no-fire, zero defects" policy only ensures that none of the enemy gets hurt either. We are in a war and need to win it by defeating the enemy and their ideology and propaganda. DOD needs to get proactive in "information warfare" and take advantage of the talent and dedication and patriotism which exists in the milblog community, instead of looking for excuses to poop on the few people who are actually working to help our side. Has the DOD community said "boo" about the Pvt Beauchamp lies? His BS undermined every positive PAO effort for the last year, but it was milbloggers who discovered and publicized his lying crap for what it was.
 
By BillT on September 22, 2007 11:58 AM
The MSM is clearly working for the enemy, and the PAO community needs to align themselves with those who are working on "our" side. Ahhhh, but they're caught between the proverbial rawk and the hard case. If the PAOs align with the new media, they'll have to take the MSM to task for their sins of omission and commission, which will earn them squeaks of editorial opprobrium for attempting to stomp all over the Freedom of the Press and will *not* earn them any E-wing brownie points. If, on the other hand, they keep the friendlies on a tight leash -- because they *can* -- they will at least earn attaboys from on high for doing something positive and "effectively managing the Risk." Finally, on the *other* other hand, my observation has been that most military managers / decision-makers use their computers solely for e-mail correspondence and reviewing the latest PowerPoint briefings...
 
By kat-missouri on September 22, 2007 12:36 PM
I agree with Bill on what most officers use their computers for. They are unaware, even as they begin cyberspace units, exactly what the nature of cyber warfare looks like beyond the traditional view of hacking into sites and depositing viruses or stealing information. Information war on the web is extremely powerful.
 
By AW1 Tim on September 22, 2007 12:39 PM
Shipmates, And yet the one area where the mil-types could be doing some active cyber-war stuff is where they are conspicuously(sp?) absent. I'm talking about taking down Jihadi & associated websites. The Jawa Report has been monitoring many of these, and passing along the url's and associated hosting data to us rank and file. We then contact the hosting services and inform them of the violation(s) of their hosting argeements with the perpetrators, as well as the fact that hosting terrorist websites is illegal. We also forward the data to the AG offices in the state(s) where the websites are located, as well as the AG's of the areas where the hosts are. Additionally, if the ISP can be obtained and tracked down, it can be matched to not only an address, but usually images from Google-Earth, and that data forwarded to LEO-types as well. If we citizens can be doing all this data part time, and being a VERY royal pain-in-the-arse to the Jihadis, (and we are.. you ought to see the complaints on their chatroom sites) then why isn't the military working this angle? If nothing else, you'd think that the PsyOps boys would be creating some ficticious websites and luring in the jihadis as well, passing along false info, etc. Regardless, sorry i haven't commented in awhile. my health has been less than good, so I'll be in and out for the next little while. Congrats, John, on the whole Dubya & DC trip. That was excellent. Respects,
 
By lex on September 22, 2007 6:08 PM
Don't tangle me up in yer nasty Army sojer OXSPEC web. I'm on the admin side of things these days. Read: Nobody tells me anything.
 
By John of Argghhh! on September 22, 2007 6:24 PM
Doctrine... doctrine... doctrine...
 
By Maggie on September 22, 2007 6:31 PM
The fact that we are policing ourselves better than DOD doesn't surprise me. A while back I was surfing and found a pic having to do with NCW and posted it. The favorite Naval Consort saw it and had me pull it down. I got the pic from an official Navy website.
 
By brad on September 22, 2007 11:10 PM
I think scanning the blogs is focusing too much energy on the wrong thing. If the DOD put this much energy into patching their IT security infrastructure, the Chinese would not have made it in. I'm wondering how many of the DOD web sites found with OPSEC violations are setup/run by contractors instead of DOD personnel?
 
By Cannoneer No. 4 on September 24, 2007 12:22 PM
There is an ideological component to IO that hamstrings DoD and DoS counterpropaganda: half their political masters in the Legislative Branch benefit politically from enemy propaganda and will not allow it to be countered. Even a rabid reich-winger like me doesn't want to overtly politicize the military. W's military will be the Hildebeest's military in 16 months. The only solution I see is for private citizens to band together in virtual information militias to counter propaganda whether the majority party likes it or not. Private citizens with experience in IO could provide desperately needed distance learning for raw CYOP Auxiliaries. It wouldn't pay for the Auxiliaries to become lock-step shills for the Regulars. In independence there is credibility. A lot of the Regulars will be against us anyway for breaking their rice bowls and bringing heat on them from the new regime. John, is Tim Thomas still at Leavenworth?