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Re: wikileaks still under attack, pressure revved up
From: Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:08:54 -0400
On Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:06:15 PDT, Jonathan Medina said:
I am in the military, currently in Iraq, and these Wikileaks posts have hurt us more than people realize. It does two things, first, it demonstrates our tactics and procedures which allow insurgents to conduct more effective attacks against us,
I suspect that the insurgents already knew 90 to 95% of our tactics and procedures simply by observing how we do things. After all, most of what we do can be easily learned by a good scout with a vantage point and a good pair of binoculars. How far apart do we drive on a convoy? Which armaments are on the vehicles in front, at back? Which directions do the lookouts on the first and last vehicles tend to look? What formations do we use during house-to-house searches? These are all things that any competent commander has to assume the other side knows because the other side has good scouts and access to binoculars. Think - how much do *we* know about insurgent tactics even without Wikileaks posting the insurgent playbook? As a result, even 100% perfect knowledge of our tactics wouldn't translate into all *that* big an increase in attack effectiveness, unless hidden in that 5% is a "ventilation shaft that leads directly to the reactor core" flaw in our tactics ("Every 3rd Tuesday, we do XYZ and one very small bomb in the right place would set off a chain reaction of all the munitions on the base"). And if we have that sort of flaw in our tactics, maybe we should actually fix them rather than depend on security through obscurity. Just sayin'.
and second, the information it provides to insurgents endangers our sources and the families of sources that have provided us with valuable information. It also provides a means of giving insurgents propaganda to use against us.
I believe the "endangers our sources" part has already been debunked by the top leadership at the Pentagon.
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- Re: wikileaks still under attack, pressure revved up, (continued)
- Re: wikileaks still under attack, pressure revved up Jeffrey Walton (Oct 21)
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- Re: wikileaks still under attack, pressure revved up PsychoBilly (Oct 22)
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- Re: wikileaks still under attack, pressure revved up Shain Singh (Oct 22)
- Re: wikileaks still under attack, pressure revved up Ana Kismet (Oct 22)
- Re: wikileaks still under attack, pressure revved up Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 22)
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- Re: Fwd: wikileaks still under attack, pressure revved up Cal Leeming [Simplicity Media Ltd] (Oct 23)
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