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OPSEC

Operational Security and this Blog

I’m going to take a page from Chris Kanne’s book and start with a quote from Wikipedia, the most accurate publication in the world:

Operations security (OPSEC) is a process that identifies critical information to determine if friendly actions can be observed by adversary intelligence systems, determines if information obtained by adversaries could be interpreted to be useful to them, and then executes selected measures that eliminate or reduce adversary exploitation of friendly critical information.

OPSEC is a methodology that denies critical information to an adversary. Unlike security programs that seek to protect classified information, OPSEC measures identify, control, and protect generally unclassified evidence that is associated with sensitive operations and activities.

So, what this means is even information that isnt technically classified can be sensitive and if the enemy learned it, they would gain an advantage.

Examples of OPSEC Information

Sensitive information is sometimes hard to recognize.  Here is an example:  A lot of people ask me about the timeframe in which I will be arriving in Afghanistan.  How could that information be useful to the enemy?  Well if someone they found out what day a new unit was taking over control of an area, they would probably see it as an opportunity to attack a newer, less experienced unit.

I don’t share this information to try and scare anyone or anything like that.  But, if I seem a little ambiguous about things or sidestep questions occasionally, I’m not trying to be rude, I just can’t really share that information.

What I Ask of You

Friends and family, I will share all the info I can with you.  If you have more specific questions that you think are harmless, please feel free to ask me.

If you just happen to come across this site, PLEASE do not send me RFI (even if you are also in the military) for a couple of reasons:

  1. I have no idea who you are and wont tell you anything
  2. Surely you have better sources than a random guy’s blog?!
  3. I’m probably lying.

Well, thats about it.  If you still have questions, check out Wikipedia :)

3 Responses

  1. mysonsasoldier,too, on September 30th, 2008 at 8:57 am Said:

    LOL!

    Reply
  2. WOTN, on April 19th, 2009 at 3:38 pm Said:

    Does that mean you won’t publish your OPORDERs here?

    Seriously though, It’s astounding some have such a difficult time understanding the principle.

    Reply
  3. Eldar, on August 20th, 2009 at 3:52 am Said:

    If not in the military, people won’t fully understand security issues and “need to know”.

    Reply

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