Forecast Highs

I want to thank Amir Mizroch, News Editor at The Jerusalem Post, for his website, Forecast Highs.  I began today a little stressed as I need to rethink my research proposal, and I was happy to find his website when searching IDF, information security, YouTube & Facebook.  I found a few interesting articles, here, here and here, that could help me better develop my proposal.

The first article addresses the fact that classified military information has made its way onto Facebook & YouTube.  Mizroch hypothesizes that its due to a certain sense of ego & machismo from soldiers wanting to brag about their experiences.  I can only relate slightly, as I do still have a picture of me in IDF’s Gadna, a bootcamp for teenagers, in fatigues with an M-16 : )

The questions that come to me first are not necessarily “why” soldiers are compelled to post, but what happens to them? the content? and the consequences?  Does the IDF have any mechanism in place to regulate online content?  And, even if they do, with all the content sharing websites out there, outside of Facebook & YouTube, would a regulatory committee be enough?

The “why” now comes after.  Is it really a selfish need to feed the ego that drives soldiers to post content that’s classified?  Do they even know that it is not permissible?  And if they know its not permissible are they taking a risk for the adrenaline or because they see it filling a greater objective?  …and then, what is that objective?  I could hypothesize that possibly one man publishes classified content because he wants to put Israel and the army at risk, but I do not know if this is true.

One thing that comes to mind is a problem that plagued many high schoolers and college students when they first joined Facebook.  They did not really understand who their audience was and who could see what they posted.  I often find now that I am able to access photo albums belonging to people I am not friends with, in networks I don’t belong to, in countries I don’t live in.  Do these people know who can access their content?  And, if they do, are they choosing to make it accessible?

To help high schoolers and college students, education institutions began instructing students about the site during orientation sessions.  Does IDF do this for its soldiers?  If it doesn’t, and it is clearly needed, what would that course look like?

Related posts:

1. Article/Blog #5: AP: IDF Sees Facebook Threat
2. Article/Blog #7 (I’ve lost Count): Israel, Facebook, and National Security
3. Reading 1: 760 Gilad Shalits: A Double Standard