Strava Fitness Network Reveals Secret Military Sites
How’s this for an unintended consequence? The Strava fitness app, which brands itself as the “social network for athletes,” lets users map their workouts, which has led to a potentially deadly security breach. U.S. troops stationed abroad are using Strava to share their workouts, and a heat map released by the company reveals the locations of military bases and travel routes — some known, others not. The company responded by pointing out the app’s privacy settings, but this is likely a problem the military will have to solve with smarter policy.
One would think the army would already have had a policy against personal tracking devices for soldiers and spies. Apparently not. I’m guessing they do now.
DoD probably believed Strava when they said they had strict privacy controls. But now in the wake of this glaring national security concern, DoD is looking at banning private devices like Fitbits, cellphones, and anything else that allows you to upload locations for sensitive areas like the Pentagon, classified military bases around the world, etc. There is even a possibility that such private devices might be banned from all military installations.