It’s unlikely that a soldier would knowingly use their smart phone to broadcast their position using something like Google Latitude, but there are other more subtle ways for an enemy to derive the location of our troops.
Researchers at the security company Kaspersky Lab say they’ve discovered the first malicious software program to target Google’s Android mobile operating system. While masquerading as a media player, this malware quietly sends text messages to a premium rate number, racking up charges for the infected user. But how much more difficult would it be to send geo-location data?
Believe it or not, there’s already a process being used to do just that. Symantec recently announced a Trojan in a free game application for Android phones which taps the GPS to upload the user’s location every 15 minutes. Their location could be tracked by someone using an app called GPS Spy, which cost $4.99 and also runs on Android devices.
Unfortunately, malware isn’t even required to disclose a location. Many new devices with cameras include geotagging for photos, which adds location data to an image file. Soldiers taking pictures of friends or sights while on patrol, and then sending these pictures back home or posting them to Facebook, may be inadvertently giving way their position or locations along their patrol routes. Luckily, geotags can usually be disabled, but it may take some digging around in the device settings to disable them. The website ICanStalkU.com provides some good instructions on how to disable geotagging for the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry platforms.
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