Reporting Live Ops threads

[UKADGE]

No i dont expect the MODS to moniter 24/7. Unless all transmitions are made in the green.. or the USAF use silent procedures and secure radios, a mission is going to be monitered. Then be reported. Our own discression then comes into play... but thats an idividual thing. This debate will make more of us aware of the implications of reporting what we see on our devices or hear on the Airwaves.

[bobthehandyman]

Hi all,
Just to add my thoughts, I don't have an issue with the mods doing what they there to do, it's their call, I look and comment on FC by choice, if I don't like it I can go elsewhere.

That said I'm sure if the USAF or the RAF wanted to carry out operations without any of us knowing they could, they have a vast organisation and blocking social media really isn't that difficult, China does it every day, and you can be sure they are looking at this site and others like it, listening in on phone calls ect.

That may be true. But do we (FC) or the general public at large really want to risk that happening.

Not sure what you mean, risk that happening?
From my own exsperance I know that the MOD and USAF monitor a hell of a lot of what is being said on the phone, gonna bore u now.
When I was in the Navy, sorry, back during the first Gulf War I was sitting at home, there was a knock at the door, it was plod, along with some MOD chaps, wanted to question me about a telephone call that I had made that day on a land line to a public call box, asking why I was discussing aircraft movements and call signs, nothing to heavy but it made me see that even then you are being monitored, nothing came of it by the way, there were no internet sites then, and someone had been at work all day and wanted to catch up on movements. So ask me does Big Brother really exist? hell yea.

[POL]

Also it is not just the Armed Missions....

Sod it, just stop reporting everything, shut the forum down and have done with it.

[bobthehandyman]

I am firmly in the camp of drawing the bead window and helping afford all military aircrew the Operational Security they deserve.

The reporting of QRA missions on here I find particularly difficult to condone
We all remember this incident for the Latvian.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=105904&start=20
and the media attention it got as it was still a live mission http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -Kent.html

These are ARMED missions where until it is resolved NOBODY knows how dangerous or escalated this may become. Image logging onto FC while aslo expecting your family back from a holiday on a Ryanair or Easyjet, only to find that flight subject to QRA and it rapidly escalating. If anything were to happen to the flight, how appalled would the families be to see the and and symbols being used as the lives of loved ones are at threat and associated innocent lives. You may always assume it will be successfully resolved BUT WHAT IF IT ISN'T.

Please for QRA just note the jets are airborne and maybe give callsigns and Hex codes for those that want to watch/listen. But please please consider waiting to post further details until you are certain and fully clear that the incident is fully resolved and there is no further threat. Then post all the post-incident analysis and speculation you want.

Also it is not just the Armed Missions - reporting RC-135 or Sentry or MPA on outbound legs on what we all can work out are active ISR Collect missions or Submarine hunting missions, could give a few hours notice to those other non-NATO forces to employ emmission control or run silent techniques which could inadvertantly jeopardise the effectiveness of the NATO military mission. In these cases I wouldn't even report the launch and wait till they are coming back inbound to provide post incident analysis.

I know not all would agree but hopefully some will think and pause and consider third order effects before posting anything about these kind of Operational missions.

So it would be like the weather man telling us what the weather was like yesterday, joking aside I think the baddies in this world already know thier being watched, by who, how and when.

[acw367]

Also it is not just the Armed Missions....

Sod it, just stop reporting everything, shut the forum down and have done with it.

Not what I said. Post away about training including things like the b-2 transits, but if you think it could be ops then keep offline notes until ops are concluding than posting full details.

Opsec would be better if you just post something like `interesting comms on 252.9, but sounds real world, so let them do their jobs and we can then discuss it later'

[benno]

I don't mind being Dad's Army....Sign us all up!

[johnwayne]

Really interesting thread and debate. For what its worth I think we should :-
1.Support the Mods who have to make a difficult judgement call
2.Err on the side of caution when 'live ops' are involved
3.Remember if FC doesn't exercise 'responsibility' the forum could be blocked or even shut down and we'd all be the losers.

[NAM Updater]

The influence / consequences of posting any information on here, or indeed any discussion fora ought not to be underestimated.

Admittedly the following point is not in the same league as ‘Live Ops’, but I feel it is worthwhile noting it in here.

Posts on former guise of FC nearly cost NAM the approval to land the Saab Viggen at RAF Cranwell, which if it had happened would have stopped the acquisition of the aircraft.

I personally had to deal with all of the issues on behalf of NAM – they were far reaching and complex!

[baz1]

yes I remember the black triangle that used to report on area 51 SOON VANISHED.!

[Andy_99]

Agree on the whole keeping it till after the event as regards live ops.

We should do everything we can to protect those involved in live missions.

[Harkins]

I first read through this very interesting thread yesterday and having been thinking about it I wanted to ask a couple of questions.

I’ve not a strong opinion either way on this matter, but I’m struggling to imagine that ISIS, terrorist groups or even the Russian Federation will be monitoring FC as part of their defence strategies. If the users of this site seem to be able to listen in to military radio transmissions with such ease, surely our enemies must be able to manage this themselves without waiting for someone else to post it on a forum first? And in the case of ISIS, they must be pretty used to being targeted by air attacks by now that surely they are expecting it on a daily basis anyway?

Anyway, I personally struggle to understand most of what’s posted in the OTT threads anyway. So I certainly back whatever the decision is in handling this matter but equally have sympathy for the opposing viewpoint. I’ve got a fence and I’m sitting on it.

[Sparts99]

Agree mostly with Harkins, but the point made earlier about reporting real intercepts of aircraft potentially in terrorist control with passengers aboard needs to be considered. People have to use their common sense rather than trying to be seen to be first out of the blocks getting information out there. It would be easy to disguise the info on here from media reporting, the poor standard of newspaper and TV reporting is a common thread on here, and as stated, the opposition whoever they might be today will have access to the same technology as people on here or better so won't learn anything from FC.

[imlack15]

Naivety and arrogance all rolled into one!

For starters who checks out the moderators (censors) - in much the same way as anyone can join this forum with no background checks...?

The "live op" the other night... forgive me, but there was absolutely nothing worthy or even close to a security breach, no one had a clue what was REALLY going on. Information gathered from a variety of sources (reliable and unreliable) including pure speculation - putting two and two together and coming up with five! Any intel agency (not the Daily Mail!) would already be privvy to this and lots more beside - they certainly don't get their info from the FC forum - what a joke to even consider. As radio listeners we hear the absolute minimum - mainly ATC, the rest (ie the most interesting stuff) goes via DVP, SATCOM, datalink or HQ. We hear what they "allow" us to hear.

Anyone can sit outside an airbase with a pair of binos, anyone can buy a scanner and listen to mil comms... anyone can get on the blower and share... its what used to happen before the internet!

[Paulo]

I have aviation minded friends that have never heard of FC, I too struggle to comprehend Mr ISIS man sat in his apartment logging on hourly to ensure they aren't being attacked.

I visit the forum most days, usually more than once & I didn't see the offending thread until this was thread was created.

My point is whilst I agree we as a group need to be careful, we also need to be realistic that for some people FC/Aviation tracking is not their whole world like it is for some on this forum.

[alpha_india]

There's a risk of taking FC too seriously, of underestimating how manipulable armchair enthusiasts (of any flavour) can be, and far too often of accepting appearances at face value.

It wouldn't be that hard for those that manage such thing to spoof the population of a forum such as this into generating false or misleading conjecture to further the aims of the "good guys" if anyone thought the "bad guys" were listening - "watch the shiny over here, pay no attention to what's over there.." ..

There is nothing reported on forums like this that it isn't known can be listened to - transmissions in the clear and mode-s with m-lat. Both of these can be switched off for operational security. Remove those and all your left with are fence line reports counting them off and counting them back.


Live hijack situations are, thankfully, extremely rare occurrences.

[nigelblake]

Please for QRA just note the jets are airborne and maybe give callsigns and Hex codes for those that want to watch/listen. But please please consider waiting to post further details until you are certain and fully clear that the incident is fully resolved and there is no further threat. Then post all the post-incident analysis and speculation you want.

Also it is not just the Armed Missions - reporting RC-135 or Sentry or MPA on outbound legs on what we all can work out are active ISR Collect missions or Submarine hunting missions, could give a few hours notice to those other non-NATO forces to employ emmission control or run silent techniques which could inadvertantly jeopardise the effectiveness of the NATO military mission. In these cases I wouldn't even report the launch and wait till they are coming back inbound to provide post incident analysis.

I know not all would agree but hopefully some will think and pause and consider third order effects before posting anything about these kind of Operational missions.

And TonyO's comment

Ultimately we have no idea where the jets actually went, a lot of that is guesswork, educated guesswork at that, mind you.

Surely the most common sense attitude is to keep any known or educated guesswork information off the net, either on forums like this or for individuals to pass it on through other social media, however small the risk may appear to some people, that risk could cost the lives of the guys involved in the operations.

Us spotters/photographers have a pretty good relationship with the RAF/USAF here in the UK, some considered respect for what they do when it's clear that it isn't a training flight is a small price to pay in return.

[C24]

You might like to cast your eye on the thread

viewtopic.php?f=287&t=115196#p721482

That might save the guys in the black hats some snooping time.

[Thunder]

The problem with what was posted up the other night was the information was pretty much spot on, numbers of a/c involved and their intended destination, timings etc etc... Ok the actual target wasn't mentioned and in all reality it was never known on here. However here lays the problem in that we potentially gave the intended targetees(can I use that) a heads up that an attack was going to happen by deciphering the information for them.

As for people not thinking that ISIS or ISIL aren't reading this, then wake up. These terrorist groups are a lot more intelligence savvy than you think, they command an immense Worldwide network of sleeper cells all building up a massive intell picture, all we hear in the news is the combat end of the movement however they don't all sit in a tent in some far off desert, this is 21st century terrorism not the IRA of the 70/80's. CIA/FBI/MI6/GCHQ all monitor social media so why wouldn't the baddies?

Some of you may think I've been reading too many Tom Clancy novels, but I've seen what these groups guys are capable of, from blocks of ice as time delay trigger mechanisms to cyber terrorism.

[von_trippenhopf]

The problem with what was posted up the other night was the information was pretty much spot on, numbers of a/c involved and their intended destination, timings etc etc... Ok the actual target wasn't mentioned and in all reality it was never known on here. However here lays the problem in that we potentially gave the intended targetees(can I use that) a heads up that an attack was going to happen by deciphering the information for them.

As for people not thinking that ISIS or ISIL aren't reading this, then wake up. These terrorist groups are a lot more intelligence savvy than you think, they command an immense Worldwide network of sleeper cells all building up a massive intell picture, all we hear in the news is the combat end of the movement however they don't all sit in a tent in some far off desert, this is 21st century terrorism not the IRA of the 70/80's. CIA/FBI/MI6/GCHQ all monitor social media so why wouldn't the baddies?

Some of you may think I've been reading too many Tom Clancy novels, but I've seen what these groups guys are capable of, from blocks of ice as time delay trigger mechanisms to cyber terrorism.

Exactly. Which do you think is easier for the bad guys, having 'your people' monitor radios, bases & various forms of flight information, or just monitor one site on the internet where 20 or so enthusiastic 'spotters' supply you with all the info you need? Once you get the buzz that something is going on its easy to concentrate your efforts in that direction and build up your own intel.

[alpha_india]

The problem with what was posted up the other night was the information was pretty much spot on, numbers of a/c involved and their intended destination, timings etc etc... Ok the actual target wasn't mentioned and in all reality it was never known on here. However here lays the problem in that we potentially gave the intended targetees(can I use that) a heads up that an attack was going to happen by deciphering the information for them.

If the accuracy rate of forum discussions of "live ops" is even 5% I'll be very surprised. If the false positive rate doesn't exceed the accuracy rate by an order of magnitude I'll be extremely surprised.

There's also an implied assumption that FC somehow beyond being used as a channel of misinformation.. .