Secret military bases exposed by soldiers’ fitness trackers

Sensitive information about secret military bases in key areas of operations, such as Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and even Area 51, as well as exercise routes, has been leaked online in a detailed data visualization map from Strava, writes The Guardian.

Strava is a social network for athletes that uses satellite navigation to let users keep close track of all their exercise routines, training plans, routes and speed, and compares it with previous data so they can monitor performance and progress. The data collected can be shared in real time with three safety contacts. The app can be used on multiple devices, including fitness trackers Fitbit and Jawbone.

To create the heat map, Strava connected GPS points covering 17 billion miles for physical activities on land and sea, and 3 trillion individual GPS data points. The app is used by 27 million subscribers from around the world, whose satellite information has been used to create the map between 2015 and September 2017.

Although not visible on Google Maps or Apple’s Maps, the major security blunder gives away, for example, information about jogging routes in secluded areas, making it easy for anyone to trace military locations anywhere on the map. Sensitive information has been revealed not only on American military bases; lit points representing UK’s airbase in the Falkland Islands, an alleged CIA base in Somalia and Russian bases are also revealed.

“US Bases are clearly identifiable and mappable,” tweeted Nathan Ruser, analyst with the Institute for United Conflict Analysts. “If soldiers use the app like normal people do, by turning it on tracking when they go to do exercise, it could be especially dangerous.”

According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon approved and encouraged the use of fitness trackers in the US military, distributing 2,500 Fitbits in 2013.

“Our global heatmap represents an aggregated and anonymized view of over a billion activities uploaded to our platform,” reads a statement from Strava. “It excludes activities that have been marked as private and user-defined privacy zones. We are committed to helping people better understand our settings to give them control over what they share.”