RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas –
Social networking Web sites such as MySpace, You Tube and Facebook, dating sites and blogs are a popular way to meet and communicate with others. For deployed Airmen, they can be a portal to the outside world.
But posting information on these sites that are viewed by millions every day can have dangerous, even deadly, consequences.
An Airman's Roll Call last November cautioned servicemembers that classified information placed on the World Wide Web can compromise national security and that other pieces of information -about current or future operations, locations of personnel or equipment or arrivals and departures - can jeopardize operational security.
Retired Gen. Paul Hester, former commander of the Pacific Air Forces, once warned troops that the wrong personal information on these sites can fall into the hands of "those who can do you harm and can in fact do your service harm."
In fact, Great Britain's Security Service asked troops to remove all personal details - names of themselves and family members, dates of birth, names of hometowns and locations where they had served - they posted on social networking sites when it was discovered that al-Qaida operatives were monitoring the sites to gather information that could aid them in launching terror attacks.
Norma Kidd, an information assurance specialist with the 12th Communications Squadron, said Team Randolph members should be careful about posting information on Internet sites.
"Don't release your personal information - your name, home address, Social Security number and other items," she said. "Don't give your life away."
Blogs can also yield information that threatens national or operational security. Ms. Kidd said one servicemember actually produced a deployment blog.
"If you have a diary you're giving people information about daily activities on a base," she said. "People don't realize they're being watched. Everybody is a target."
Ms. Kidd said personal information on the Internet is accessible to people all over the world.
"There's no geographical separation on a Web site," she said. "You don't know who's looking at it or where they are."
Though there's really "not any safe information," Ms. Kidd said, "there are safe, trusted sources."
"It's whom you're dealing with," she said. "It's really up to the individual to see if a Web site is trusted. How do you know it's a trusted site? It's all about research. Don't trust any site unless you've done research."