The Student Room Group

*Security Rules for the Armed Forces Subforum*

There is a threat to regular, reserve and cadet and recruit personnel from extremists who may be operating as part of a larger organisation or in the 'lone wolf' capacity.

The Armed Forces subforum of TSR is populated by a large number of potential recruits as well as regular personnel and recruitment agencies. Crucially, many of the users of this forum are minors for whom TSR has a duty of care. While the level of discussion is well below any protected status, the tidbits of information about dates, times, and numbers can add up to a larger piece of intelligence that may benefit an enemy when targeting any of the aforementioned people.

Therefore:

Information which is not freely available to the general public that may aid an enemy in carrying out an attack should not be openly posted on TSR. Standard Internet anonymity measures are a good way to protect yourself and you should make every effort to prevent anyone from being able to identify you in real life from what you post on TSR. Furthermore, any thread or post which contains any sensitive data will be removed and the user rebuked.

Guidance:

Do Use

1) Information available to the general public such as locations and vague dates.

"Is anyone else going to OASC in March?"
"I'm starting at Catterick in May"

Anyone else who is on OASC in March will know when the specific dates are and if there's confusion, then take it to PM; chances are there's only one course starting in May at Catterick so there's no confusion there...

Permanent bases and locations of large organisations are pretty well known so don't worry too much about people knowing that OASC is at Cranwell...

2) Nomenclature which is understood only by the people who need to know it:

"Anyone else on IOT 23?"
"I'm on PROAC 17/1"


Again, anyone who knows about these courses will already know the specifics, so there's no need to mention them openly. Anyone else simply doesn't need to know.


Do Not Use:

1) Information which details numbers of people, specific times or dates. There is simply no reason to post these things on the internet.

"I guess there will be about 30 of us hanging around outside the railway station at Grantham at 1600 on Friday waiting for the bus to take us to Cranwell!"

2) Other information which can positively identify you to someone who has never seen you before but has followed your posts on TSR.

i.e. Posting what car you drive in the motoring section including a photo with the reg plate, posting about your job in the careers section, posting about your running routes in health and fitness, posting about your hairstyle/ colour in fashion, posting about which uni/ halls you live in, posting about where you're going to be with lots of other candidates in AF section.

All of these small pieces of information put together in half an hour browsing one Internet Forum mean someone can ID you in real life when you're out for a run, when you're out for a drive or simply when you're with a bunch of other candidates.

This guidance is by no means complete, but please be wary of giving away too much information online.
(edited 9 years ago)
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