An unclassified have a look at an F-15E Strike Eagle
Photograph: aviation-images.com (Getty Photos)

Chances are you’ll do not forget that one of many funniest tales of 2022 was the best way that gamers of Battle Thunder—an arcadey on-line shooter that includes actual navy automobiles—simply saved on posting navy paperwork within the recreation’s boards. Not as acts of espionage, however to win arguments about specs.

I’m extremely blissful to report, then, that that is shaping as much as be one in all 2023’s funniest tales as effectively.

The final time we checked in on these guys it was some tank gamers, who regardless of ban after ban simply saved on sharing detailed, categorised info on currently-operational Primary Battle Tanks and their armaments.

This week we’ve seen an analogous factor occur, solely now it’s about fighter plane. As Massively OP report, earlier this week a participant “shared navy paperwork associated to the F-16 fighter jet as a way to win an argument”. The issue is that these paperwork, whereas not designated as categorised navy documentation just like the tank guys’ stuff, was nonetheless restricted materials “beneath the jurisdiction of the Worldwide Site visitors in Arms Rules (ITAR), a State Division-enforced legislation that limits disclosure and transmission of US weapons information and data to overseas people, together with distribution on the web”. So, not categorised, however nonetheless not the type of factor you need to be posting in a online game discussion board.

Then, only a day later, another person was at it once more! This time a special consumer posted excerpts from over a dozen weapons system manuals for the F-15E. Once more, these weren’t categorised—certainly they had been for techniques sufficiently old that that they had been declassified—however like I’ve already stated, simply because one thing isn’t categorised doesn’t imply you may freely submit it on web boards the place anybody on the planet can see them. In order that they had been deleted as effectively.

I stated this final 12 months however I’ll say it once more now, the truth that a online game’s boards have grow to be one of many biggest opsec hazards of the fashionable age, simply because some dudes wish to argue over a weapon’s statistics, is very humorous.

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