18X Public Service Announcement
 

Thinking of joining Special Forces?

Want to earn the honor of wearing that Green Beret?

Then do yourself a favor, remove your MySpace.com and Facebook.com web pages.

Don’t want to or don’t care?

Fine.

But do not expect to ever be selected for any covert or clandestine missions, period. (It ain’t going to happen when millions already know your face and name.)

Oh, and those classified counter-terrorist units people whisper about. Forget it, not a snowball's chance in hell of you joining after posting your face and name all over the internet.

You had a web page and now removed it, you might still be able to join…but forget the classified missions or covert unit assignments. Again, it ain’t going to happen.

You do understand how Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc use the "archive mode" to save all your information, right?

We do…and our enemies do, too! http://www.archive.org/index.php

Just type in Professionalsoldiers.com right after the http:// on this web page:

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Your MySpace.com and Facebook.com web pages will be on the internet for decades to come and you’ll continue to wonder, "Why didn’t I get selected for some of those classified missions?"

You can bet that every time one of you place your face on a web page and you state you just signed up to be an 18X, some hostile foreign intelligence service just made a file on you.

HOIS = hostile foreign intelligence service http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf (Do a google search on "hostile foreign intelligence service")

You don’t have to believe me; you’ll know when you’re not selected to go on certain missions or refused to join some units.

OK, you’ve been warned and remember, "Life is tough but it’s tougher when you’re stupid."

This has been a Team Sergeant 18X public service announcement.

This is a serious issue and I hope you younger guys heed this warning.

As a principal, I've suspended and expelled students over their MySpace, Facebook and IM misbehavior. We have a company that does a web search on any faculty applicant which can lead to them not being offered a contract.

Colleges and universities have specialists who search the WWW (MySpace and Facebook in particular) before deciding upon offering students enrollment and expel students for web misbehavior.

My wife is the West Team Leader (everything west of the Mississippi River) for a Fortune Top 500 company, and she has had to fire employess and reject exceptionally qualified candidates for web-issues because the company does WWW searches on all potential hires and periodically on its employees.

And for anybody looking for employment with any organizatioin requiring an upper level security clearance, this is an even GREATER issue.

REMEMBER - the WWW is a public domain!

TS is 100% correct. :lifter

Richard's $.02 :munchin

TS and Richard are Spot on.

If you want to serve and be the best at our chosen profession be a Quiet Professional not a My Space Idiot. Our most effective Soldiers were not the ones fighting down at Ricks but those that stayed in the shadows and did the missions that no one else could and moved on with out any fan fare.

My 2 cents

sports statistics
 

I have heeded the warnings posted on this sticky and have removed content from the internet, my facebook profile. My question pertains to other information available on the internet. I am a college athlete and it is NCAA regulation that statistics be recorded for all games and players and that the information be posted on the college's website for verification of participation and eligibility issues. When I google my name these stats come up, no pictures just my name and stats from that game. Could this encourage a negative effect on my future endeavors i.e. SFAS and once on a team? Any information is appreciated.
Thanks,
rm1249

In todays world you can not be totally erased. That info will not hurt. Personal data is out there IE: Phone books, local Gov info, accounts, etc. The intent of this thread/Sticky is to make people aware that things like My-Space, Face-Book, etc are not pluses. For safety and future employment do not get caught up in the networking that many subscribe to.

Roger that. Thank you.

Here is a little help from Google. I have not tried this route, so I can't give you a warm fuzzy that it will work..

Clarify
 

Just to clarify, am I correct to say that the security goal here is to try to mitigate any public reference that combines ones name or photo with SF.

Yes?

Yup, I don't care what your wife says, you're a smart guy.;)

My wife formally requests that you stop calling her to ask her opinon of me. :D

S

Website to remove personal info
 

http://www.squidoo.com/personalInformation

Here is a website I found that gives directions on how to attempt to remove your personal info from certain websites on the net.

The impact of web content, especially if you're a self-professed comedian, cannot be understated in this environment. An investigator that did my "bring-up" recently told me that is now the first thing they check, then credit report. IMO there is entirely too much open source info available - you active guys know, this ain't your grandaddy's war.

Don't forget about the "Wayback Machine": http://www.archive.org/web/web.php.
Once your info is out, it's extremely hard to erase.

Regarding facebook/myspace: some things are outside your direct control like friends and family posting pics of you and 'tagging' them to include your name. You should consider asking them to not post pics of you, or at least not pics that id you clearly. If you explain why, they should understand and comply.

- Just my $.02

FYI Facebook is Forever
 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,494064,00.html

Facebook Membership May Be Forever
Monday , February 16, 2009

Once a Facebook member, always a member.

The Consumerist blog noticed Sunday that the social-networking giant had quietly made a change to its user Terms of Service (TOS) on Feb. 4.

Facebook now declares that it has a perpetual license to use anything you post to your own Facebook page — even if you terminate your account.

Here's the licensing part of the legalese, which sounds bad enough:

"You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof."

In other words, while it doesn't actually own your photos, scribblings and status updates — you do — Facebook can do whatever it wants with it, whenever it wants, in order to promote itself or create or sell ads.

Theoretically, it can even "license" a picture of your kids for use in a third party's ad campaign.

Most of that has been part of the Facebook Terms of Service for a while. After all, without user-generated content, Facebook would be nothing.

What's been removed is this: "If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however (sic) you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."

And what's been added is this: "The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service" — after which follows a list of most of the sections on the Terms of Service page.

So even if you decide Facebook isn't for you, the site can still use anything you posted. It's all been archived.

"I'm done with Facebook," declared blogger Ed Champion upon learning of the TOS changes.

He seemed more annoyed at the older blanket license than the new never-say-die part of the legalese — ironic considering that if he'd deleted his account before Feb. 4 his account really would have been gone for good.

A Facebook representative told the Chicago Tribune that the Web site would soon issue a response to Consumerist's posting.

Boy am I glad I got out when I did, months ago when this thread was originally posted. Thanks to TS for the thread and all for the helpful information.