Landing the Big One

Landing the Big One

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Somali Pirates: Tweet! Tweet!

Photo source
Reported as "#Pirate? Tracking modern buccaneers through Twitter":
Shipping companies may have found a new tool to fight piracy: It turns out, pirates like to tweet.

Not only that, Somali-based pirates blog and are on Facebook, security experts say. And it is through social media that shipping companies are increasing their understanding of how they operate.

"Somalia is a very sophisticated economy, it has one of the best mobile phone communication systems in the world," said Jessica Lincoln, director of intelligence at Rubicon Resolution, a risk consultancy.

Lincoln follows pirates' activities using what she describes as "normal" web tools. She gathers whatever individuals and organizations like al-Qaeda's Somali affiliate Al-Shabaab post online about attacks. ***
For how much longer until the pirate version of OPSEC is imposed? Or is the lack of other suitable Somali methods of communication mean that these channels are ripe for exploitation?

1 comment:

  1. Gary Stringer7:50 AM

    I find this extremely interesting, this could give authorities insight into pirate operations and maybe help in stopping.

    It would be interesting to see if pirates are stupid enough to brag about attacks or share their plans on facebook!! surely that could be used against them...

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