[BWStearns]

I could imagine using the timestamp segment of publicly observable ids to estimate activity patterns in an organization. Probably not super crucial and there are probably easier ways in most cases but it could be a big deal at the right moment and for the right target. This could be like a more refined version of PIZZAINT (where you can detect impending policy/operational movements by the quantity of food deliveries to a government organization).

[rhaps0dy]

Is PIZZAINT real? I thought it was a joke. How do you even find out how much pizza is being delivered?

[BWStearns]

In ye olden days you had a minion sitting in a car watching the front gate with a notepad and enough cigarettes to last the night.

Pizza itself might be a bit of a joke but looking for non-operational behavioral changes is absolutely real. The Cuban missile crisis was started in part because soviets played soccer and Cubans played baseball and the presence of soccer fields helped confirm soviet presence (in enough numbers to bother making rec centers). A more advanced version might be the public Strava data leaking US base layouts and locations or Strava helping the Ukrainians kill a Russian submarine commander.

Edit to add: you could also just figure out where your target orders pizza from and pay one of the dudes working there to tell you when there’s a spike in deliveries to your target.

[littlestymaar]

> soviets played soccer and Cubans played baseball

It's a Henri Kissinger's quote, but it's not accurate: Cubans do in fact play football. Also this quote wasn't from the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, but to another event in 1970. That being said, it is true that the US intelligence got warned by the construction of football fields (or maybe even more so by the lack of baseball grounds).

https://www.cracked.com/article_31335_that-time-soccer-field...

[yard2010]

That's Goodhart's law, if you want to know something instead of asking just say something which is wrong and someone will correct you

[Karellen]

lol

iswydt