Cyberization means it's not your daddy's war anymore
New technology is infiltrating the old conflict between Turkey and outlawed Kurdish militants, and soldiers may have to sacrifice their smartphones for safety.
It seems counterintuitive, but apparently some soldiers like to spend their free time ... playing soldier.
Turkey's army recently issued a directive warning that Kurdish militants have been trying to obtain logistical information about Turkish positions via an online war game app.
The directive was primarily for the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and Gendarmerie Command units tasked with combating terror in the field. It said the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey and the PKK-affiliated People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria have been communicating via the game Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). The app, from China gaming titan Tencent, is very popular in Turkey and widely used in mobile gaming to evade electronic detection of players' phones and wireless communications.
The Turkish notice pointed out that in PUBG’s locations/region section, players' positions are identified. PKK militants, by entering chat rooms, establish contact with Turkish soldiers — first to play and chat, and later on to collect intelligence data such as their locations, their units, personal information and their possible operational plans.
