Imagine you’ve just been dropped into a contested environment. You establish a forward-operating base. You don’t pound some pickets, build a fence, and call it a day—you build in layers. You secure the perimeter, set up obstacles, dig fighting positions, install observation posts, and prep quick reaction forces. You don’t assume the enemy might come. You plan for when they will.
Now, shift the terrain from kinetic to digital. Instead of a physical FOB, you’re building a privacy posture. And instead of mortar fire, you’re defending against adversary surveillance, behavioral targeting, and hostile data exploitation. Welcome to the new front lines of national security—where your Fitbit might be the breach point and your family’s location data could be mission-compromising intel.
This is where defense in depth becomes more than doctrine. It becomes survival strategy.
Your Digital FOB Has a Perimeter Problem
The traditional military FOB has multiple defensive rings—each designed to slow the enemy, detect movement, and prevent penetration. Claymores don’t sit next to your bunk. They’re outside the wire, covering terrain you don’t want the enemy to reach. You don’t just defend the center—you shape the battle on the outskirts.
But in the digital world, we’ve been doing the opposite. Most privacy strategies act like a poorly planned FOB: no outer security, no early warning, and everything vital packed in one easy-to-target tent.
Take your personal devices. Your phone knows your location, behavioral patterns, biometrics, contact list, and in some cases, your role in the national security apparatus. If a hostile actor wants to target you, they don’t need to break into your SCIF—they need to buy a dataset. Welcome to the age of ubiquitous technical surveillance, where your comms gear is also a sensor, and your own ecosystem is an unguarded compound.
Layered Privacy Is Tactical Discipline
So how do you build a secure FOB for your data? You apply military-grade operational planning to the digital terrain.
1. Observation and Early Warning (Digital Overwatch)
Are you even aware of what’s tracking you? Start with threat detection—device permissions, app behaviors, passive signal emissions. You wouldn’t operate without ISR; don’t surf without situational awareness.
2. Obstacle and Delay (Access Control)
Every connection is a potential breach point. Think tripwires, not highways. Use firewalls, segmented networks, anonymizers, and robust authentication. Limit access to the “inner compound” of your personal data.
3. Deception and Concealment (Digital Camouflage)
You wouldn’t drive a marked convoy through an ambush zone. So why use the same login or email across every platform? Create identity separation, use burner data, and consider strategic misattribution when necessary.
4. Redundancy and Resilience (Mission Continuity)
No FOB is invulnerable—but the smart ones are recoverable. Practice digital continuity: back up what matters, encrypt what’s vital, and plan for compromise. CI teaches us that breach is inevitable—but exposure can be limited.
Surveillance Capitalism: The Insurgency We Invited In
Let’s not forget the elephant in the TOC: the threat isn’t always a uniformed adversary. Surveillance capitalism—the business of monetizing your behavioral data—has built networks more invasive than most SIGINT programs. Adtech platforms and data brokers run persistent reconnaissance on cleared personnel with zero need for espionage tradecraft.
You don’t need to be part of a special mission unit to be targeted. You just need a smartphone, a schedule, and an adversary who understands how to exploit a data broker’s API. And in this battlespace, there are no “civilians”—only exposed or protected.
Privacy Policy as OPORD
We don’t hand out field manuals that say “Do your best to stay safe out there.” We give clear, actionable orders with tasks, purposes, and contingencies. Why should privacy policy be any different?
If you’re operating in the national security space—military, IC, contractor, or adjacent—then your privacy policy should function like an OPORD:
1. Task
Protect PII, behavior patterns, and digital identity.
2. Purpose
Deny adversary targeting, preserve operational integrity.
3. Execution
Establish layered defenses, compartment data, deceive where appropriate.
4. Admin/Logistics
Secure comms, manage digital hygiene, control access points.
5. Command & Signal
Know who owns what layer of protection and how incidents are escalated.
From FOB to FORT: Full Operational Risk Tolerance
Let’s stop treating privacy like it’s someone else’s job. Every national security professional is an asset—and every asset needs a hardened position. Build your digital life like a FOB. Assume adversary reconnaissance. Layer your defenses. Camouflage your patterns. Harden your perimeters. Because if your data is terrain, it’s already being mapped.
