All wars end: the geolocation edition
How the internet found me at a historic Civil War battlefield
Last weekend, I took a trip with a historian friend to see some famous Civil War battlefields in beautiful northern Virginia. We visited one very famous local site — which is Manassas — but also checked out some more out-of-the-way spots, such as this one:
I specifically wanted to do this one on the weekend, to give some new people a chance to play.
I had also put up a little teaser the day before:
Why do I do this? First of all, I like to record my observations of the world, especially when they are happy. But also, if you’re new to the newsletter — and I know many of you are — I like to re-create people’s normal digital footprints when doing these exercises. We love to update our friends and followers about our gorgeous surroundings, right?
That kind of information can unfortunately be leveraged by creeps — i.e., it makes it easier to find you when you may not want to be found.
And I was definitely found!
Because Twitter was annoyingly hiding some replies, I didn’t initially see that the first person to geolocate me was Wesley:
This was a very classic method of geolocation, as Wesley was kind enough to explain (click through to see more):
If you zoom in, you can see the roof Wesley is referring to:
And here it is on satellite view, via Google Maps:
In the image above, you can see the hill I’m standing on: famous Fleetwood Hill is to the right. But before we get into what happened at Fleetwood Hill, here are a few other notable methods that people used to find me (click through to see more):
Nayfield’s method is a great method for people who don’t like to look at satellite data. Not everyone is good at that.
Unfortunately, this is also a reminder that creeps who aren’t great at Google Maps can have alternate routes to figuring out your location.
Finally, Joe had watched my public Insta stories that were still up, and found me here:
I didn’t post the same photo to my stories. I didn’t display the location tag, I hid it. But it was still there, tacked onto the actual story. And I had also done that on purpose.
When you have multiple public social media accounts, you create a bigger attack surface for people harvesting your information — in plain English, you’re giving creeps more chances to track you. I don’t think this should prevent people from having fun online, but being aware of the potential ramifications is important.
Not everyone was happy with the exercise, and I even had a big spat about it with this angry weirdo (a reverse image search on his profile pic incidentally revealed that he was evading a Twitter ban, haha):
This was notable to me, because there is a lot of gatekeeping that occurs in OSINT.
Yet understanding OSINT — specifically that part about how easily you can be tracked online — is crucial for everyone, including girls in leggings who are just trying to have a good time on the weekends. If you have a problem with that, you’re a dick, and I hope you are as miserable as you come off.
Let’s go back to the battle, however. The Battle of Brandy Station, or the Battle of Fleetwood Hill, as it’s commonly known, was the biggest cavalry engagement in the entire Civil War — in fact, it was the biggest one to have ever taken place on American soil.
As my guide helpfully explained to me, the Confederates were going to throw a ball in the area and were out doing a parade. Union intel, however, knew about the ball. And the Union surprised the Confederates.
It was a very complicated event, and I was glad to have someone very knowledgeable explain all of the comings and goings of the Union cavalry to me. As I stood on beautiful Fleetwood Hill however, one thought kept occurring to me, “Wars end.”
We were standing in a place where men died and horses screamed in terror. The wind worried the grass. A chorus of early autumn crickets chirped for us. My own heart, broken by Russia’s attack on my native Ukraine, felt didn’t just feel whole in that moment — it felt more muscular and resilient.
Wars end. Jackasses get beaten back.
That’s the thought I want to leave you with today ❤️🩹