--- title: What Those Pentagon Twitter Hackers Posted description: When hackers posted documents on the Centcom Twitter page, it looked serious, but none of the documents were actually classified. canonical: https://time.com/3665279/centcom-twitter-hack/ author: Mark Thompson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-13T15:03:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:45:21.677Z article:section: Politics og:title: What Those Pentagon Twitter Hackers Posted og:description: When hackers posted documents on the Centcom Twitter page, it looked serious, but none of the documents were actually classified. og:url: https://time.com/3665279/centcom-twitter-hack/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7a44d19905a84cd2/6987799da988ca31296abdd5/pentagon-washington-dc.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The Pentagon og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Those Pentagon Twitter Hackers Posted twitter:description: When hackers posted documents on the Centcom Twitter page, it looked serious, but none of the documents were actually classified. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7a44d19905a84cd2/6987799da988ca31296abdd5/pentagon-washington-dc.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Those Pentagon Twitter Hackers Posted by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Jan 13, 2015 3:03 PM UTC  The Pentagon The PentagonGetty Images by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Jan 13, 2015 3:03 PM UTC The Pentagon held its breath Monday when Islamic State sympathizers hacked into U.S. Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and began posting internal U.S. military documents on the Twitter feed. Could this be another Snowden job? Was any of the material classified? After all, they were posting the names, addresses and phone numbers of senior U.S. military officers. Within an hour, the Pentagon’s [sigh](http://www.centcom.mil/en/news/articles/statement-from-u.s.-central-command-regarding-twitter-youtube-compromise) was audible. While there was a lot of official-looking, internal documents posted before both social-media accounts were shut down, none of it appears to have been classified.  "FOUO" can be found on many released Pentagon documents Many sported the officious-sounding but non-classified _For Official Use Only_ label. Monday’s bullet-dodging highlights the U.S. government’s preoccupation with secrecy, and its downside: when nearly everything is classified, it can be harder to protect real secrets.  Central Command's feed was back in operation Tuesday. Twitter Think of the government’s penchant for secrecy like an iceberg: what’s showing [above](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information) the water line is that tiny share that’s classified _Confidential_, _Secret_ and _Top Secret_. But underwater—where, strangely, you can’t see—are more than 100 different designations that boil down to “Don’t let the public see this.”  ...but its feed still featured the CyberCaliphate avatar. YouTube For example, the non-profit Project on Government Oversight grumbled last year about the Pentagon inspector general’s routine requirement that any member of the public wishing to see some of its more interesting reports file a formal Freedom of Information Act request. “As anyone familiar with the FOIA process knows, turnaround on a request can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years,” POGO’s Neil Gordon [noted](http://www.pogo.org/blog/2014/05/20140521-fouo-phooey.html). “So, it’s reasonable to assume that the DoD IG is indeed trying to bury the report to spare the Pentagon and … its … contractors the embarrassing publicity.” The varying labels—and each agency’s [rules](http://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/afd-140822-038.pdf) for releasing non-classified information—is confusing, as the Obama Administration itself [conceded](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/04/executive-order-13556-controlled-unclassified-information) in 2010: --- > “” --- That’s why it [wants](http://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/sp800%5F171%5Fdraft.pdf) to toss all those agency-specific labels into the trash and [designate](http://www.archives.gov/cui/registry/category-list.html) them all as _Controlled Unclassified Information_. Perhaps the reduced profusion of almost-classified labels will help reduce confusion like Monday’s (the Pentagon, of course, has its own [process](http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=DARS%5FFRDOC%5F0001-0658) underway for all its non-classified technical data). And having the word _Unclassified_ in the designation should make it clear to even cable-news anchors what’s up. The Administration plans to issue a proposed regulation to funnel all the labels into that single _Controlled Unclassified Information_ designation this spring. It’s slated to be fully operational in 2018. Obviously, in addition to craving secrecy, the government abhors alacrity. _Read next:_ [_Twitter Hacking Gives Pentagon a Black Eye_](http://time.com/3664194/centcom-twitter-hack-isis/?xid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ### See What Your Twitter Profile Looked Like Over the Last 10 Years  2006 Wayback Machine  2007 Wayback Machine  2008 Wayback Machine  2009 Wayback Machine  2010 Wayback Machine  2011 Wayback Machine  2012 Wayback Machine  2013 The Next Web  2014 TIME ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3665279/centcom-twitter-hack/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3665279/centcom-twitter-hack/"},"headline":"What Those Pentagon Twitter Hackers Posted","datePublished":"2015-01-13T15:03:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:45:21.677Z","description":"An avalanche of almost-classified info sows confusion","url":"https://time.com/3665279/centcom-twitter-hack/","keywords":["Terrorism","Tech","Syria","Iraq","ISIS","Cyber Attacks"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7a44d19905a84cd2/6987799da988ca31296abdd5/pentagon-washington-dc.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mark Thompson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7a44d19905a84cd2/6987799da988ca31296abdd5/pentagon-washington-dc.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The Pentagon","caption":"The Pentagon","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/terrorism/","name":"Terrorism"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3665279/centcom-twitter-hack/","name":"What Those Pentagon Twitter Hackers Posted"}}]}] ```