One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing about situations that got ugly due to poor sanitizing of sensitive data. Whether someone’s social media account got leaked with things that shouldn’t have gone public, or to the extreme end where someone was killed over a personal item they had on them in a place they should not have. For those unfamiliar with military language, we call this procedure “sanitizing”.
If you are going into a military conflict, especially as a contractor, for the love of everything leave all your personal items behind. Do not bring more personal identification than absolutely necessary, do not bring all those pictures of loved ones, etc. Essentially, the less that connects you with the outside world the better. We have seen in recent years what has happened due to poor sanitization of personal data with the conflict against ISIS. We have also seen how news media outlets such as Vice have been able to track entire movements of Russian mercenary soldiers in Ukraine a few years ago.
If you’re going to a hostile place, sanitize.
Ben