No More YouTube, MySpace for U.S. Troops

[IChing]

Source: wired news

No More YouTube, MySpace for U.S. Troops

Fresh from its battle against blogs, the U.S. military now appears to be going after video and social networking sites (at least those it doesn't control). Effective Monday, U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will not be allowed access to websites like MySpace and YouTube using military networks, Stars and Stripes reports.

Although the ostensible reason is to conserve precious bandwidth, the articles notes: "Ironically, the Defense Department this year had just begun expanding its own use of YouTube to reach a younger, broader audience and show clips of U.S. troops in action." Officials appeared to claim the issue was bandwidth, not content:

“We’re not passing any judgment on these sites, we’re just saying you shouldn’t be accessing them at work,” said Julie Ziegenhorn, spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command. “This is a bandwidth and network management issue. We’ve got to have the networks open to do our mission. They have to be reliable, timely and secure.”

At the same time, however, a message sent to troops from U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. B.B. Bell also indicated that security issues were factored into the move:

“This recreational traffic impacts our official DOD network and bandwidth availability, while posting a significant operational security challenge,” he wrote.

Read more: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/05/no_youtube_mysp.html

[givemebackmycountry]

1. BULLSHIT -

“This recreational traffic impacts our official DOD network and bandwidth availability, while posting a significant operational security challenge,” he wrote.


BULLSHIT!

Can't take pictures when they ship them home in a flag draped coffin in the dead of night.

I read where they just banned reporters from taking pictures after a IED blast or car bomb.

Now, they are telling the troops, no forcing the troops, to keep their mouths shut.

[wtmusic]

3. Do you have a link to the banning of bomb pictures? nt

[Journeyman]

5. Here you go. . .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2843929

[wtmusic]

6. thanks nt

[kurth]

2. "Reason is to conserve precious bandwidth"

LOL.

[SayWhatYo]

44. yeah, lol... They could at least be honest about the reasons.

[Solo_in_MD]

4. They have been blocked stateside for years

[sanskritwarrior]

15. Don't bother bro

the zealots will only see Mccarthy behind every tree. Those of us in the know understand that yes there is finite bandwidth and yes the military can block any site it wants to.

Myspace has been blocked stateside almost since it began........Youtube just got blocked in Hawaii last month from DOD computers...........Oy vey sometimes I get a stomach ache at the knee jerk reactionary strain that runs through some people on military matters.

[Tyler Durden]

21. Then how about blocking FOX based blogs, and Limbaugh broadcasts?

Seems they should be a little more neutral about their blocking if they are going to block at all.

As to "...the zealots will only see Mccarthy behind every tree..." this has little to do with "...military matters..." BRO, and everything to with something in the constitution I SWORE to protect when I was in the Navy and served with the MARINES as a corpsman.

And in case you hadn't noticed, McCarthyism is alive and well in the administration of the Republicans. If you don't believe so, I'd suggest you go back to sleep for a few years until the rest of us "Zealots" get through with rebuilding the freedoms that I fought for.

Oy vey iz mir!

[Hugin]

31. Not to mention Freepland...

It'd better be blocked.

[rainbow4321]

7. So what happens to the video already on YouTube??

They can't unring the bell:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3qcrdMeRYs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdxoV8tBOls


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSAOvVRavY4

[knight_of_the_star]

8. I play my bullshit card on this

If the DoD with its massive budget needs to conserve bandwidth then we're in worse trouble than I thought. This is such a blatant attempt at total censorship of what's really going on in Iraq, if the Army is having to do this then things must be two steps from going to shit with our soldiers caught in the middle of the shitstorm.

[Socal31]

9. Stupid, but wont do much

Any soldier with an IQ over their age will just transfer the videos to a friend back home and have them post.

They should be concentrating on how to get our f*cking troops home, not what websites they view.

[nolabels]

11. Ding, Ding, Ding!!!

vvvv (Ladies and Gentlemen we have a winner) vvv

"They should be concentrating on how to get our f*cking troops home, not what websites they view."

Thirty years ago when i was in the military it always felt like the biggest battles were in perception on and off the military base. Effectively military personal have shorted out of the whole perception and equation to the point where it's more important for policy to stand than the winning of anything.

Welcome to military industrial complex and unending war :patriot:

[Tyler Durden]

22. Somebody give that man a STAR

Or woman if that's the gender.

By the way, welcome to the Disloyal (to the Bushites) Opposition!

[DRoseDARs]

10. OH NOES!!1 TEH INTERTUBESES IN IRAQISTAN ARE CLOGGEDED!!1

The DoD better start budgeting to buy some Drano...

...oh wait, they can't. Those mean Democrats in Congress won't cut Bush a blank check ... or something. :eyes:

[badgerpup]

14. Somebody been spending too much time...

...speaking Conversational Lolkitteh? :rofl:

[lovuian]

12. too much truth

they can't stand it

[sampsonblk]

13. Last week they said the opposite!?!!?

Pentagon joins YouTube

WTF?

[Screwfly]

16. The cover up begins

The military situation in Iraq is on verge of total disaster. IMHO the pentagon doesn't want all kinds video evidence floating around of American units getting wiped out like General Custer's command at the Little Bighorn.

[blogslut]

17. To steal a quote:

"The armed services can no longer sit back and allow defeatist infiltration, logical indoctrination, fact-checking subversion and the international truth conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bandwidth."


PS: The DoD excuse is Horseshit

[coalition_unwilling]

37. Not to mention "our precious bodily fluids" - n/t

[StarryNite]

18. What a crock!

[and-justice-for-all]

19. Can they ever tell the truth or is lying a job requierment??

Bandwidth my ass, please. Its MySpace and YouTube, it does not take up that much bandwidth. People need an escape and if they are banning that the troops might as well occupy themselves the old fashioned way...

[conspirator]

20. How far is No More YouTube, MySpace, DU for americans?

Only sites moderated by the Reich will be allowed.

[Canuckistanian]

23. Does that include Drudge, Newsmax, Powerline etc?

Those are time-wasters. too. And therefore "impacts their bandwidth availability"

[Paulie]

24. Any network connected to the internet is by definition not secure

If the operational networks used for command and control have internet access, someone needs to be fired like right now.

Otherwise, the restrictions are complete garbage.

[snooper2]

26. I'm sure they are using a layer 3 VPN, MPLS I would imagine..

That is for all traffic that is not destined for the Internet.

[Paulie]

36. So what? If the host inside is compromised

it's going to be trusted internally. If a machine has access to the internet, you're letting potentially malicious code inside your parameter. Only safe thing to do is not allow that traffic on "secure", as the article states, networks. Risks in a business are different than those on a battlefield.

Bottom line is the security issue being claimed for the clampdown on internet use is BS. :)

[BigDDem]

25. Their bandwidth is in it's last throes.

[Arugula Latte]

29. It's turned a corner.

Their version of youtube will be greeted with flowers.

[Pawel K]

27. This recreational traffic impacts our official DOD network and bandwidth availability

What a bunch of bullshit.

Anyone that knows how a simple corporate network works knows that you do not put the public network for internet access on the same pipe as mission critical traffic. Even if for some stupid idiotic reason they did you can set up IP QoS which will give priority to mission critical traffic over regular internet traffic.

But I guess since they take any idiot off the street now days to join the military their network techs in charge of securing classified information dont seem to understand that.

This is censorship and they are lying about it. The question is who will do anything about it?

[slackmaster]

28. Bandwidth is most certainly a consideration

Small ships at sea typically have only a 56 Kb connection.

[Pawel K]

33. No, its not

we are not talking about small ships at sea here, we are talking about bases on the ground in Iraq.

They have plenty of bandwidth, and if bandwidth is really any issue you can limit the public bandwidth available so it doesn't affect mission critical traffic.

[slackmaster]

35. Please cite the source for your information and tell me how much bandwidth

Is available to the people on the ground in Iraq, who have the least available to them.

I don't believe every grunt on the ground has a broadband connection at all times. I'd bet you that dialup over POTS is sometimes the best they can get. They use their TCP/IP networking for very serious purposes, and the military would be within its rights to ban all personal use.

My source is a US Navy officer who commanded a minesweeper in the early part of OIF. Before the present coflict the military did not allow any personal use whatsoever. The reason they started allowing it was that allowing soldiers and sailors to stay in touch with their families and friends is a great morale booster.

[Pawel K]

41. Look up QoS and what it means

here, I'll help you out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service

Using QoS would be fine assuming they are dumb enough to use the same pipe for public internet access as they use for mission critical data.

The bottom line here is they are lying. They said that using myspace and youtube interrupts the entire DoD network in Iraq. This is simply not possible unless their network is being ran by a bunch of 12 year old script kiddies that don't know what they are doing. I work for a very small company, even with such a small company and the limited bandwdith we have I have QoS set up to give priority to server connections so our MRP and exchange server are always available no matter how many people in the office are messing around on you tube. To suggest the DoD doesn't have the capability to do that is ludacris.

[Miss Chybil]

30. Makes sense to me. How many employers allow their employees

to hang out on MySpace and YouTube all day - or night? I know a lot of people do it, but I doubt it's with the employer's blessing.

[rocktivity]

39. These soliders are surfing the net on their own time!

It has nothing to do with soldiers surfing the net when they should be working. It has to do with censoring the news when they're aren't. They have the technology to find footprints via satellite, but they can't provide enough bandwith for both recreation and military use? TORO TURD!

:headbang:
rocknation

[Pawel K]

40. Thats bull

soldiers are not on duty 24/7, they do get time off over there. They should be allowed to visit those web sites during that time.

[Miss Chybil]

46. There are ways to get around it.

My son did while he was over there. It didn't always work and I think towards the end of his tour they were beginning to "plug the holes" in the system. The point I'm trying to make, though, is this is not some big conspiracy to keep the GIs from accessing info. There is much more info out here than just what's on YouTube and MySpace.

[Pawel K]

47. But those are by far the biggest mediums to get soldiers to spread information

and I think it is outright censorship.

If this is legitimate why are they lying about it? There is no way in hell that accessing my space or you tube puts a strain on the entire DoD network in the middle east. If it really does we are in some serious shit.

[SayWhatYo]

45. slight difference though.

One would assume they are not surfing myspace while out on patrol(working), but rather on their own personal down time.

[brentspeak]

32. “This is a bandwidth and network management issue"

Disingenuous B.S.

[IronLionZion]

34. See, this is why I don't drink coffee

the responses in this thread are hilarious!

You know what else? The Pentagon's black helicopters have missiles that seek out tinfoil hats! Watch your head!

[rocktivity]

38. If they need to buy more bandwith, lay off some of the mercenaries.

Or cancel the next round of performance bonuses to Halliburton. Or repeal the tax cuts.

:headbang:
rocknation

[CGowen]

42. youtube.com, 1.fm, Pandora.com, photobucket.com, myspace.com, live365.com, hi5.com, metacafe.com,

mtv.com, ifilm.com, blackplanet.com, stupidvideos.com and filecabi.com.

http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/44275-1.html

The Pentagon has announced that, effective today, access will be blocked to 13 “entertainment sites” on the Internet, to protect the availability of network resources for official Defense Department activities.

..........

The blocked sites are youtube.com, 1.fm, Pandora.com, photobucket.com, myspace.com, live365.com, hi5.com, metacafe.com, mtv.com, ifilm.com, blackplanet.com, stupidvideos.com and filecabi.com.

The memo takes pains to point out that the access restrictions only apply to DOD systems and networks, not home computers.

This is the second time in less than two weeks that, in response to operational-security concerns, the military has implemented a policy affecting individuals’ ability to use aspects of the Internet.

On May 3, the Army issued a policy that appeared to shut down soldiers’ use of the Internet to send personal e-mails or contribute to blogs by requiring a supervisor’s approval before sending or posting anything, and, as written, it appeared to put similar limits on Army families. The uproar was fast and fierce, and by May 5, the Army issued a clarification that it did not include family members and was aimed at encouraging soldiers to receive guidance and awareness training from a security officer before posting to a blog


http://www.usfk.mil/usfk/bell-sends/5_11_07_27%20-%2007%20Restricted%20Access%20to%20Internet%20Entertainment%20Sites%20Across%20DoD%20Networks.pdf

[JPZenger]

43. Separation of work computers from recreational computers

My understanding is that the military separates work computers from recreational computers. Like any other employer, the military has the right to block non-work sites from the computers used for work. However, it should be very limited in controlling what members of the military watch on the computers that are connected in recreational and residential areas.