Military Bans Disks, Threatens Courts-Martial to Stop New Leaks

[n2doc]

By Noah Shachtman December 9, 2010 | 7:02 pm | Categories: Info War


It’s too late to stop WikiLeaks from publishing thousands more classified documents, nabbed from the Pentagon’s secret network. But the U.S. military is telling its troops to stop using CDs, DVDs, thumb drives and every other form of removable media — or risk a court martial.

Maj. Gen. Richard Webber, commander of Air Force Network Operations, issued the Dec. 3 “Cyber Control Order” — obtained by Danger Room — which directs airmen to “immediately cease use of removable media on all systems, servers, and stand alone machines residing on SIPRNET,” the Defense Department’s secret network. Similar directives have gone out to the military’s other branches.

“Unauthorized data transfers routinely occur on classified networks using removable media and are a method the insider threat uses to exploit classified information. To mitigate the activity, all Air Force organizations must immediately suspend all SIPRNET data transfer activities on removable media,” the order adds.

It’s one of a number of moves the Defense Department is making to prevent further disclosures of secret information in the wake of the WikiLeaks document dumps. Pfc. Bradley Manning says he downloaded hundreds of thousands of files from SIPRNET to a CD marked “Lady Gaga” before giving the files to WikiLeaks.

more

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/12/military-bans-disks-threatens-courts-martials-to-stop-new-leaks/

[TexasObserver]

1. recommend

[malaise]

2. WTF?????

Is it fascism yet?

[Travis_0004]

3. How is it Fascism? They are banning the use of disc on THEIR computers.

[sarge43]

4. Divulging classified information has always been a court-martial offense.

Doing a Sarah Palin and writing it on the palm of your hand would get the UCMJ dropped on your head.

All that's changed is the medium, not the message and someone will find another medium.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. You seem unclear on the concept of computer security

On classified computers the DoD has said, not removable media. Seems reasonable under the circumstances. Many commercial places that have similar data control requirements follow similar rules.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

6. there's going to be more of this kind of thing, as times get economically harder...

World wide economic collapse is just around the corner. When people are made homeless, they can't sit in front of their TVs and computers. Only then will Americans take to the streets and protest.

[Poboy]

7. I too believe it will need to come to this.

[qazplm]

8. misleading title

I absolutely agree you should not have removable easy to conceal/lose media on secure networks. They should have done it a long time ago.
Especially thumb drives which can upload viruses and other potential issues, and can be easily lost.

I don't the whole fascism thing about this. It's basic common sense. We can still use DVDs and whatnot on non-secret/secure computers which is most of them in the military.