Comments on: Restrictions at Work

By: The US Air Force is at it again… :: Scott’s Morning Brew

The US Air Force is at it again… :: Scott’s Morning Brew — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:39:05 +0000

[...] Read the opinion of someone who this directly affects at PaulMcCord.net. [...]

By: paulmccord

paulmccord — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:08:03 +0000

Thanks for the post Michael. Port 80! Ouch! That is amazing that they would go to that extreme but it does not surprise me. This is why I want to get a smart phone that has dependable Internet. I cannot access Twitter, Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, or any other social networking site. I just stumbled on a story on wired.com telling how the Air Force Network Operations Center has instituted a policy of blocking ALL URL's that contain the word “blog” in them. They admit that The New York Times is supposed to be reputable and you can go to those sites for information. No mention of the lack of objective reporting at the New York Times. http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/air-force...

Yesterday we received two emails telling us we could not use the thumb drives. A third one quoted a regulation that said we can use them as long as we run the virus scan. This morning we had the above message on the screen with two more emails repealing the last email. It said we are not to use ANY removable media under any circumstances whether it is personally owned, or DOD issued. They said there will be no waivers issued. I was thinking “HOLY COW!”. My whole office has been in an uproar over it all day. Although I do understand their concerns, surely there are more suitable ways to deal with these problems.

By: Michael Tefft

Michael Tefft — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:38:05 +0000

I had the same problems working in civil service with both the Navy and the Army. The Army was much more technology adapted than the Navy. The Navy at one time in an effort to block viruses and attacks on our networks issued an order to block port 80 on all firewalls. There goes the Internet, a self-inflicted denial of service. Up until I retired the Army still allowed the use of thumbdrives as long as they were govt. issued and scanned daily. All laptops had to be encrypted due to numerous instances of PII losses. Security is getting tighter and tighter at all DoD commands and operations vs security issues will continue to be a battle.