Military blocks high bandwith websites
Damn, I don’t see a single byte of logic in the following piece of news. One would think that the USA are on the top of technical advance, that they have enough capacities for their data channels, especially when they stood behind the massive spread of the internet. But you are wrong: In a room where reporters are regularly briefed about military victories and setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, the discussion yesterday afternoon focused on megabits, uploads and the bandwidth constraints created by music downloads and streaming video. The Defense Department, which announced Monday that it was blocking access on its networks to such popular Web sites as MySpace and YouTube, put a technology official under the spotlight to explain why bandwidth — the available space on a computer network for transferring data — is something that the military cannot afford to compromise. Elizabeth A. Hight, vice director of the Defense Information Systems Agency announced that 13 specific Web sites were singled out because of the heavy traffic to them from military computers.
Most of the Web sites blocked by the Defense Department offer streaming music and video, as well as photo-sharing capabilities largely used to communicate with relatives and friends. They have grown in popularity at a time when troops are facing extended tours of duty and support for the war is fading. “It is important to point out that this directive does not prohibit any individual from posting to or accessing any of these sites,” just not over the military’s network, she said. Troops overseas can access the blocked sites on commercial computers at Internet cafes where they’re based, she said. And, the military provides free access to a portal known as Defense Knowledge Online, which offers e-mail, file-sharing, instant messaging and video conferencing. Hight said the decision had nothing to do with the content of the sites. She also said more sites could be blocked. Now tell me, these guys in Iraq and everywhere around the world are putting their lives in a risk, and their “most powerful” government of the world can’t even provide them enough internet bandwith? There’s something terribly wrong…
Ok I have been to Iraq and I can tell you that it is EXTREMLY frusturating to try to chat with my wife using the “internet cafe” computers. All because those bastards that use myspace and youtube and all that stuff just to waste time because they are bored make my online experiance absalutly horrible. So this is a good thing that the military is blocking access to those sites, hopefully my next time overseas I will be able to spend more time online talking with my wife and family.
Yup that’s my America, where you can die for your country but can’t have a beer legally.
“One would think that the USA are on the top of technical advance”
Martin, unfortunately those Japanese guys and gals are two decades or so ahead of us… No offence, peace.
It clogs up bandwidth, they are not hindering freedom for troops. its all about practicality. like the guy that mentioned above, people are clogging up a heck of a lot of government bandwidth.
Oh it sucks…but it’s the US civilian sector that has tons of bandwidth.. The military makes due with slower speeds and old ass computers until they absolutely have to replace them. Besides if we did anything different the public outcry about mispent tax dollars would be enormous. Hell I can’t even access gmail at work.
Soldiers actually can use computers? Wow…
The real reason is ofcourse cencorship, they dont want soldiers to write how it really is in iraq at major sites visited mostly by americans. Why can you still view european heavy bandwith sites?
As long as they don’t block porn !!!!!!!!
Norbit.DVDRip.XviD-DiAMOND has been out for 2hours!!
ooops.. i mean 15 min :p
i also used pc’s when i was in the army
i still have an army inet card
uhmm….im in the military, i work in the east coast, on a base, on land….(just tryin to make a point with all that)
and myspace, google images, youtube, and many more things are blocked through their network, so i dont think it has a fuckin thing to do with “over seas”….
First if the US Military was censoring then a lot more sites/IP’s would be filtered. Please stop with any conspiracy theories. Fire does melt steel, Rosie.
Second, Iraq is not Japan, Europe or the USA. There is a finite amount of bandwidth available and it is much less those other countries. Not every high tech piece of equipment stands up to the rigors of the desert nor is easily maintained and repaired thousands of miles from the USA. I’d rather have a dependable working setup than a high tech paper weight.
Third, alcohol and pornography have not been allowed in any operational theater for quite some time. Drunken soldiers are easier to kill and may cause harm. No one wants to see you spank the monkey. The military is their job. How many jobs let you use alcohol and porn while working? Very few.
Fourth, listen to the first poster. He’s been there and probably knows more about this than any of the rest of us.
Stop acting like arrogant wunderkid know-it-alls when people are suffering and dying while you suck on your momma’s teat at home worrying how long it will take for the pizza delivery guy to arrive.
Say No To War
I agree with Willy, with so many men there, and in the field, what can be the bw? Like Million MB/s?? Infrastructure is low, so the bw must be re-routed somehow!
i thought da army had a problem with people posting blogs on myspace that could cause problems giving out sensitive information about where they are located with pictures or things like that. and to keep them from posting the same sensitive info on youtube. they can still use internet just blocked out certain websites. wat i heard on da news.
Who cares
I think they play so much CSS =))
in reply to: Fire does melt steel, Rosie.
The government reports admit that the building fires were insufficient to melt steel beams — then where did the molten metal pools come from?
Your gut reaction would be the jet fuel is what made the fire so very intense, a lot of people figured that’s what melted the steel. Indeed it did not, the steel did not melt.
And in an a fact sheet released in August, 2006, NIST states: “In no instance did NIST report that steel in the WTC towers melted due to the fires.”
your all fuckin murderers you sick fuckin animals… i hope you all return home in body bags
signed
all your friends up north
thats fucked up.. risk your life in some shithole but the gov wont even let you watch youtube clips and d/l some tunes???
The Rosie comment was sarcasm.
It was reported that World Trade Center 7 building, where the command center was located, contained numerous pressurized deisel fuel tanks. These pressurized fuel tanks produced explosions and/or fire of sufficient temperature that weakened steel and caused the collapse of WTC 7 long after the Twin Towers fell.
Rosie is a nutjob. Unfortunately 15-20% of the country buy into a conspiracy theory based on lies and half-truths. Ignorance is dangerous.
i think they have to use their own connection, satellite maybe, i dont think they use the iraqi backbone for security reasons
1st How soldier can have time to chat with her girlfriend in a middle of a fucking war? I can thing 100 things you should be doing rather than chatting with MSN messenger.
2nd I think chatting with wife/girlfriend in a middle of war depresses a lot more than living without it. Ok, I haven’t been in warzone, but in the army it was better of SMS/phones. Makes the distance even worse. Good old letter mail is the best!
3rd If US Military can´t negotiate good deal with some ISP to have GREAT connections to the battlefield why others should suffer?
ok, I red the story again
and sry for my typing errors.
3rd point is useless. Got the point of the article little wrong. I think it’s totally right that YouTube / other internet spamming sites are banned from military networks. You shouldn’t have time to browse a big pile of bullshit if your at work!
Ozma if you havent been to war dont tell us who have what way is best to talk to my family. I’m an carrer infantry man who busts my ass over there in combat and when I’m on base after taking care of the men, weapon cleaning, eating chow, sleeping, doing physical training, there is almost no time to talk to my wife. So after the mile walk to the internet center and very often several hour wait you might be able to get to talk to someone. I can not even describe the frustration that I have experianced waiting for hours in line wathing as the clock counts down how many hours I have available to sleep while the computers are filled with teenage-20 something guys who are surfing myspace checking out chicks they dont even know, for hours because they have all this sexual energy built up over the time there and no porn or anything so myspace, youtube, etc becomes they only way for them to look at attractive females. Im not writing this from one or two experiances that is the norm over there. Also with the argument “Why dont they get more bandwith” etc. The army buys the internet access from the iraqis overthere i shit you not guys from outside the wire come in to fix the internet when it gos down. So what is available is limited and security risks are VERY high. Now the higher ups have secure satelite connections for phone and internet but not your average soldier. Bottom line is that this is a very good move by the army to take care of its soldiers by making bandwith available to soldiers who want to use it for what it was intended, talking to family and friends. So is youve never been affected by people hogging all the bandwith overseas and you have something negative to say about the Army’s decision just SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Other than as a thinly veiled exercise in low-rent America-bashing by a mentally and linguistically deficient basement dweller, what was the point of posting this here? This has nothing to do with ‘teh scene’, little or nothing to do with technology (Newsflash : Resources are never infinite), and is unlikely to be relevant to anyone reading this. This is a complete and utter non-story, in point of fact a move by the Pentagon that makes perfect sense, so what is the point of this poorly done cut-and-paste job other than as a supremely poorly thought out snide swipe at something you don’t like?
Kiltstain and YeahRight:
Amen!
Thank you and God bless all our military, present and past, for walking the line and keeping us safe.
“These pressurized fuel tanks produced explosions and/or fire of sufficient temperature that weakened steel and caused the collapse of WTC 7 long after the Twin Towers fell.”
The fire didn’t melt the steel. If there was a lot of fire in WTC7 then where was all the smoke from it. From news archives of WTC7 before it feel, there wasn’t a lot of smoke. And a couple news channels said that WTC7 fell 20 minutes before it actually fell. Those fuel tanks in WTC 7 where centralized, but the whole building came down together.
technically USA was never the “most powerful”. well we have the “most powerful” military but thats about it. Its usually Canada or Norway as I recall that has the best Quality of Life and the marks to prove it.
Truth:
No one’s talked about molten or melted steel since your first post. You can stop your “fire didn’t melt the steel” mantra.
Next, i did say that explosions from the pressurized diesel tanks could have weakened the steel and been integral to bringing down WTC 7. As I recall, the tanks were not all in the same place either. You may have knowledge to the contrary. Share.
Finally, I’m have hope for you since you didn’t argue in favor of wingnut Rosie. Please don’t let us down. What is it you are trying to say. What do you think occured?
So, the US army can’t implement intelligent bandwidth limiting? The first 10/50/1024 megabytes are lightning fast, you get the rest at 2 KB/sec. This isn’t rocket science… The US army can’t manage an internet cafe? Time limited logins, people, I’ve been to places in South America where they have this. It’s not like it’s going to cost much in the big picture… and the ‘molten steel’ nuts are just … nuts.
Like Kiltstain and others, I spent my time in Iraq as well, but spent the majority of the time working in and around the military networks. There are two types of unclassified networks that they use .. Operational (NIPRNet) and MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation).
The MWR networks are mostly open and are provided by contracts with local ISPs and such. ONLY MWR traffic (no operational) is supposed to go over these lines. Additionally, they are not completely open (for example, like your home connection) as there are limitations on the type of sites (no porn is the main one) that can be visited (after all, the government is paying the bill for it).
The NIPRNet is run by the Department of Defense, and is used primarily for sensitive, but unclassified operational traffic and only for limited personal use. In some cases, like combat zones, the NIPRNet can be authorized for increased MWR use by the commander. The NIPRNet touches the Internet through a number of gateways .. this is how the entire NIPRNet can be controlled with a few ACL settings on the main routers.
From my last trip over there about 1 1/2 years ago, there was a LOT of non-operational traffic on the NIPRNet. P2P, streaming video/audio, etc. were chewing up about 80-85% of the bandwidth available. There is no conspiracy about trying to ’shut the troops up’ about what’s going on .. there is no retribution against the troops for posting on blogs and such .. it’s simply a technologicaly fix for a policy that’s been in place for years.
Kiltstain, I’m sorry to say, but for the majority of the internet cafes that the servicemembers use, this decision will have no effect on bandwidth in those locations.
im a staff