Comments on: Military Blocking Access to Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL and Gmail for Overseas Troops

By: leppo

leppo — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 04:39:15 +0000

Pertaining to AKO…Not a viable option for those overseas: periodically, the Army also blocks ANY access from overseas that is not a .mil domain. For example, I am in New Zealand, I do not have access to a govt computer, so I cannot even access the AKO website.

By: Frankie

Frankie — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 21:01:19 +0000

Ralph you really need to do ur research if ur so informed. You obviously have no clue other than rumors. If you havent gotten a clue as to what really happened then your not in the position you say you are. None of this is happening like this article is written. We live in a society of paranoid people and bash others due to rumors. Get a clue do a little bit of research and you will see its not all that you say it is or this article. CLUELESS (did i say that already?)

By: Ralph

Ralph — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 13:47:59 +0000

OK people enough is enough. I am a network admistrator for the US government. I started off at the bottom as a desktop technician and worked my way up. I am not a civilian I am military. If you call yourself a network administrator and are sitting there acting like some has really been accomplished other that a large hit to moral by blocking these sites then you should quite your job and think of a career in basket weaving. Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, these sites are some of the better and cleanest on the web. If they truely had the intention of blocking harmful sites then they could have compiled a much better list than this. What it boils down to is someone with a degree in spanish working as a high up decision maker wanted to make a name for themselves. They heard someone say that they recieved a virus from thier hotmail and then decided that everyone that uses hotmail was getting a virus on thier computer. They also figured that if it was true for hotmail or whatever then it must be true for gmail and all the others as well. What it really boils down to is the local network admins probably cannot be relied upon to keep AV signatures and so on up to date and cannot be relied up to run a functional fire wall. I mean good god people surf the web for a few hours and then let me know if these are still the bad sites on the web. These sites probably have the most comprehensive virus scanning in the world. They definately at leats have more practice than even the government at securing email.

By: Cole

Cole — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 04:20:52 +0000

I requested knowledge about my military e-mail account, and have yet to receive any info from higher. Maybe the Marine Corps is behind the learing curve. We are not allowed to use the any of our commands computers. Why would they block a grunts use of hotmail? My life is miserable enough without office hobbits making decicions that affect my men and I directly. Oh, and I don’t get the pleasure of living on a FOB with Segovia, or even a real chow hall. Thank you DOD.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 12:45:46 +0000

Right, Ted. Nothing to do with protecting the network. That’s why I’ve been watching the Yahoo worm alert my anti-virus server regularally.
Our site doesn’t block those sites, but I frankly think we should. PURELY to protect the network.
Users still have access to their web based military e-mail account, I use mine all of the time for all e-mail.

As for one user suggesting using a thumb drive based client, been an ongoing problem with all kinds of software running from thumb drives. I see the logs from the computers. Funny thing: EVERY DAMNED ONE of those machines ends up with worms, virii or malware. It literally has yet to miss ONE system.

But what do I know, I’m only the network administrator in a middle eastern military base…

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 09:20:12 +0000

Dont think for a minute that this about ‘computer security’. This is about ‘information security’. Look at the recent events that have embarassed the military in Iraq.
THis is a move to control information.

BTW Been to Iraq twice and the Navy for mare than a decade

Ted

By: Daren

Daren — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 14:22:33 +0000

I was in the Army, and all Army personnel including reservists, have access to AKO (Army Knowledgebase Online) which features web-based email. Their dependents can register for an AKO account as well, and they can chat via IM using an AKO client (Yahoo IM and Hotmail IM not allowed).

By: Dave Conlin

Dave Conlin — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 13:20:40 +0000

Those who cannot access email due to this problem would do well to look at iCorr, which is an alternate, spam free secured internet communication system. By its very design, those using iCorr are not affected by the myriad of problems affecting the public email system. Military personnel and their families at home can obtain a free iCorr Light subscription for secured online communications (limited to 5 contacts). Upgrades are available for those who need to communicate with larger groups.

By: eileen

eileen — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 02:33:41 +0000

I well remember the letters I got from friends in ‘Nam which had portions of them cut out as a method of censorship & for security reasons. Seems we are somewhat going along the same lines again. Technology or no.

By: Willard

Willard — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:32:58 +0000

I am suspicious and think the real purpose is to give the Military a better ability to sniff all packets going in and out of service personnel’s and dependents’ email.