Marines ban Twitter, Facebook, other sites

[comiso90]

Marines ban Twitter, Facebook, other sites - CNN.com

i think its a good idea...

The U.S. Marine Corps has banned Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites from its networks, effective immediately.
The Marine Corps fears that social media sites such as Facebook could pose a security risk.

The Marine Corps fears that social media sites such as Facebook could pose a security risk.

"These internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries," reads a Marine Corps order, issued Monday.

"The very nature of SNS [social network sites] creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts OPSEC [operational security], COMSEC [communications security], [and] personnel... at an elevated risk of compromise."

The Marines' ban will last a year. It was drawn up in response to a late July warning from U.S. Strategic Command, which told the rest of the military it was considering a Defense Department-wide ban on the Web 2.0 sites, due to network security concerns.


"The mechanisms for social networking were never designed for security and filtering. They make it way too easy for people with bad intentions to push malicious code to unsuspecting users," a Stratcom source told Wired.com.

Yet many within the Pentagon's highest ranks find value in the Web 2.0 tools. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has 4,000 followers on Twitter. The Department of Defense is getting ready to unveil a new home page, packed with social media tools. The Army recently ordered all U.S. bases to provide access to Facebook. Top generals now blog from the battlefield.

"OPSEC is paramount. We will have procedures in place to deal with that," Price Floyd, the Pentagon's newly-appointed social media czar, said.

"What we can't do is let security concerns trump doing business. We have to do business... We need to be everywhere men and women in uniform are and the public is. If that's MySpace and YouTube, that's where we need to be, too," Floyd said.

The Marines say they will issue waivers to the Web 2.0 blockade, if a "mission critical need" can be proven. And they will continue to allow access to the military's internal "SNS-like services." But for most members of the Corps, access to the real, public social networks is now shut off for the next year.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It is not just the Marines. The Army did this over a year ago. The reasons being because of OPSEC. Soldiers were posting stuff they should not have posted, and not thinking about what it could do.

[evangilder]

Not just Opsec, but the potential for malicious code on these sites is huge. That is why a lot of those sites are banned in corporate environments.

[comiso90]

'Dude... check out these photos of our Resupply Base 38 clicks SW of kandahar... here is me at the front gate... check out the barriers.. they suck. Here is a photo of the base commander... were all going on a mission this friday at 3:00 ... do you believe that? Thank god the water supply is coming in tomorrow though!"




.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by comiso90

'Dude... check out these photos of our Resupply Base 38 clicks SW of kandahar... here is me at the front gate... check out the barriers.. they suck. Here is a photo of the base commander... were all going on a mission this friday at 3:00 ... do you believe that? Thank god the water supply is coming in tomorrow though!"




.

Exactly! I agree with this. The military does not need to cut off all communications but they do need to control some. It is a necessary evil in combat environments.

[RabidAlien]

Or create their own. FB and sites like it are a great way for service men/women to keep in touch with their families while deployed. People get cranky when mail-call is delayed, I can't imagine what its like when they can't chat with their wives/husbands real-time! If the military were to create their own version, and block everything but that, it'd still allow a much greater level of control, without making every servicemember suffer for one or two idiots who didn't think before posting.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

They still have Emails and Webcam with which they can communicate. Certain sites however are breeding grounds for putting out information that should not be put out.

[lesofprimus]

Im glad they finally did this.....

Someone got smart....