p2pnet.net News:- We hate to say it, but we’ve temporarily stopped exclusive use of Firefox 2 because for some reason, it keeps kicking us out of the page we use to post stories, and because of several annoying episodes of “random freezing”.

So until Mozilla fixes these and other bugs, we’re switching back and forth between it and IE7, which doesn’t have these difficulties. And that led to an interesting occurrence.

The US Army is keeping a beady eye on what’s happening online or as, The Washington Post sums it up, “A Virginia-based operation, the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell, monitors official and unofficial blogs and other Web sites for anything that may compromise security. The team scans for official documents, personal contact information and pictures of weapons or entrances to camps.”

OK, we thought, time for a peek at the Cell, which led us here.

We were in FF2.0 at the time and no problem. Down came Army Regulation 25–1, Army Knowledge Management and Information Technology Management, 30 June 2004. But since we had the WP story up in IE7, we re-loaded the 25-1 url into it and Lo! – up popped, “To help protect your security, Intertent Explorer bocked this site from downloading files to your computer.”

IE7 didn’t have anything special against the download: it was just a routine routine and the browser agreed to download the file when we insisted.

And here’s how the Army sums up its blog-spy program:

The Army Web Risk Assessment Cell (AWRAC) is responsible for reviewing the content accessible Web sites.

The AWRAC conducts ongoing operational security and threat assessments (.mil and all other domains used for communicating official information) to ensure that they are and Army policies and best practices. The AWRAC will—

a. Conduct random sampling of Web sites to identify security concerns or review Web site concerns Joint Web Risk Assessment Cell (JWRAC) or Army leadership.

b. Ensure inappropriate security and personal information is removed from publicly accessible

c. Ensure that Army sites are compliant with other Federal, DOD, and Army Web site administration example, Government Information Locator Service (GILS) registration). (See also para 6–4n.)

d. Notify the Web site owner with operational responsibility and the IAPMs of the respective the violations and suspense dates for reporting corrective action.

e. As required, report deficiencies and corrections to the Army CIO/G–6 and JWRAC.

Several words and thoughts seem to be missing from the summary, but presumably it’ll be understood by Army personel.

Meanwhile, the Army won’t say how, or with what, it’s finding and monitoring sites, says The Washington Post, adding:

“Nor will it reveal the size of the operation or the contractors involved. The Defense Department has a similar program, the Joint Web Risk Assessment Cell, but the Army program is apparently the only operation that monitors nonmilitary sites.

“Now soldiers wishing to blog while deployed are required to register their sites with their commanding officers, who monitor the sites quarterly, according to a four-page document of guidelines published in April 2005 by Multi-National Corps-Iraq.”

Also See:
temporarily stopped – Was Firefox 2 a mistake? , October 30, 2006
The Washington Post – Army Monitors Soldiers’ Blogs, Web Sites, October 29, 2006

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 30th, 2006 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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