US Military Blocks Web site Access

The US military has reportedly blocked access to MySpace, YouTube, and around eleven other social networking Web sites for its soldiers using Department of Defence computer networks.

The Department of Defence said the decision has been taken for security reasons, to protect sensitive information from being seen by the enemy, and to reduce drag on the military's bandwidth ability.

The sites covered by the ban include: video-sharing sites - YouTube, Metacafe, iFilm, StupidVideos, and FileCabi; social networking sites - MySpace, BlackPlanet, and Hi5; music sites - Pandora, MTV, 1.fm, and Live365; and the photo-sharing site, Photobucket.

It is learnt that US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been increasingly using community-oriented Web sites such as YouTube and MySpace to share videos, images, or stories about their daily lives with loved ones and the world.

Commander Jeffrey Gordon, spokesman for the Department of Defence, pointed out that the regulation is intended primarily to prevent military Internet connections from being clogged with uploads or downloads of data-rich files such as video clips. The ban is also meant to guard against infiltration by malicious or spying software hidden in files created by hackers.

Gordon says that the bottom line is bandwidth, which is the most important consideration. They have to make sure the network is reliable. Restrictions were imposed on MySpace, YouTube, and other Web sites after a usage study showed they were the most visited by soldiers.

However, as regards US soldiers who are deployed in battle zones in the Middle East, and have their only access to the Internet through Defence Department networks, the move is being criticized, as they say it has affected morale, and cut off their only link to family and friends.

The Pentagon has responded to this feeling by saying soldiers would still be allowed to use personal laptops and non-military computer servers to access sites including YouTube and MySpace.

However, the fact remains that only Pentagon computers and networks are available to many troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And apart from blocking access to social networking Web sites, the Pentagon has also introduced regulations that clamp down on blogs by soldiers. Troops must now have any proposed blog site and its content previewed and approved first.