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Marines block Internet sites Email Print

By Carnacki
03/01/2006 12:30:36 PM EST

I understand the need for military discipline, but this is ridiculous. The U.S. Marine Corps is blocking access to Internet sites that do not toe the Bush administration's line, news sites, humor sites, and gossip sites, according to an email to Wonkette.

We're talking about Marines, the lean, mean fighting machines. Is the Pentagon afraid of the truth?

Is this America or China?

From Wonkette:

Just to let you know, the US Marines have blocked access to "Wonkette" along with numerous other sites such as personal email (i.e. Yahoo, AT&T, Hotmail, etc), blogs that don't agree with the government point of view, personal websites, and some news organizatons. This has taken effect as of the beginning of February. I have no problem with them blocking porn sites (after all it is a government network), but cutting off access to our email and possibly-not-toeing-the-gov ernment-line websites is a bit much.

Initially all web blocking was done locally at the hub sites in Iraq. If you wanted a site "unblocked" you just had to email the local administrator with a reason (like, "I'd like to read my email, please."), and if it wasn't porn or offensive, they'd allow it. Now, all blocking is done by desk-weenies at the USMC Network Operations Center in Quantico, VA, who really don't care if we get our email (or gossip) out here, as they get to go to happy hour after working 9 to 5 and go home to a nice clean, warm home with a real bed! (Sorry, I'm a little peeved.)

I bet that Marine is peeved. The Marines are fighting for freedom from humor? From diverse view points?

What's next for the administration? The Marines will only be able to access Pat Robertson's web site and the GOP's? That's only partially tongue in cheek.


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Marines block Internet sites | 1 comment (1 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Let's support freedom and the troops (none / 1)
We can best serve both by providing as much information about how to circumvent unPatriotic censoring of them as possible.  Like this...

(Any general feedback on this would be interesting...but here's a quick list of stuff that could help.)

First: Tor and/or TorPark

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Tor:
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Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system

Tor is a toolset for a wide range of organizations and people that want to improve their safety and security on the Internet. Using Tor can help you anonymize web browsing and publishing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and other applications that use the TCP protocol. Tor also provides a platform on which software developers can build new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy features.

Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves.

Tor's security is improved as its user base grows and as more people volunteer to run servers. Please consider volunteering your time or volunteering your bandwidth. And remember that this is development code--it's not a good idea to rely on the current Tor network if you really need strong anonymity.

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TorPark:
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Torpark v1.5: Turn any internet terminal into a secure connection.

Torpark is a fully configured combination of Tor (The Onion Router) and Mozilla's browser technologies, enabled by John T. Haller's Portable Firefox. As of v1.5, the whole package is wrapped up in a nice single executable with file directory.  No installation, no registry keys, no files left behind.


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A few other interesting items:
    Handbook for Bloggers & CyberDissidents

It's a PDF - right-click to save, or left-click to open.

This would also be helpful:
    Hiding Your IP Address or Anonymous Internet Surfing HOWTO

And think of this as an add-on to the Blogging Handbook:
    How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)

There's a Wikipedia page that has some interesting additional references:
    Tor (anonymity network)

The levels of anonymity provided by the various tools and techniques are not 100%.  For example, you might have a problem or issue utilizing them with Windows, not because of any inherent insecurity in the particular product, but because of the inherent insecurity to Windows itself, or the choice and use of a particular firewall.

Another option you could always explore is the implementation of a LiveCD that boots entirely from (duh!) a CD-ROM (or, in some cases, a USB drive) and uses a secure implementation of a unix OS that already has Tor preconfigured, along with some other nifty anonymous features.  To wit, kaos.theory active projects ("Anonym.OS").

And, of course, you won't want to use your home or office internet connection to surf anonymously, as your ISP would know who you are and where you go.  Check out this DailyKos diary by Soj for some additional good tips.

The above information was originally posted in a comment on DailyKos.  Click here to see the original comment, posted on Mon Mar 06, 2006 at 11:11:57 PM EST

by GreyHawk on 03/07/2006 10:01:35 AM EST

Marines block Internet sites | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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