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Air Force Launches Encrypted IM Service
nomrniceguy writes "U.S. Air Force's Print News Today announces a new instant messaging service for enlisted people stationed abroad to communicate with their families and loved ones. Users cannot send images, audio or other documents through the system. Messages are also encrypted to prevent unauthorized access."
No media, huh? I guess that means we can go back to using our imaginations to visualize the horrors reported back by our soldiers abroad.
On a lighter note, it's nice to see that they will have an easily surveilled method to connect with family from abroad.
How encrypted is this? Can military censors read this? What's to stop someone blabbing about deployments or positions?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
No matter what kind of encryption technology they have implemented for their IM; if the soldiers are going to use the webbrowsers in cybercafes in the foreign land. Then god help them. I have been here in KSA (Kingdome of Saudi Arabia) for six month now. All the MS-Windows systems in cybercafes are full of spywares, keyloggers and whats not. Most of these problems due to administratative rights given to all the clients who need just a browser. No matter what technology one uses over netwrok but its very difficult to get rid off key loggers. After experiencing all that crap I bought a dial-up internet connections cards (Nesma and Zajoul)... both the connections are pretty slow for me though.. compared to my home country dial-up.. Now I can browse through Firefox with antivirus and personal firewall on.... Pretty safe feeling now. I get atleast one incoming connection to my system from the external internet every five minutes. I suspect these are from other dailup users(probably infected) only. Withought a firewall and unpatched MS-Windows system you will be a deadduck in hour or so. I think they should give them secure client machines also. That will help them in better way. I read about the massive bandwidht they are enjoying in this IRAQ war. If they are routed through their own satellites then nothing like it.
wich they could do just as well with the myriad of other IMs already in existens
Actually all commercial IM's are blocked by the military. The reason givin was a bandwidth thing.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
Actually one of my friends whose in the Army had something like this happen to one of people in his squad. He started getting harrassing emails from someone who identified themselves as part of the Iraqi resistance and then started naming his family members in the states that their assosiates would hurt if this person continued to serve. Last I knew the FBI got involved, etc. So, this sort of thing is already happening.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I'm in the air force and I actually get deployed to the base that this client was beta tested. things are pretty restricted there. Here's a synopsis of what it is like.
being that going off base to go to cyber cafes and use the internet there is really not reaslistic to do everyday, maybe not even once a month, our only choice is to use the internet connection provided on base. Don't get me wront i think it's great for them to give us this luxury in a war zone, but we get the internet through the local internet companies and there is also this filter called "websense" which filters out half of the internet. most people who have a desk job have a computer thats hooked up to the internet. there is also a place where any joe blow airman can go to and use a computer for a timed 20 minutes (sometimes when it wasn't buisy the people there would let you stay on as long as you want).
There is another option which alot of people dread and thats to get internet in your room (trailer room really.) This sounds nice, however, the same restrictions that apply to the base apply to your computer in your room. Not only that but before you can get on the network you need to give up your computer (usually a laptop) for a week or so, so the computer guys can wipe your Hard drive clean and install windows xp, and set it all up so that you only have basic user rights.
So all the email from back in the states is blocked off, you can't install any programs, well you could but after you get your computer back from the computer guys it pretty much a government computer hooked up to a government system, and doing anything to comprimise security of the system would mean trouble for you, and I'm not talking about a letter from your ISP trouble either. I'm sure there's ways around this, i have a few ideas myself, but i would rather not ruin my carrer over this.
Anyways to make a long story short, the only i could get in contact with my girlfriend and family (besides my 2 15 minute phone calls per week) was through the Email that was given to me and goes through the base exchange server.
I tried using the email like a IM, the only thing is it is not very reliable, that is there would be some times where i would be talking away and nothing for a half and hour and then boom, like 20 messages all at once. not to mention times when the server is actually down. It got to be pretty flustering after a while.
I know that when I'm deployed I'm at war, and things like this make the air force pretty spoiled, and resented by the other services, but hey, That's why i joined the air force.
bottom line is I think this is a great service for us and I can't express how grateful i am for this. I hope that this will spread throughout all the military.
anything that it can't decode in real-time (or in the future via archives) for any given use.
As for the suggestion to use UU en/decode or other binary-to-text converters: It's potential use was most probably thought of, which in turn would prompt the creation of a script that would scan through and moderate (or flag for review by IT personnel) those messages which contained headers for programs such as UUencode, PGP, etc.
Like every system, there will always be ways around its security measures. However, there should be no reason why the terminals being used by the soldiers can't be kept free of spyware, keyloggers, and the like (ie. re-imaging workstations at the end of the day.) Either way, the military brass will still have access to the information being sent by soldiers, but would severely limit access to information (and thereby its abuse) by those outside of the group charged with running the system.
God bless the men and women of the United States Armed Forces!!