US Military Blocks Websites To Free Up Bandwidth

DJRumpy writes "The US military has blocked access to a range of popular commercial websites in order to free up bandwidth for use in Japan recovery efforts, according to an e-mail obtained by CNN and confirmed by a spokesman for US Strategic Command. The sites — including YouTube, ESPN, Amazon, eBay and MTV — were chosen not because of the content but because their popularity among users of military computers account for significant bandwidth, according to Strategic Command spokesman Rodney Ellison. The block, instituted Monday, is intended 'to make sure bandwidth was available in Japan for military operations' as the United States helps in the aftermath of last week's deadly earthquake and tsunami, Ellison explained."

Comments

Unclear

[religious freak]

This is unclear (I even read TFA). Who exactly is being blocked? The Japanese? The US Military? Everyone?

Re:Unclear

[religious freak]

Oh. Damn. Nevermind. Reading Fail.

U.S. Pacific Command made the request to free up the bandwidth. The sites, 13 in all, are blocked across the Department of Defense's .mil computer system.

Re:Unclear

[Anonymous Coward]

This is unclear (I even read TFA). Who exactly is being blocked? The Japanese? The US Military? Everyone?

FTFA: "The sites, 13 in all, are blocked across the Department of Defense's .mil computer system."

Re:Unclear

[Anonymous Coward]

No you were right to question it. The title reads as if some sort of country-wide censorship happened, until I read the body, and then it made perfect logical sense.

I really hate that sort of misdirection from journalists/news articles - how about a bit of proof reading so its not a damn tabloid news source?

(PS: The captcha's a

Re:Unclear

[Anonymous Coward]

The title reads as if some sort of country-wide censorship happened,

I'm quick to whip out my tin-foil hat and scold the military/government but even I didn't consider that for a second. "shitstorm" ("shittsunami" would be too soon, right?) wouldn't even begin to describe what would happen if that were the case.

Re:Unclear

[Anonymous Coward]

Why in the hell are people on .MIL accessing YouTube, eBay, MTV, and ESPN?

Re:Unclear

[bberens]

Clearly the military does not believe in capitalism and letting the free market decide where to allocate resources. Socialism is WRONG!!!

Re:Unclear

[Anonymous Coward]

neither does my employer damn them for blocking espn and youtube. Capitalism is WRONG!!!

Re:Unclear

[DrgnDancer]

MWR (Morale, Welfare, ad Recreation). Since most military network decisions are service wide, the military has been fairly lenient in allowing access to "fun" sites as an MWR resource for soldiers deployed in places where they don't have a lot of civilian Internet access (Mostly Middle Eastern areas, but there's other smaller deployment location with limited access). I was in Iraq 5 years ago before Facebook and the like exploded, but LiveJournal was one of the big ways I kept in touch with people.

Re:Unclear

[Runaway1956]

Exactly. I was on Adak Island back in 1976, and we had no access to Youtube, Facebook, or any of that stuff. Oh - wait. Nevermind . . . .

Re:Unclear

[tehcyder]

MWR (Morale, Welfare, ad Recreation)

So what's wrong with going out, getting drunk and starting fights with the locals?

Who needs YouTube, in my day we made our own entertainment, etc...

Re:Unclear

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's wrong with going out, getting drunk and starting fights with the locals?

No alcohol to be had.

Re:Unclear

[tacarat]

Free healthcare, the same pay amongst peers (regardless of the profession), food and shelter paid for by the government. The military is socialist, you insensitive capitalist pig!

Gawdz, I miss it some days. Mostly while doing my insurance forms >.>

Re:Unclear

[drsmithy]

Why in the hell are people on .MIL accessing YouTube, eBay, MTV, and ESPN?

Same reason they're reading books, making phone calls and playing cards.

Same content, alt sites

[mehrotra.akash]

So, wont people just use alternate sites for veiwing the same content? Also, wouldnt this lead to an increase in traffic as people search for alternate sites?

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

So, wont people just use alternate sites for veiwing the same content? Also, wouldnt this lead to an increase in traffic as people search for alternate sites?

I think the US Army would be decent enough to respect the reasoning behind it and would refrain from viewing alternatives.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Teun]

You mean to say the military personnel affected would not understand or appreciate the reasons for the blockage and would rather watch YouTube than help the Japanese.

Or were you just reflecting your own (lack of) moral on them?

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

If they would understand and appreciate the reasons, there would be no need for blocking; they would simply need a nice large sign saying "Don't waste bandwidth!". This appears not to be the case, unfortunately.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Seumas]

I don't understand why they don't just throttle lower priority traffic. The same problem I have with ISPs. Look, I understand that if I'm a very high capacity user, I might be impacting others during my usage (MAYBE). But the rest of the time, what does it matter how much bandwidth I use, if the rest of the traffic is low? So rather than blocking or limiting sites or total transfer, just fucking set up some throttling rules so that during times when traffic is truly an issue (not based merely on time of day, but actual real current bandwidth consumption and availability), it trims me down.

At any rate, there doesn't seem to be anything questionable about this action. It's not like they're blocking access to information to keep people in the dark about anything. They're just carefully metering their bandwidth for urgent needs during an emergency.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[N1AK]

Probably not, especially if users are aware of why the ban is in place. Generally military staff have the intelligence to not intentionally disobey instructions/request. The use of these sites could be decreased dramatically, just be telling them not to use them for a while, the block is simply a way of putting a low barrier in place to discourage the final 25% or so of use.

It's like trying to diet. Many people know they should snack less, but struggle to resist temptation. Not having snacks in the house doesn't stop you going out and buying them, however it provides a slight disincentive which helps some people stop snacking.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[WrongSizeGlass]

It's much easier to just add the sites to their blocked list than implement a throttling system.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Chrisq]

Probably not, especially if users are aware of why the ban is in place. Generally military staff have the intelligence to not intentionally disobey instructions/request. The use of these sites could be decreased dramatically, just be telling them not to use them for a while, the block is simply a way of putting a low barrier in place to discourage the final 25% or so of use. It's like trying to diet. Many people know they should snack less, but struggle to resist temptation. Not having snacks in the house doesn't stop you going out and buying them, however it provides a slight disincentive which helps some people stop snacking.

Plus lots of sites embed youtube videos. Someone could easily end up watching one without explicitly going to youtube without a block.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[metacell]

I agree. At my workplace, a lot of sites are blocked. But when you try to access a blocked site, it says roughly: "This site has been blocked to safeguard bandwidth for core business processes. If you are sure you have a business reason to visit this site, please click here." And if you click the link, you're redirected to the actual site. And that's enough to discourage people - if they click the link, they can't say they went to the site by mistake, or didn't know it wasn't allowed.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[danaranda]

Nope, it justs comes up with a military version of the 404... something along the lines of "this is not approved on this network..."

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd need one heckuva large sign to be seen by everyone in the US military.

I conclude that you are either

a. a troll,
2. really dumb, or
c. in the sign business.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[shentino]

Indeed. Getting court martialed for refusing to stay away from a forbidden web site will certainly reduce internet contention.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[shentino]

you'd think that would be a 403

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the US Army would be decent enough to respect the reasoning behind it and would refrain from viewing alternatives.

Funny. Apparently, you were never in the Military?

Re:Same content, alt sites

[deniable]

We do something similar but the list is smaller and easier to bypass. The reason being that at one point about a quarter of our traffic was Facebook and that has little or no value for our work. Personally, I would have smacked the users but that's too hard for management.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

True. Anyone who's used QoS knows that you shouldn't ever try to use QoS.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Hazel Bergeron]

Many deployments of the IWF censorship list in the UK use a 404 Not Found rather than 403. I've never found any official explanation for this, though I've read suggestions that it's to make people just assume that censored content isn't available rather than tip them off that it's being hidden from them.

I don't know what US military policy is, but it gives you an idea of how censors in the Western world think.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow....you are under some serious delusion about how the (any) military operates.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Moderator]

I don't think it's unreasonable to question their ability to think of how their actions affect other people. Note: I'm not BLAMING soldiers for going to Iraq. I'm just observing that they did not demonstrate an ability to think of others, especially not foreign civilians, at a time when this was badly needed.

These were also the first-responders to the 2004 Tsunami, the 2010 Haitian earthquake, and now the Japanese disaster. US Naval subs provided electricity and hospitals where there were none. What have YOU done to help?

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Voltageaav]

I doubt anyone would get court martialed. At worst, they'd get an Article 15. Unless maybe they'd already gotten 2 other article 15s for watching porn. Then maybe they'd get court martialed.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[lessthan]

It's called email, man. It is the next big thing!

Re:Same content, alt sites

[thisnamestoolong]

That would be fine, except most people don't understand what bandwidth is or how they can avoid wasting it (Note: this is not to say that they are stupid or ignorant, they simply don't have a reason to give a shit as computers are not in their interest/skill set). For the people who wouldn't understand the sign about wasting bandwidth, trying to go to YouTube.com and seeing a blocked message would most likely make them give up and find something better to do with their time.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[icebraining]

Depends. Will you pay me a salary for helping?

Re:Same content, alt sites

[thisnamestoolong]

An embedded video would still be blocked, the request still goes out to youtube's server. If this were the case, then ad-blocking software/extensions would be totally useless.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[alta]

Especially since typically when you say throttle the low priority traffic, it's often done by protocol, or even port. So, your ISP would be blocking your bittorrent protocol, and maybe news for your porn. All of the services mentioned are http:80 or similar, so they'd be blocking a lot of what they DO need access to. Yes, just adding the most popular destinations is a much simpler solution. KISS

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

You can save the whole "took part in a criminal war" and "inability to think of others" arguments. Just because I said so. See how effective?

I was deployed and I did think of others and I concluded I wouldn't be helping them by taking residence in Ft. Leavenworth.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Teun]

I'm afraid you are right, so few understand the intricacies of a network. I work with quite smart engineers and when the company addressed the slowdown of our connection we were requested to stop using streaming services.

A couple of them came together and suggested we could all listen to the same radio station to limit bandwidth used...

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Arccot]

I think you forget you're talking about the same people who did not refuse to take part in a criminal war that caused the death of 100k civilians. I don't think it's unreasonable to question their ability to think of how their actions affect other people.

Note: I'm not BLAMING soldiers for going to Iraq. I'm just observing that they did not demonstrate an ability to think of others, especially not foreign civilians, at a time when this was badly needed. Whether they are or aren't at fault for this is an entirely different topic that I am not discussing here.

That's pretty insulting to anyone in the military that risked their lives in Iraq specifically to make it a better place. Most of the soldiers over there have done truly stunning, selfless acts risking their lives to help out the people over there. You may disagree with the reasons for going to war, but not everyone who disagrees with you is stupid, ignorant, or evil. To think of them that way just shows you as the one lacking empathy.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean to say the military personnel affected would not understand or appreciate the reasons for the blockage and would rather watch YouTube than help the Japanese.

If military personnel would understand and appreciate the reasons and voluntarily stop using these sites so as to not eat up needed bandwidth, there would be no need for a block, right?

Also, you're the only one who ascribed a lack of morals to anything here. If I were a serviceman right now, I'd say, sure, I'll do what I can to help, but why shouldn't I watch a Youtube video or check eBay when there's nothing else for me to do? I'd not find that immoral. And I think the military doesn't, either: they're not saying it's immoral to watch videos while people are dying, just that they need the bandwidth.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

So every order given to soldier should be up for debate and a vote?

I don't care what country your from, based on your observable actions your an idiot. If your not going to discuss it, why did you bring it up?

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Go out and watch the movies 'Soldiers of Conscience' & 'Sir No Sir!' and rethink that. Just because you're in the military does not give you a blanket excuse to turn off your brain and attribute anything bad that you've done to "just following orders, I had no choice." The military would like you to believe that it does, but that is absolutely not the case.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[svendsen]

Wow your act of compassion and self sacrifice is amazing....

Re:Same content, alt sites

[gomiam]

No, not every order is debatable. Then again, due obedience is not an excuse. It is the soldier's responsibility to know when he has grounds to disobey an order.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[icebraining]

I'm saying that people in the army do get paid for that, so it's unfair to compare. I have to work to pay my bills, obviously I can't afford to help as much.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? You're actually equating blocking access to websites with a war? Soldiers are trained to do what their Commander tells them to do, period, no matter what country they come from. You can try to stereotype USA soldiers, but that is in every military force in the world and all throughout history. There can NEVER be decision among the ranks. Being in the military is not a civilian job where you have the ability to question your boss. If they don't do what they are told, they go to jail, in some countries even worse. Even in the civilian world we are asked to do things by our bosses that may not make any sense to us at the time, but we still do them on the faith that maybe our boss knows something we don't and he isn't able to tell us. Please understand, I am not arguing in favor or against the war, just pointing out that maybe you should actually think about what you are saying first.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[svendsen]

I see your point. Mind you they don't get paid a lot (I think a PVT. gets about 20k/yr?) for what they sacrifice. I'm currently joining the Army Guard and trust me it isn't for the money when compared to just my base salary at work.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[DrgnDancer]

Failure to obey a lawful order is a crime and a violation of oath. The order to deploy is a lawful order. "Go kill that civilian" is not a lawful order and you'd have a case if any significant numbers of troops were being given or obeying such an order. It's also worth pointing out that most (for a very high value of most) of the 100K civilian casualties have not been caused by US troops. Accidents do happen in combat and they are both tragic and rigorously investigated when they do, but something like 90% of the civilians casualties have been caused by someone else.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[CastrTroy]

My ISP (Rogers Canada) actually has a feature whereby if there is available bandwidth, they actually do give it out in order to boost your current speed, automatically. The result is that my 3Mbit connection runs almost entirely at 10Mbit, because, at least as I've seen, they always seem to have extra bandwidth floating around. The not so great part is that I still have a 25 GB cap. I could pay for a higher cap, up to 175 GB, and a higher speed, up to 50 Mbit, but I don't have much of a use for that.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[DrgnDancer]

That's his point. If you go to a site with an embedded video, *you* may not realize that you're watching youtube, but the network does and helpfully blocks it prevent you from inadvertently breaking the rules. If there were just rule in place that says "Don't watch youtube videos," Private Joe might spend all day breaking the rules without even realizing it. Hence blocking is more effective than merely asking, even if everyone involved legitimately wants to comply.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[poity]

Also, without a block, you'd get the "oh one person couldn't hurt" syndrome where individuals in a large population defy good stewardship out of convenience because they think their individual impact is insignificant. Multiply that mentality to thousands and that's why we get polluted rivers, streets with litter, etc. So a block is indeed more effective than any notice, even though people are able and willing to make the sacrifice.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

if only there was some form of electronic communication we could use to distribute that information. kind of like mail, only instant -- maybe using the computers they'd have to sit in front of to access these websites! oh well, a guy can dream.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[JackieBrown]

Go out and watch the movies....

Yes. That is how you should make informed decisions on everything

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Ihmhi]

I think the US Army would be decent enough to respect the reasoning behind it and would refrain from viewing alternatives.

On the other hand, shouldn't the US Army be decent enough to ask its soldiers to not use them instead of outright blocking them?

Well, to be fair, it's not like they can expect their soldiers to follow or-

...nevermind.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[DrgnDancer]

Yes, it is. We never signed any international treaty which forbade us from invading Iraq. No treaty or convention was nullified, no international agreement breached. Was it wrong to do it? Maybe. Saddam was an asshole who murdered a ton of his own people to maintain a stranglehold on power. On the other hand, if that's our criteria for invasion we need a much bigger Army. Should we have waited for a UN mandate? I think so, sadly no one asked me. Was it illegal? Not by any national law or International agreement I am aware of.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Throttling makes sense, but it'd require expertise that isn't permanently located between the ISPs and military locations.
Then there's the eventual lawsuits from Youtube or whomever saying that they got put in the lower 10% by the US Government and that's anti-blahblahblah; none of which the military needs given everything else they're doing.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[nigelo]

Yes. That is how you should make informed decisions on everything

... including your choice of Slashdot alias, no less.

Unless you really are Jackie, and you really are Brown, in which case I am Clod, Insensitive.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Teun]

Check out the outcome of the Nuremberg trials, I know the USofA does since Bush-v2 not give a shit about international treaties and the Geneva Treaties but still:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions

Re:Same content, alt sites

[nacturation]

Wouldn't it be amazing if the military developed the means to communicate information to its members?

Re:Same content, alt sites

[shentino]

Disobeying a direct order from a comissioned officer carries a maximum sentence of dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for 5 years.

I.e., it's a felony.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[gomiam]

Mmm... I guess starting a war without a formal declaration would be considered illegal, wouldn't it? At least the USA complained quite loudly when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Anyway, I guess I will lose a few karma points now as well :)

Re:Same content, alt sites

[slash.duncan]

The implication of your post at least as I read it is that the suggested solution of all listening to the same station would NOT reduce bandwidth usage.

Well, if you're doing it right, and depending on where your bandwidth bottleneck was and the topology of the network, they were right, listening to the same internet radio station /could/ free up bandwidth.

Assuming the congestion is on the internet link(s), setting up a single (or even two or three) icecast/shoutcast/whatever station proxies would work. You'd then have only that single (double/triple) Internet stream, with it in turn re-streaming to as many local machines as its LAN connection allowed. If a dozen or folks end up connected to that local stream, that's an order of magnitude worth of Internet link bandwidth saved....

If the bottleneck's on the LAN, you either have really big LAN bandwidth needs, or need to update your LAN to something modern, switches for hubs, gigabit Ethernet for 10 megabit, 10-gig LAN trunks if the data needs are big enough, etc. Really large companies could replicate the above proxy solution locally, for each office, floor, etc.

Of course, multicast tech would help here as well, and I'd assume that's what the Engineers were assuming, but just because that's relatively rare doesn't mean bandwidth savings from the idea are impossible; one just has to do the streaming proxy thing, instead.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[Teun]

Yes that's what I was implying, all these streams run in parallel through the network to the various end users.

Sure there are options like multicast or a proxy but those are not our core business so it would never be implemented.

And as you say, the LAN will still have to handle all the separate streams.

The problem I noticed is our engineers thought of the internet as a sort of coax cable where there's one signal that many can tack onto.

Re:Same content, alt sites

[slash.duncan]

To be fair, the fact that I run privoxy between my browser and the web... and have since I switched to Linux starting the week eXPrivacy came out... and ran The Proxomitron in the same role on the MS side for several years before that... so I've been proxies at least for the www for nearly as long as I've been browsing the www ...

And the fact that while I don't tend to run Inet radio proxies or *casting servers personally, they're relatively well documented as options in the streaming clients I've run over the years... plus multiplexed ssh connections and the like altho that's multiplexing for a rather different reason... probably has something to do with proxy options being rather close to the top of the heap of solutions that spring to mind when I read about sharing streaming bandwidth.

As for being implemented, if the company's already bandwidth rationing as it sounded like, all it takes is one person having the idea and running the icecast/shoutcast server, and they were already half-way there with the idea to share bandwidth.

But the illustration remained effective in that they immediately thought about sharing bandwidth, but didn't equally immediately realize that they'd need, effectively, a proxy (or the use of some special multicasting setup) to do it, well illustrated the concept of even rather highly intelligent people in their field not really grasping even these relative basics outside it ...

Says the geek who once failed to realize that stapling a message to a football wasn't a particularly good idea! Talk about not grasping the basics! =:^( To be fair, I was "impared" at the time, by perhaps a half hour of sleep in 24, 3 in 48, and maybe 8 in 72. I like to think I'd have caught the folly in my reasoning had I been rested and thinking straight.

Bandwidth tsunami imminent!

[Anonymous Coward]

All brace for impact! Military users now offline freeing up server connections. The internets will start moving faster thus making router/switches/firewalls unable to to handle the TCP/UDP deluge. Oh lordy!

pr0n

[Anonymous Coward]

If they really want to free up bandwidth, block porn.

Re:pr0n

[AliasMarlowe]

If they really want to free up bandwidth, block porn.

No. If they want to free up bandwidth, then make sure each office has a large local cache for pr0n. LAN traffic might increase, but WAN traffic would plummet.

Predictable

[rumith]

That's a good, though unsurprising decision. Bandwidth should be used for the purposes that the infrastructure has been built for. Recreational uses are completely optional, IMO, and no one sane should expect them to be available during a conflict or a crisis. There's job to be done that you signed up to do, so go ahead and do it. And may God stand between you and harm.

Re:Predictable

[LWATCDR]

So in other words this is a none story.
In other news Sony has taken down the servers for Final Fantasy to help save power...
Yeah and duh.

Re:Predictable

[Anonymous Coward]

so what they're saying is don't use the work computers for personal use... they should also join the rest of us and install flashblock, adblock plus and noscript... probably would save the need for ever blocking these sites

Re:Predictable

[Kalriath]

Square-Enix, not Sony.

I sure hope they're offering partial refunds in order to help save customer rage as well (perhaps even offer to redirect the refund to the tsunami relief fund or something).

Re:Predictable

[Anonymous Coward]

There's such thing as QoS.
You don't need to "block" sites - just throttle down traffic to them.
This is the basic skill that any (even junior) network engineer should have.

Rather surprising

[TubeSteak]

* Youtube.com
* Googlevideo.com ...
* Doubleclick.com
* Eyewonder.com

Ad networks are that bad huh?

Re:Rather surprising

[Spad]

When every site you visit is serving multiple Flash banner adverts then yes.

Re:Rather surprising

[Feinu]

They should just leave the ad networks blocked once normal service resumes - it'll help all the poor souls who browse without an ad blocker.

Re:Rather surprising

[deniable]

Yes, we've blocked some of our bigger problem sites and the highest hit counts are from ad networks.

Re:Rather surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Not when you have this *awesome* HOSTS file.

Re:Rather surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we've blocked some of our bigger problem sites and the highest hit counts are from ad networks.

That settles it...Ad bandwidth should Not count towards AT&T's new DSL bandwidth caps.

Revealing

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to know how the Military normally spends your tax dollars at work...

Untrue

[Anonymous Coward]

from the but-why-is-virgin-mobile-doing-it-to-me? dept.

I'm pretty sure Virgin mobile isn't doing it with anybody.

Re:Untrue

[Chrisq]

from the but-why-is-virgin-mobile-doing-it-to-me? dept.

I'm pretty sure Virgin mobile isn't doing it with anybody.

Of course. That's why its Virgin.

Re:Untrue

[thisnamestoolong]

Yes, it's going to be very confusing when they are forced to change their name to "Mobile".

Re:Untrue

[mooingyak]

Maybe they'll go with "Mobile Slut" ?

umm

[InfectReality]

PHProxy on home comp -> DynDNS mapped to your home computer IP address. Fixed.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know much about the military, but won't the blocking count as an order and violating leads to court-martial?

Re:umm

[neffezzle]

I think it's a safe bet that most non-geek military types won't figure out how to implement this because they are too busy watching unblocked porn sites

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know much about the military, but won't the blocking count as an order and violating leads to court-martial?

Yes, but it would be for a whole lot more than Article 92(failure to obey a lawful order or regulation).

Re:umm

[deniable]

Back-door in military network -> Another Bradley Manning -> Fixed.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

PHProxy on home comp -> DynDNS mapped to your home computer IP address. Fixed.

Better idea: just report directly to the brig or stockade for gross insubordination. If you really want out of the military the hard way, why waste time?

Good new soldiers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Porntube.com is still unblocked.

This is news?

[LDAPMAN]

So how is this "Stuff That Matters"?

Re:This is news?

[c0lo]

So how is this "Stuff That Matters"?

Probably that, for once, the army is doing something useful by doing nothing (i.e. abstaining from an action)? (can I hope to see more such occasions?)
Or sort of a notification that Japan is in "extreme demand for networks" (... and maybe you should limit you pr0n daily quota too, especially hentai, at least for a while)?

Re:This is news?

[AHuxley]

The US taking about a form of bandwidth in the open in some way was government-owned satellite networks early ~1990's?
The dream of endless Pentagon’s commercial satellite accounts are dreamy to many in the commercial market.
News like this gives the world idea that something is different, strange, unique, new, spinning up fast, in play?
What sucks military operations bandwidth? Would UAV like use be at the top of the list? Why would the ability to many unmanned tools be of such interest over Japan at this time? Boots on the ground going to be replaced by eyes in the sky? Has Measurement and Signature Intelligence "seen" something over the past few days?

Re:This is news?

[Americano]

What sucks military operations bandwidth? Would UAV like use be at the top of the list? Why would the ability to many unmanned tools be of such interest over Japan at this time?

I think you'll find that the bandwidth usage is primarily tied to the fact that they're essentially having to provide command and control networks to every unit in the area (there's likely little-to-no civilian capacity in the areas they're operating in, so they could well be providing the Japanese government & civilian relief workers with network bandwidth as well), and seeing as they're thousands of miles away, and engaged in pretty intense rescue, recovery and rebuilding efforts, the ability to communicate status and queries back to the chain of command in the US is probably deemed more important than PFC Smith's need to watch that funny video on Youtube of the monkey scratching his butt and sniffing his finger.

And yes, UAVs probably are in use, for several purposes:
-- Recon of damaged areas, looking for signs of survivors who need to be evacuated by helicopter;
-- Testing for radiation in the air above & around damaged nuclear plants;
-- Surveying the extent and severity of the damage more closely than can be done by satellite imagery;

There are only so many helicopters available, so I'm sure that at least a few drones are in the air providing information and data to help the Japanese government and the military personnel decide where their efforts are most needed and best spent first. All of it takes bandwidth, and I think it's a bit premature to speculate that there's some sort of nefarious plot.

Well, I suppose that makes sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd been wondering why all of a sudden I couldn't get to Amazon at work any more.

See? SEE?!

[GrumblyStuff]

All that bitching about useless ads, menus in flash, images in the wrong format, all that crap... we were right!

The internet is running out of bits!

Blocked ?

[rafpayen]

Can't they just make them low-priority? That's a bit worrying: if a disaster in Japan can make the army block some websites just for bandwidth reasons, what would happen if they had to deal with an emergency in the US ? And what if in the middle of this emergency, someone wanted to see a video on Youtube containing info that he needs?

Re:Blocked ?

[cpghost]

Except for Amazon blocking (are they really such a bandwidth hog like video streaming sites?), it's actually a pretty good idea. Why does vital info have to be in video format? How about a simple, good ole fashioned no frills web site with a page of text? That would be at least as informative, but conserve enormous bandwidth during an emergency.

Re:Blocked ?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that they went with blocking because it is way, way easier(especially if you are just aiming for an aggregate use reduction, not an ironclad 100% ban). Blocking probably just involves setting your DNS servers to return localhost or some LAN-side warning page for the domains. Priority setting would mean dicking around with QoS on god knows how many switches, that may or may not have the CPU time and resources to support it.

Re:Blocked ?

[JTsyo]

Amazon also offers streamed video content. Now with Prime members getting access to some free content, I expect quite a few are streaming fro Amazon.

Re:Blocked ?

[nowen2dot]

... what would happen if they had to deal with an emergency in the US ? And what if in the middle of this emergency, someone wanted to see a video on Youtube containing info that he needs?

If the US military has to rely on access to Youtube, they have bigger problems.

OTOH, if an information source is using Youtube, I'm sure the military can manage to repost it to their own network.

Who was responsible?

[SilentStaid]

We know that PACCOM made the initial request, but one thing I always find lacking in these sensationalized news stories is the lack of investigative work that would help us understand the decision making process.

The reason that I ask, is because I remember when I was deployed with an Infantry Battalion, we more or less managed our own usage internally, but everything above the Battalion level (brigade or god-forbid base wide) seemed to have been handled by outside consultants who when I look back now, weren't all that great.

Also, Google hasn't told me what the process was, before any LMGTFY comments come up...

Re:Who was responsible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Better then around here, our networks people are saying they are doing it for security reasons.
Standard work level that you get from the I-NOSCs.

Re:Who was responsible?

[deniable]

That sounds like the people who have to provide an answer, any answer, right or wrong.

Nothing new here.

[Onuma]

The Defense Information System Agency (DISA) periodically blocks, unblocks, and restricts access to various sites as they deem necessary. Generally, the most popular and trafficked sites are affected. Back in 2005 myspace was blocked off, but other networking sites were open. From Iraq, I could get on AIM's web portal (and google chat when it was unveiled), but not Yahoo for instant messaging. Some time later, it was allowed again.

The reason the NIPR exists on .gov and .mil computer systems is so Uncle Sam can do his job and complete the missions. Everything else is absolutely auxiliary and unnecessary. DISA recognizes the importance of keeping people in contact with their friends and families, and that they can often not access the internet anywhere except while at work, so they appropriately authorize things like social networking, news, personal email, etc., so long as it does not negatively affect the organization's mission(s). It may be nice to burn some downtime on Break.com or Hulu, etc., but if that bandwidth is slowing down other high-priority functions, then the line is clearly drawn.

This doesn't happen too often, in large part due to the fact that multiple non-internet networks exist for higher classifications of information systems. You don't want to display Top Secret data on an Unclassified machine, after all. That may land you in Quantico or Ft. Leavenworth :P

Luckily, they've never decided to block /. in all these years.

Re:Nothing new here.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in Italy for 3 years and they blocked slashdot on one of the bases there. I ended up putting in an exemption letter and after numerous days of complaing about how it is a technical news site that included coverage of air force topics they finally unblocked it.

Re:Nothing new here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at the DoD level, but slashdot has been blocked (or subdomains like games.slashdot.org) by the AF.

Re:Nothing new here.

[Anonymous Coward]

The email I got concerning the blockage indicates:

(a) nothing about why the blockage took place.
(b) that this blockage is temporary.

I work at DISA. This blockage is coming from a higher level.

Re:Nothing new here.

[Onuma]

If DISA is directed to do so (by US STRATCOM) or DoD directly, then of course they'll comply.

I remember attending a DISN conference in 2008 or 2009, having them detailing why a group of sites (such as Myspace/Facebook, etc.) were periodically blocked off. They showed spikes in data usage around times of crises or major world events (the previous FIFA World Cup comes to mind, as well as the Marines going to Lebanon). It was pretty good insight as to how this process works -- if you're already on the inside you may have access to such information.

Re:See? SEE?!

[thisnamestoolong]

Holy shit you're right!!! The tubes are getting clogged!! Quick, get the dump truck!!!!!

Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed the amazon block on Monday, though it was originally listed as being for "security reasons." I don't totally buy this explanation and don't expect things to return to an unblocked state after the crisis is over.

It's a little strange to see an announcement about this in the commercial press before seeing any internal memo.

Re:Interesting

[DrgnDancer]

Most of these sites are a pretty big MWR resource for deployed troops, they'll likely restore access after the crisis. They've blocked and unblocked sites on a bandwidth and use basis for years. I couldn't get to LiveJournal for two weeks on three occasions when I was in Iraq in 2005 becasue they had some bandwidth constraint or other. It always came back after the constraint lifted.

whole universe 'shakes' when one baby is killed?

[Anonymous Coward]

now we're getting it. so that's why they (GSM) try to keep the # (of live ones) so low (.5 billion)? however, using even nursery math on this (our current) scenario, would render estimates of vibrations that would suggest we almost immediately attempt to better align ourselves with creation, & the associated intentions & behaviors, as opposed to destruction, which causes even more excessive vibration (exploding), & is smelly, noisy & poisonous? some choice. ALL MOMMYS.... see you there. for sure

Wait how is the Navy going to update facebook page

[HeavyDevelopment]

http://www.facebook.com/USNavy

Wouldn't this actually INCREASE bandwidth usage?

[mhocker]

My first thought about what it would be like to be a user in this situation is that, upon seeing the "site blocked" message, I would simply go hunting around for a similar site - maybe MSNBC instead of CNN for example. It's the content I'm looking for after all - news in this case - that matters. I might have to Google around a bit to find that content of course and try a few alternative sites. So wouldn't this approach actually increase the bandwidth usage? As noble as the cause is, this approach doesn't seem very effective to me.

Re:Wouldn't this actually INCREASE bandwidth usage

[alta]

I think less bandwidth is used for 100 searches and an ultimately unsuccessful result, than in one single video.

Add to that, a large percentage of videos are direct link to the content, and the viewer doesn't really care that much about seeing it. How many times have you loaded up a page and it had a youtube video embedded that just starts spooling up, but you never watched it? They're not trying to censor videos here, they're just going after the low hanging fruit, and this is a VERY effective way to do it.

The Email with the full list

[Stenchwarrior]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Caveats: NONE

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE

This email serves as official notification on behalf of the Army Reserve Enterprise Network Operations Security Center to inform you that USCYBERCOM has directed the temporary restriction to the internet sites listed below until further notice.

The intent of the restriction is to alleviate bandwidth congestion to assist with HIGH Availability/Disaster Relief efforts in the PACIFIC Area Of Responsibility (AOR).

As of 0310Z 13 March all 13 Internet sites below have been temporarily restricted:

Youtube.com

Googlevideo.com

Amazon.com

ESPN.go.com

Ebay.com

Doubleclick.com

Eyewonder.com

Pandora.com

streamtheworld.com

Mtv.com

Ifilm.com

Myspace.com

Metacafe.com

Re:The Email with the full list

[Anonymous Coward]

They should just use QOS to reduce the priority of sites which may be "non essential" instead of blocking them off totally.

That would probably been better as the morale of those stationed overseas will not take as big a hit as from blocking them off totally.

Re:The Email with the full list

[Stenchwarrior]

I have to think that that this only applies the networks in the U.S. since the overseas bandwidth doesn't affect us here. I'm not even sure that they're on the same military network over there that they are here. I may be wrong about that, though.

Either way, I still agree with you. At least they didn't block Facebook since that's one of the few ways the guys have to talk to their families. That and Skype.

Why the hell did they bother to block MySpace...does anyone even use that?

Re:The Email with the full list

[Anonymous Coward]

facebook isnt on there but myspace is. hm.

And so it starts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Block it for a good reason (instead of actually convincing people to use less bandwidth), then keep it blocked because there is always something important requiring a lot of bandwidth, then expand for whatever reason you see fit.

Re:And so it starts...

[Americano]

Yes, because in an emergency, I really want to see the DoD spin up a multi-million dollar "Uncle Sam wants you to use less bandwidth!" awareness campaign that will take months to design and implement. I'm sure the people of Japan won't have any problem with hearing, "Sorry, we can't support a mission to go rescue your family right now, because Bob just really needs to watch that funny Charlie Sheen cooking video again."

That's a much better solution than the 30 minute solution of blocking the sites, displaying a 404 or 403 page indicating that the site is blocked for bandwidth purposes, and implying that administrative action may result if repeated attempts are made to access the content.

This is an entirely appropriate response in an emergency management situation, where real lives are at stake.

Be careful when blocking

[Anonymous Coward]

A high-school sysadmin I know found out that Facebook was eating up to 19% of his bandwidth, so he blocked FB along with some other (non-educational) services. The next days saw a spectacular rise in vandalism of all sorts; broken keyboards, mice disappearing, smeared screens, and even a sandwich in a CD tray. Still worse, there was a general bad tempered atmosphere in the school - both on behalf of students and teachers.
Interesting.

Re:Be careful when blocking

[MightyYar]

Yeah, that's called "shitting in your own bed", and teenagers are known for it. Then we sit at the board meeting and listen to sob stories about how they have to share computers.

No probably not

[Sycraft-fu]

Remember that this isn't done all sneaky like. We aren't finding out about this because some clever individual took it upon themselves to find out what was blocked and complied a list. We are finding out about this because the military told everyone. They sent out a notice to their soldiers saying "These sites are blocked so that there's more bandwidth available for things relating to the Japanese emergency." So the soldiers know why it is being done and know that they aren't just supposed to get around it. That will likely lead to people complying.

Please remember the military isn't full of a bunch of petulant geeks who see every kind of authority as a challenge. People like that are either retrained or weeded out in basic. The military is an environment of "When you are told to do something you do it because that's the way it is." So the powers that be say "No video sites to save bandwidth," and the soldiers say "Ok."

All the military's structure aside, they've provided a rather good reason for it.

Re:No probably not

[Ltap]

Regardless of your attack on "petulant geeks", you're right. Most institutions will deliberately keep secret what they block and, in many cases, why. Lack of information and confusion allows them to instill fear in students or employees. They hope that the fear will do more to keep them "in line" than a technical solution, and most managers/teachers/administrators are adept at orchestrating it.

This can't be 2010

[KnownIssues]

This can't be 2010, because in 2010 you would have the technology to throttle a set of sites that were less important to give important network traffic a guaranteed level of throughput--without having to block the sites completely.

Re:This can't be 2010

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not, it's 2011

Re:This can't be 2010

[Idarubicin]

This can't be 2010, because in 2010 you would have the technology to throttle a set of sites that were less important to give important network traffic a guaranteed level of throughput--without having to block the sites completely.

And that would be an entirely appropriate and worthwhile solution if one were an ISP dealing with too many torrents, instead of the military trying to save lives.

Implementing and testing a dynamic throttling system is - or should be - a very low priority when one is in the middle of major disaster recovery. (The loss of eBay or ESPN doesn't count as a 'major disaster'.) Just cutting off these domains is the simplest, most effective, least failure-prone way to free up bandwidth.

Re:This can't be 2010

[Anonymous Coward]

Implementing and testing a dynamic throttling system is - or should be - a very low priority when one is in the middle of major disaster recovery.

If both essential and recreational traffic is being sent over the same network, then I would hope that a throttling system is already in place, and thoroughly tested before it is needed. In which case, an emergency would necessitate exactly no manual intervention in network configuration, or at most, very minor tweaking of the throttling parameters.

We already block ...

[Skapare]

We already block one of those domains here where I work. Can you guess which one?

that's not all

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more than those 13 sites. I was at work today and didn't hear about this. Google.com didn't work, gmail didn't work, scroogle didn't work, facebook didn't work, etc. etc. I don't think I got a single commercial site to work today and was later told that all non-DOD sites were blocked. Not really a big deal if it's temporary though.

And I'm glad they provided a reason(even if I didn't get a nice email). Otherwise I might've assumed it was an overzealous/retarded admin and tried to work around it.

This proves it I guess... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ad networks are that bad huh?" - by TubeSteak (669689) on Wednesday March 16, @06:29AM (#35501640)

Yes, they are... & who pays for it? You do, as if you didn't pay enough in your monthly broadband bill!

Now - You guys (not you specifically, but rather others here on /.) often "rib on me" for using a HOSTS file... well, this IS why, & it appears the military sees things the way I do also in this case.

HOSTS files block out adbanners better & more comprehensively across any & all webbound apps than anything else out there, AND, they also speed you up in other ways above & beyond THAT too (hardcoding your fav sites into it).

APK

P.S.=> I pay for my linetime out of my OWN pocket, as I imagine most of you here do as well - so, I want ALL of what I pay for in bandwidth (not some, not 1/2: ALL), and that means cutting out adbanners I didn't want to see anyhow (and that infect folks too, with malscripted content, & plenty of THAT has gone on the past 1/2 decade++ or better now too)... apk

Re:This proves it I guess... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the military isn't using a hosts file, they're using either a proxy server or very expensive routing equipment. It's all well and good that you use a hosts file, but that really isn't in the slightest relevant to this story.

For military operations?

[jon3k]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how would access to the public Internet affect "military operations" (per the article)? Should I be scared that our military relies in anyway on the Internet to function? I understand maybe they backhaul Internet traffic across a private network, but if that's the case, why not just prioritize the important traffic? Then people can use the leftover bandwidth to do whatever they please.

Re:For military operations?

[Thundersnatch]

Uhhh.... ever hear of a VPN? Not all military networks are classified. Those that are are air-gapped from the Internet. If the military wasn't using public and commercial networks for unclassified operations, I as a taxpayer would be extremely pissed, as they'd be wasting a shit-ton of money. They already do that well enough (although one can argue they are still the only branch of government that actually accomplishes what it is funded for, regardless of the expense). No need for a gazillion OC-48s running everywhere to exchange unclassified data.

That's actually not that bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Not bad for a HS education.

There's also various bonuses they get.

Tax deductions.

Living expense allowance.

And how many days of paid leave?

I don't think they pay into FICO either.

So, is ...

[PPH]

... Wikileaks still up?

Re:So, is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Military networks already block wikileaks and seems to have a filter built in to block pages it suspects to contain content from it. Every time ars has an article related to it, that page alone is blocked. Politics aside, it's understandable that it's blocked since you *are* on a government system to begin with and they can control what goes on their network.

Re:So, is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably, but no one with a security clearance is allowed to go there. While it sounds stupid, and it is, it violates the 'I will not view classified information that I do not have a direct 'need to know' clause'.

Who does this affect?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is unclear as to who exactly this affects. I'm browsing from a .navy.mil, and I can still get to those sites.

Re:Wouldn't this actually INCREASE bandwidth usage

[Anubis IV]

I thought I'd check into your initial statement, since I COMPLETELY misread it initially, thought you said that 100 searches would cost more, and I wanted to prove you wrong. Reading comprehension ftl.

Anyway, I just did a test search for the word "video" on Google. The resulting page had about 349KB of data that needed to be downloaded for the first 10 results, including thumbnails for videos and whatnot. Of that, I estimate that only about 96KB would not be cached content, since the other 253KB is stuff like Javascript or logo images that would be cached after the first time you visited Google's search results. Over 100 searches, assuming it wasn't cached for the first search, it'd cost about 9.6MB of bandwidth.

I then loaded a 3:23 long clip from YouTube (this one, since it was a result on the search page), which, based statistics from various places that I found online, seems to be about the average length of a video for YouTube. The video I loaded was at 360p, and, by my estimation, was approximately 8.8MB in size (I had to do some guesswork for that estimation, so I may have undershot it by a bit). That said, there was around 750KB worth of data that would need to be loaded in addition to the video.

In the end, it's a bit of a wash, assuming that you can actually get a soldier to sit down and do 100 unsuccessful searches. Most people I know would give up after 5-10 searches though. And most people I know also like to view their videos at 480p or higher, rather than 360p. So, I'd say it's pretty obvious that searches cost less bandwidth.

Right on: Do you like "Jefferson Starship"?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a decent one (mvps' HOSTS file, I use its content alongside around a dozen other sources too, to make a consolidated & comprehensive one, moreso than mvps org's alone)...

"Not when you have this *awesome* HOSTS file." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16, @08:40AM (#35502434)

Damn straight, & in regards to it AND this article today?

Well - I'll let the great Grace Slick & The Jefferson Starship say it better than I EVER could, to the marketers/advertisers & yes, webmasters out there:

---

WINDS OF CHANGE - Jefferson Starship:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-CC4MOTDwg

PERTINENT QUOTE/LYRIC EXCERPT:

"You planned your life carefully, but you left out 1 detail: The hidden hand deals just 1 round, and the 'Winds of Change' prevail..."

---

There you are...

APK

Well what do you know

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet is a series of tubes and you can't just keep piling junk into them without it clogging up.

Ebay?

[Anonymous Coward]

L@@K!! 2002 M113 personnel carrier LIKE NEW!! Low miles, some small dings, drives like new, stored in dry climate. Buyer responsible for shipping.

Kind of scary.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty eye-opening to see so many slashdotters piling up to show everyone how compassionate they are.
This isn't about saving lives, or any of that high-handed crap. This is about the US Military not wanting a reporter to wander past a break room or whatever and notice soldiers dicking around on the internet. It's a PR move, that's all.
"But it's to save lives!" is no different than "think of the children".

Not news

[Anonymous Coward]

Not much to see here. This is an article about the US military doing something on their own network. I have no problem with that. Anyone is free to do what they want on their own network.

shaping

[Anonymous Coward]

how is shaping not preferred to filtering?

and am I to understand the whole of .mil uses port 80 to assist in crisis response? qos anyone?

Re:shaping

[atisss]

They haven't heard of it. At least top officials, so the order was "block".

What about the mobile version of sites?

[bluemonq]

I wonder if the mobile versions of websites, which are less bandwidth-intensive, still work?

Nukes work just as planned

[Anonymous Coward]

The nukes are working perfectly doing just what they were designed for. Why are they turning off the pron?

Better quality video, by far

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLrIUgwMnXI

I won't insult a great band by not putting out their BEST possible performance, & yes - it matters!

(E.G. -> I refuse to watch less than HD quality films for example (got spoiled by the best, so, I am sure others understand - it's the 21st century, after all)).

So there you are!

APK

P.S.=> Enjoy (great tune, & great band from the 60's into the mid 1990's of existence)... & MUCH better video this round, courtesy of YouTube... apk

The results ARE the same (you miss my point)

[Anonymous Coward]

"Except that the military isn't using a hosts file, they're using either a proxy server or very expensive routing equipment." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16, @08:49PM (#35510860)

Yes, I know. However, the results ARE the same & at no doubt, CONSIDERABLY less cost, on MY end (albeit ONLY for domain-host names via the HOSTS file... when IP addresses come into play, then it's "routers all the way").

---

"It's all well and good that you use a hosts file, but that really isn't in the slightest relevant to this story" - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16, @08:49PM (#35510860)

Well, once again, the RESULTS are the same on MY end though... faster online performance (with a security bonus) via HOSTS files, by "trimming bandwidth"...

APK

P.S.=> I don't think you saw my point here though & it's quite possible I didn't express myself well enough (very ill today):

The point is, folks are getting "wise" to how to do this themselves @ home, or on the job even, via easy to use FREE mechanisms like HOSTS files is all, and the "net result" (faster online speed + more layered security) is the same - no questions asked... & most folks I know? Want that... especially when it's FREE & hosts, are that... apk

Why not -?

[Geminii]

Why not block all ad servers, and simply use QoS on the other major bandwidth chewers? That way, if there's a lull in the Japan-related traffic, people can still access the other sites.

Re:Wouldn't this actually INCREASE bandwidth usage

[alta]

Wow, thanks for the math.

And add to that the issue of many videos embedded from youtube are spooled without being viewed.
And the people who are emailed "Hey check this funny video on youtube LINK" and when the link doesn't work, they don't give it a second thought.