First off, to clearly understand the situation there you have to know what the internet there is for. First and formost it is a non secure means of communication and access to programs that run for our administration and command personnel. Secondly it is a means for our Marines to contact their families by email and to do financial/educational buisness. Anything more that that is a bonus. I personally just got back from there and I just so happen to be one of the Sys/Net admins that maintained one of the larger networks out there. The basic idea behind most of the blocking is to provide the best service and the most bandwidth to the users on those networks. Bandwidth is meager at best and excess surfing just makes it harder for people at remote sites to communicate with the rear. There are blanket like policies set out for these things to protect access but if a user with a valid need for a specfic website to do finacial or educational buisness, it is passed to the admins that take care of that and through proper authorization are allowed to view that material. As far as I am concerned there is no freedom of access act any where that applies to a war zone. There are Marines out there that don't get to touch a computer for weeks months even. If when they do have a chance to settle down and send an email after waiting for the other Marines in his unit to get done he/she does not need to wory about some Tard going to his favorite WWW.Ihateevrythingthatisntfreespeach.com website and bringing down the network with a virus or somthing and not being able to tell his wife and kids that he loves them.
At no time did I ever find that a person with a valid need was ever told no. Believe me as an admin out there you have so much pressure to provide the best service you can with what you have got. You have alot of people coming in from the states expecting to get broadband like access out there like they get at home. I am just giving my personnel 2 cents worth here
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First off, to clearly understand the situation there you have to know what the internet there is for. First and formost it is a non secure means of communication and access to programs that run for our administration and command personnel. Secondly it is a means for our Marines to contact their families by email and to do financial/educational buisness. Anything more that that is a bonus. I personally just got back from there and I just so happen to be one of the Sys/Net admins that maintained one of the larger networks out there. The basic idea behind most of the blocking is to provide the best service and the most bandwidth to the users on those networks. Bandwidth is meager at best and excess surfing just makes it harder for people at remote sites to communicate with the rear. There are blanket like policies set out for these things to protect access but if a user with a valid need for a specfic website to do finacial or educational buisness, it is passed to the admins that take care of that and through proper authorization are allowed to view that material. As far as I am concerned there is no freedom of access act any where that applies to a war zone. There are Marines out there that don't get to touch a computer for weeks months even. If when they do have a chance to settle down and send an email after waiting for the other Marines in his unit to get done he/she does not need to wory about some Tard going to his favorite WWW.Ihateevrythingthatisntfreespeach.com website and bringing down the network with a virus or somthing and not being able to tell his wife and kids that he loves them. At no time did I ever find that a person with a valid need was ever told no. Believe me as an admin out there you have so much pressure to provide the best service you can with what you have got. You have alot of people coming in from the states expecting to get broadband like access out there like they get at home. I am just giving my personnel 2 cents worth here