They could have come up with a lot of excuses, but ‘operational reasons’ kind of pisses us off. Fortunately, the thought police can’t block us at home.
Let us know if you’ve recently lost access to soldiersystems.net through government computer systems.
Don’t tell us if it works on your network, that will just let them know where else to cut it off. We just want to know which bases are at issue.
My access from a .gov domain still works.
I’m on with Army National Guard computer/network….go Guard!
F-r-e-e-d-o-m!!!
Pretty sure SSD said NOT to publish where you are able to access…..
um..ya. following instructions would be a novel concept.
Don’t feel bad SSD. One of the criteria used for blocking decisions is how many work hours people are spending on the site. That makes it pop up on their radar and get reviewed. The “operational reasons” are obvious, people are reading SSD and not doing their jobs. Consider it a compliment if you want.
I came here just to say that.
Seems a bit excessive… Like, “IF YOU READ SSD, THE TERRORISTS WIN” kind of thinking.
the other is the fact that they use TinyURL on their Facebook links never trust a tinyURL link
in that case, I hope DTMS gets blocked too…
HEAR HEAR!
Pleas, God, Please.
Posted from the center of the universe, USASOC NIPR server, time meow.
Jon, OPT
blogtrottr.com rss feed to your email inbox, ftw.
blogtrottr.com rss feed (comments) to email is ok, you loose threading and context, however you’ll see which comments warrant a visit to ssd itsself (after work hours).
That’s funny but I deal with a lot of tactical/weapon/gear web pages that are blocked becuase they appear as “pornography”.
Gear porn
A lot of COTS ‘security’ software packages throw guns and gear under the bus along with p0rn. Go figure…
Lol, “Operational reasons”. That is so BS!
Btw, if anyone one is willing to do this for me. To those who have SSD blocked on their government computer system. Try to go to SOFREP and see if it is blocked as well.
I can access both sites as of 1700 today
It is only blocked trough the SSD Facebook post because they use TinyURL format links I get on SSD on the DOD network all the time.
Government networks do not like redirect URLs. And, I agree with them.
you should rescind this post then
Ditto.
I would think it is being blocked because the site has YouTube links/videos. Anything with You Tube is blocked in my experience.
The USAF also blocks certain Wounded Warrior sites, including “militarywithptsd.org”. You know…cuz those sites hurt the mission. SO glad I’m retiring…
I have had Google or Yahoo or CNN and dozens of others just randomly get blocked for no reason. Generally if will get fixed in a week or two.
It’s working for me, thank God. If they took away this last small glimmer of hope, I might just lose it.
(Just kidding, NSA guy that’s reading this.)
Thank you. We were concerned for a moment. Type more quickly next time.
LMAO
Ha ha ha
A few years ago Wikipedia (the whole entire domain not just select articles) was blocked base wide on NIPR for about three days. I am 99% sure it was just my installation at the time, Cybercom ban pages were not a thing yet.
According to some buddies I had at the base commshop, it was a casualty to the constant whack-a-mole game they were playing against smut and NSFW content (among other things as well). Eventually enough people complained and it was turned back on.
My pal explained how it worked at the base level thusly: “In general, some dude will go and google something sketchy and get in trouble. The powers that be will then drop the block hammer and all kinds of sites get effected. Eventually this inconveniences an SES or flag officer. Then, the day after the SES/GO complains, the internet works again.”
My access from .mil is still good…
In 2011 amazon.com got blocked in GHZ or RC-E wide area, I dont remember…well, after we almost burned down the FOB they restored the access…
I remember when they shut down Amazon. No books no kindals. It was about to be ferguson before that ever happened. I mean the riots. Not the killing and racism. But def the use of us taking back the internet. Turned out the guy decided to block the website because someone bout porn and booze off of it. 1 guy ruined it for us all.
Probably because of all the ads
That must be it. God knows the US military hates capitalism.
Access thru the New Zealand Defence Force is good 🙂
USASOC FBNC is a no go for SSD
It’s down now?
Was blocked when I was in Kosovo (USAREUR Domain) last year.
Its not operational reasons. That’s just boilerplate for everything they use. The problem is SSD’s categorization. Check out that 2nd line where it says Category: Not Resolved. Typically when Websense or something like that is used they block based on category sometimes verified by BlueCoat. The super l33t Information Assurance guys are just selecting categories they want to block (like Sports, Porn, or None/Not Resolved)
Try these two steps:
Go to Websense Suggest a URL:https://www.websense.com/global/en/ProductsServices/MasterDatabase/URLChange.php
Note: You need to register as a user to report a category change for a URL.
Register as a user. Even though all the contact fields are required, you only need to give email address as correct information.
You’ll get an email with a temporary password. You’ll be taken to the Site Lookup Tool where you’ll enter the URL you wish to validate. Enter the URL you wish to have reviewed. (Don’t use “http://”) The next page is the results page for your query. As it states on the page, if you feel the classification shown is incorrect, then fill out the very brief form on that page with the categorization you think it should be (a dropdown). Don’t pick a category that they’ll block obviously.
For Comment and Site Description box, write human readable what the site is about. Guns and cool stuff obviously. Hint: Do not write guns and cool stuff. Submit the request.
Then wait.
Also do this for Blue Coat:
https://sitereview.bluecoat.com/sitereview.jsp
That one is super straightforward.
After a few days you should have a new categorization for SSD. If that doesn’t work it means they are totally out to get you.
Also:
They can certainly do manual categorization on their own policy for whatever they’re using to block access. However, normally they would manually add the URL to a blocked category (like Guns or whatever). The fact that is says None, Not Categorized or Not Resolved just means that they’re using a less permissive policy that blocks stuff that the provider hasn’t seen. Web content changes all the time and there is no freaking way our super elite IA dudes can keep up with it all. They contract out to a software provider that keep that database up to date and they push out the categorization to the customer. Again its certainly possible SSD is getting picked on, but probably not.
The UK MoD blocks Tactical Fanboy, I can still get my daily SSD fix though.
I don’t know if this pertains, but if I use my iPhone. The site says there was a problem with loading. And it reloads about sometimes around 5-6 times. I dunno if it is just me or others. I have and iPhone 6+
The SMA finally decided to make you pay for letting his OCP cat out of the bag!