The Web is a “twitter” with new announcements concerning the U.S. military and social media access. From the news that the Marine Corps is shutting down access to social networking sites, to talk of a debate between the Department of Defense and U.S. Strategic Command concerning blocking all access, one could gather that the days of even being able to read Army Live from your government computer could soon be at a close. I prefer to remain optimistic, and also believe that the Department of Defense does look into issues like this with more temperance than one might surmise from much of the coverage.
The U.S. Army has been pressing forward with opening up access but it hasn’t been done without thought toward the security risks that do arise with any collaborative platform. The popularity of social networking sites and sheer volume of information posted and traded can send shudders down the spines of any Signal Company Soldier or network security expert. But many of those security experts realize that a collaborative Web is the new reality. Soon you’ll be hard pressed to find any site on the World Wide Web that isn’t implementing Web 2.0 tools and technology.
As a public affairs operator living in the Web 2.0 world, I’d love to see access to all social networking sites, on every government computer out there. But, I’m a realist, rather than an optimist, and understand that we live a careful balance between wanting our Soldiers to tell their story (read that again – yes, we want our Soldiers to tell their story) and between needing to keep Operations Security (and therefore, our network’s security) paramount. I think we can balance both. Yes, Admiral Mullen, you can still Twitter. There is simply a chance that if some people get their way, you won’t be able to do it from your government computer. But it boils down to network security, not fear that Soldiers aren’t responsible enough to manage themselves in a public forum, or a method of punishing the heroes who are fighting for our freedom.
Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have already been battling the issue of access to their work computers for years. When we talk about the U.S. Army opening up access, it doesn’t mean that every computer in Kabul can now scan the web for Flickr photos – it applies mostly to installations in the United States. Our Soldiers have been working around the access issues – and will continue to do so – regardless of whether or not we don’t have access at our work computers. So, again, I want open access. But, I also want a lively debate that takes into consideration the security concerns but balances them with the need to do our jobs to tell the Army’s story in every platform and via every tool available.
I’m glad the media and many of my favorite bloggers are weighing in on the issue of social media access and the military. Let’s keep the debate going, and continue to push forward to do the best thing for our men and women in uniform. Which, I hope we can agree, is the central concern for folks on every side.
What do you think about the issue of social networking access and the military? Let us know in the comments section.
-Lindy Kyzer, Office of the Chief of Public Affairs, Online and Social Media Division
Social networking sites do not circumvent the security already present on DOD machines. The Army can either stay relevant or succumb to a moronic policy propagated by people who don’t even know how to set up their own email accounts.
Great post!
I’m dreaming every day of open access. I’ve only been enlisted for 4 years, so what I’m trying to figure out is what was the environment like when the “Internet” first started to grow, and when the thing called “E-Mail” made an appearance. What was the adoption rate on that? What was the push back? I’m asking some of the old hands arond here? Anybody want to weigh in? Did people freak out about opening the military to the terrors of digital messeging? On network security: It’s all about education. We keep hearing about malware but the fact is I just got another email from a wealthy man in Africa that want’s to wire me a Billion dollars. How do I know it’s fake? I learned. Here’s a random thought. Rather than blocking out useful social tools, let’s innovate solutions to make them safer. We’ve got brilliant minds in the military. How great would it be if one of them came up with a tool to make facebook a little safer from trojans/phishing/scams etc. The civilian world adopts it, the military is hailed… that’s a nice dream.
Hey guys, gals, nerds, geeks, dorks, poindexters! Max here.
Noah Schactman at Wired Danger Room & some of the mil bloggers community in twitter today sent me over this article. Some stuff is heavily needed to be blocked from enemy combatants. Other stuff can be discessed. As a former public affairs officer from the US Army myself I say yuk. Most of my contacts are former us mil or are serving now US Mil or US Gov in one way or another. Nuetering my contacts lists will only stop your own fusion capacity. All I have to do is delete my twitter chat logs after I am done discussing sensative issues. That has been working for me on what I deem might be a threat on real hot tips that trickle in from informants on twitter.
I have been in twitter today, since we are in that subject and have cleaned up my follower lists to get off a few miscreants so the heavy hitters in my twitter feed can chat about issues. I got a tip on Mosul car bombers from twitter about the lions of islam. The person of interest who gave me the tip does not know I have cracked several of their al queda based sites. Here is a newer one. Rip em a new a-hole!
http://dinahlord.blogspot.com/2007/01/calling-all-lions-of-islam.html
Best,
Max Anderson
max1mos111@yahoo.com
By banning the use of social networking, the military is simply pushing the problem underground and making it harder to detect when breaches do occur. They are now trying to prevent a black swan rather than build robustness around the issue if it occurs, and in exchange for driving the event into the black market (soldiers committing an OPSEC violation elsewhere, say, Panera instead of at work), the military is missing out on all of the positives of a strong, organized, unified, and targeted presence in the social media realm. Let’s say that an OPSEC violation does occur in a social media outlet without this ban. Will the military then try to rationalize the leak by saying that a ban would have prevented it, not taking into account whether the leaker would have posted the information regardless of the location, or will it work to create systems which either contain or prevent the leak in the first place? We trust our soldiers in the field to make the right decisions (pull trigger or not, say tactful things to reporters or not, etc.), but we don’t trust them on social media? Short of isolation and quarantine, leaks will occur, and chances are, even with a ban, they’ll occur on social media as well.
By the way, I found this article through your @USArmy Twitter feed.
I’m relatively new to social media, but I’m already finding it useful. Currently, I’m a contract journalism and public affairs instructor for the Department of Defense. I use my Twitter account frequently to communicate with my active-duty students about class assignments, interesting articles and other such educational information.
I also use social media to learn more about my craft and to network with other people who have similar interests. For example, yesterday my students graduated. I needed to find a guest speaker for our graduation ceremony. I reached out to one of my followers on Twitter. I never met him before in person, but he was gracious enough to travel from D.C. to Fort Meade in Maryland to talk with our students. Now a group of us from the school will reciprocate the visit. He works as a public affairs officer at the medical museum at Walter Reed. There we hope to learn more about the museum and establish potential photo shoots for our students. Well, you get the picture.
The bottom line: I’m able to perform my job more efficiently through the use of social media. Also, I feel more engaged with the DOD community. Could I live without being able to use social media tools at my DOD computer station? Yes, but I sure hope I don’t have to. By the way, I learned about this discussion through my Twitter account.
Service members and their families will participate in social media whether Uncle Sugar likes it or not. I believe education is key. Soldiers and families must learn about and practice good OPSEC. They must learn how and why to be smart about network safety. If the Army is as smart as I know they are, they’ll stay engaged in the Web 2.0 world and help make the best soldiers in the world the most social media saavy in the world too.
I interviewed LTC Kevin Arata for my blog and Internet Marketing TV about social media several weeks ago. I believe the people leading social media efforts for the Army have a great plan in place for using this growing platform to listen to stakeholders, engage in the conversations that are happening, and retain the military’s positive presence online.
We have the same problems and concerns in industry with regard to social networking. Our general guidance is you can, but don’t speak for the company. That also means essentially avoiding any updates about the business, products, projects. I think the USMC is probably making the right move here, and Web 2.0 should be assigned to the Public Affairs Officer. All other use should be purely non-official, in my opinion. Security must remain the priority, and when in doubt, it is better to error on the side of being more secure.
What’s with those big headphones? Are they the ruggedized military issue?
To Robert … looking at the Soldier’s keyboard I’m willing to bet that she’s using a video editing suite, probably an Avid. Since she’s probably editing, that would explain the headphones because hearing the audio is pretty important. Most likely an Army print journalist staged the shot and had the Soldier bring up Twitter and took the photo. Happens all the time … DINFOS trained killers get the job done, Hooah!
Well written and well put, Lindy. There’s no turning back from this beast. I personally believe we should embrace it and use it to our advantage. As with any military operation we undertake, we must weigh the risks against the potential gains to determine the course. I look forward to following the debate if not participating in it myself.
MARDAMIN 0458/09 does not limit Marines’ access to social networking sites. Even before this message, sites such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter could not be accessed by Marines using the Marine Corps Enterprise Network in accordance with Marine Corps and Department of the Navy policies.
There are numerous commands who currently access social media through other internet service providers. This message benefits those commands by establishing a formal waiver process for access to social networking sites via the Marine Corps’ network.
Marines are encouraged to tell their stories on social networking sites, using personal accounts, remembering the importance of operational security and that they are Marines at all times.
A list of Marine Corps organizations that utilize social media can be found at http://www.marines.mil/usmc/Pages/SocialMedia.aspx.
While OPSEC concerns are one thing to consider, the real danger comes from sites like Facebook that allow people to enable “apps” that can be written/posted by anyone. You may think you are using some harmless app that tells you “Which Sex and the City character are you most like?”, and really it is installing keylogger software onto your computer. If you want to do that on your home computer, by all means get hacked by the Chinese, but you shouldn’t be doing it on a government computer system. Now that I’ve wasted ten minutes at work “telling the Army’s story” let me get back to doing my real job…
The military should allow Facebook because our company could not stay in touch as much with our families in country and back in the states until we became online with Facebook. I’m the FRG Leader at 595th MaintCo and we have families all over South Korea and the BN in Daegu so it was really hard to commuicate and relate things to our families. The VFRG is too military for some people. Where as if you are on Facebook its more down to earth. Facebook also allows you to commuicate to people all over the world without worrying about the time zone thing. You can upload pictures and etc. As an FRG Leader I would suggest the military to keep Facebook. It’s a great tool for the military to use its a benifit for the leadership to see how their families and soldiers react to the things going on. If I want to contact my families I email them and use the Facebook. The new generation is more into computers and technology then in the past. If you want to continue commuicating with the younger generation then you’d better stay online with Facebook. It’s the place to be now!
Sincerely,
595th MaintCo
FRG Leader
Ingrid Smith
@CyberDefender
Cyberdefense brings up an excellent point. But clearly the way to mitigate this is through imaging DOD systems to allow access to pages but controlling which web-based apps can run and which cannot. Probably a tough job deciphering the good from the bad and then controlling access, but it seems we already have means in place given our ability to block content, etc.
As an organization, we absolutely need to embrace this capability, but I agree that we have to proceed cautiously, working the security approach to block intrusion and malware and the education approach that builds an appropriate level of wariness within our Soldiers as they navigate through the Web 2.0 world.
Great commentary, Lyndy. Bottom line really is in what ADM Mullen wrote earlier this week: “Obviously we need to find the right balance between security and transparency. We are working on that.” I have been very disappointed in how many folks took the Marine Corps action to mean they are muzzling Marines from engaging SM. They remain allowed to access SM from their own computers or from recreational computers the military, USO, contractors, and so many other sources make available.
This point does, however, also illustrate where the ultimate solution is, and that is in making SM available via commercial means. We must stop fretting over whether SM should be accessible through military networks. It should not. (The exception allowed to some DOD agencies like PAOs is as ill-advised as it ever was.) On the Army side, OCPA and APAC simply must focus their energies on developing doctrine, policy and resourcing to allow for commercial ISP access in the duty workplace.
One final point: without exception, there is never any audience more important for our work than our internal audiences – PARTICULARLY since we encourage them to engage SM to tell the story of their part of the Army. To me that goes to the importance of settling the access issue as soon as possible.
@Jason Hull
Jason, the Marine Corps did NOT ban Marines from, “using social networking on the job.” What the Corps did was ban “the use of Marine network for accessing such sites as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.” (See also the USMC order itself at http://www.marines.mil/news/messages/Pages/MARADMIN0458-09.aspx) It is a key point that SM is still available to our Marines and other servicemembers – on duty time, even in the forward-deployed areas – via non-military networks.
The armed forces should not be denied any access to the web. For lack of deciding what does and does not work at this current day doesn’t do much for the social moral.
I support every effort to make sure our armed forces have the access to every social network that our civilians here in the US have.
Stay Positive
shekeyultd.com
Home of positive tees
What I want to know is where is the dissent in the military leadership (that briefly showed it’s face during the Cheney / Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz / Rove / Bush AdmOnistration )… Where are the Military leaders who know the truth… that the US is wasting time , money , and countless lives trying to acomplish ANYTHING in Afghanistan,,, and anything more in Iraq !
If we stay any longer we will totally destroy both our ( already soiled ) reputation as well as our national security, by showing our enemies that we can be defeated.
Time to get out,,, and not in a slow way…
Great post Lindy. I’m coming to you from a DOD agency that has blocked Facebook, My Space and Twitter and we are missing out on a tremendous opportunity to reach our own employees and all of our customers–the US military. I hope posts like this and the on-going dialogue on SM continues and leads either open access for a compromise that allows us all to talk with one another.
Shoot, check out Jason Butler and his posts on the facebook group, Stop Barrak Obama. He’s a 2LT and his conduct is very unbecoming.
I can see why the Army wants to do this after reading some of his threads over the past few months.
I agree with the Marine’s policy of blocking SNS site for two reasons
1. social networking sites can be use as a gateway for hackers into DOD network. reduce U.S. Army service members’ readiness.
2.service members could accidentally breach OPSEC regulation.
@Moni
disturbed rocks:D