thedrifter
10-30-06, 01:44 PM
Under Fire, Soldiers Kill Blogs
By Xeni Jardin
10:45 AM Oct, 29, 2006
Some of the web's more popular "milblogs" -- blogs maintained by present or former active duty military personnel -- are going quiet following a renewed push by U.S. military officials to scan sites for security risks.
Ten members of a Virginia National Guard unit have been tasked with reviewing both official and unofficial Army websites for potential operational security, or OPSEC, violations. Under the direction of the Army's Web Risk Assessment Cell (AWRAC), the reviewers look for text, photos or videos that may give away sensitive information.
"Loose lips sink ships. That's been around since World War I, and hasn't changed in years," said Lt. Col. Stephen Warnock, team leader and battalion commander of the Manassas-based unit that works with contractors from the tech company CA.
Milblogs offer one of the last direct witnesses to the Iraq war from the point of view of front line soldiers -- a sharp reversal from three years ago, when the U.S.-led invasion was among the most closely-watched military attacks in history. According to Editor and Publisher, the number of reporters embedded in military units has dropped from 770 at the height of the conflict to just nine today.
The recent U.S. pressure on milbloggers, reported by Wired contributing editor Noah Shachtman in his Defense Tech blog, highlights the security risks of blogging by active duty military personel -- including those in Iraq with access to e-mail and the internet.
But it also signals a growing culture clash between military traditions of censorship and the expectations of young soldiers weaned on open digital culture, according to current and former military personnel.
Some 1,200 active milblogs currently offer commentary on a range of military topics, including the daily experience of soldiers from basic training to the front lines, says retired paratrooper and Army officer Matthew Currier Burden, blogger at Blackfive and author of the milblog compendium The Blog of War.
"When Web 2.0 comes to the military and you see soldiers contributing to these user-based content sites, you're gonna have problems," Burden told Wired News.
Milblogs published by authors with "boots on the ground" received little attention from officials in the early days following the Iraq invasion in 2003, when the phenomenon of blogging was less known. But since then, Pentagon scrutiny has increased.
New rules for soldiers using government computers and networks required would-be milbloggers to check with commanders before publishing posts.
This August, the DoD issued a website alert that "effective immediately, no information may be placed on websites that are readily accessible to the public unless it has been reviewed for security concerns and approved in accordance with Deputy Secretary of Defense Memorandum web site policies and procedures."
The political tone of the milblogs seems to have little role in the new policies: For the most part, the milbloggers tend to be gung-ho patriots, rather than disillusioned doves.
On milblogs and other unofficial Army-affiliated sites, Warnock's team looks for material such as blog entries or snapshots that include details which may give away troop location, activities or defensive capabilities.
Responding to a perceived crackdown, authors behind some of the web's more popular military blogs have voluntarily shut down, or plan to curtail posts.
Problem spots on official military websites might include documents flagged "For Official Use Only," or personal data about soldiers and their families such as addresses, social security numbers, or phone numbers.
An Oct. 23 post on the popular milblog Tanker Brothers website read, "TankerBrothers is about to go away.... (my) little brother has already deployed to Iraq, and I'm literally on 'the countdown' to when I get on a plane to join him. There was nothing more that I wanted to do than to continue this site, and even 'kick it up a notch,' since I would once again be on the ground. With the new OPSEC paranoia, though, I don't think I would have the opportunity. The DoD is cracking down on MilBlogs, and I wouldn't be able to continue blogging and still be compliant with AR 25-1, the Army's Regulation governing Personal Websites."
Other milblogs followed suit, including Dave's Doldrums, an online diary from Air Force Lt. Col. David Younce.
Some milbloggers have protested that the administration's approach is too heavy-handed and gives soldiers cause to fear retribution from higher-ups.
Lt. Col. Warnock counters, "If they're getting that, they're not getting it from us."
"We monitor hundreds of thousands of web pages every month, and we monitor dozens to hundreds of blogs," says Warnock. "If we see something, we identify it, we review it and come to a decision as to whether it does violate operational security, and we will send a notification to the person if we can identify them as a soldier ... or to the people who maintain that network. We give screenshots, and specific violations that we've reviewed, and we say 'take a look at this, does this pass the commonsense test to you?'"
Blackfive's Burden says soldiers are receiving mixed messages: some receive approval from their immediate commanders, only later to be rebuked by more senior officials. Burden says his site and another milblog, Armor Geddon, were once featured in an internal Army PowerPoint presentation which described both as serious operational security risks.
"That kind of message from the administration of the Army sends a chilling signal to a young soldier who was told by his commander that it was okay to do what he was doing," Burden told Wired News.
He and fellow milbloggers gathered this year in April for a first ever MilBlog Conference in Washington, DC. They plan to reconvene in May, 2007. Debate over how to address authorities' OPSEC concerns without creating a "chilling effect" among bloggers was a heated topic at the 2006 gathering.
"My advice would be to bring together active duty, reserve and veteran bloggers to take a look at this issue in a way that would help the military," Burden says, "There's a lot of positive information coming from these 1,200 or so military blogs, and if it's not positive, it's giving people a better understanding of what it's like to be a soldier or the family of a soldier fighting this war."
Active duty milblogger John Noonan co-edits OPFFOR (military slang for "opposing force") and posts on such topics as "foreign policy, wargaming, grand strategy and hippy bashing."
Noonan is among those who believe the current flap is partly the result of a generation gap between younger, tech-savvy recruits for whom life online is second nature and older, more senior military officials who don't get the net and are accustomed to the military's long-established history of carefully monitoring release of information from the battlefield.
"They don't want to lose the traditional control they've had over information released from the battlefield to the American people," Noonan said. "It's counterintuitive for military guys who are used to total control over what information is released and what isn't, to all of a sudden having zero control."
By Xeni Jardin
10:45 AM Oct, 29, 2006
Some of the web's more popular "milblogs" -- blogs maintained by present or former active duty military personnel -- are going quiet following a renewed push by U.S. military officials to scan sites for security risks.
Ten members of a Virginia National Guard unit have been tasked with reviewing both official and unofficial Army websites for potential operational security, or OPSEC, violations. Under the direction of the Army's Web Risk Assessment Cell (AWRAC), the reviewers look for text, photos or videos that may give away sensitive information.
"Loose lips sink ships. That's been around since World War I, and hasn't changed in years," said Lt. Col. Stephen Warnock, team leader and battalion commander of the Manassas-based unit that works with contractors from the tech company CA.
Milblogs offer one of the last direct witnesses to the Iraq war from the point of view of front line soldiers -- a sharp reversal from three years ago, when the U.S.-led invasion was among the most closely-watched military attacks in history. According to Editor and Publisher, the number of reporters embedded in military units has dropped from 770 at the height of the conflict to just nine today.
The recent U.S. pressure on milbloggers, reported by Wired contributing editor Noah Shachtman in his Defense Tech blog, highlights the security risks of blogging by active duty military personel -- including those in Iraq with access to e-mail and the internet.
But it also signals a growing culture clash between military traditions of censorship and the expectations of young soldiers weaned on open digital culture, according to current and former military personnel.
Some 1,200 active milblogs currently offer commentary on a range of military topics, including the daily experience of soldiers from basic training to the front lines, says retired paratrooper and Army officer Matthew Currier Burden, blogger at Blackfive and author of the milblog compendium The Blog of War.
"When Web 2.0 comes to the military and you see soldiers contributing to these user-based content sites, you're gonna have problems," Burden told Wired News.
Milblogs published by authors with "boots on the ground" received little attention from officials in the early days following the Iraq invasion in 2003, when the phenomenon of blogging was less known. But since then, Pentagon scrutiny has increased.
New rules for soldiers using government computers and networks required would-be milbloggers to check with commanders before publishing posts.
This August, the DoD issued a website alert that "effective immediately, no information may be placed on websites that are readily accessible to the public unless it has been reviewed for security concerns and approved in accordance with Deputy Secretary of Defense Memorandum web site policies and procedures."
The political tone of the milblogs seems to have little role in the new policies: For the most part, the milbloggers tend to be gung-ho patriots, rather than disillusioned doves.
On milblogs and other unofficial Army-affiliated sites, Warnock's team looks for material such as blog entries or snapshots that include details which may give away troop location, activities or defensive capabilities.
Responding to a perceived crackdown, authors behind some of the web's more popular military blogs have voluntarily shut down, or plan to curtail posts.
Problem spots on official military websites might include documents flagged "For Official Use Only," or personal data about soldiers and their families such as addresses, social security numbers, or phone numbers.
An Oct. 23 post on the popular milblog Tanker Brothers website read, "TankerBrothers is about to go away.... (my) little brother has already deployed to Iraq, and I'm literally on 'the countdown' to when I get on a plane to join him. There was nothing more that I wanted to do than to continue this site, and even 'kick it up a notch,' since I would once again be on the ground. With the new OPSEC paranoia, though, I don't think I would have the opportunity. The DoD is cracking down on MilBlogs, and I wouldn't be able to continue blogging and still be compliant with AR 25-1, the Army's Regulation governing Personal Websites."
Other milblogs followed suit, including Dave's Doldrums, an online diary from Air Force Lt. Col. David Younce.
Some milbloggers have protested that the administration's approach is too heavy-handed and gives soldiers cause to fear retribution from higher-ups.
Lt. Col. Warnock counters, "If they're getting that, they're not getting it from us."
"We monitor hundreds of thousands of web pages every month, and we monitor dozens to hundreds of blogs," says Warnock. "If we see something, we identify it, we review it and come to a decision as to whether it does violate operational security, and we will send a notification to the person if we can identify them as a soldier ... or to the people who maintain that network. We give screenshots, and specific violations that we've reviewed, and we say 'take a look at this, does this pass the commonsense test to you?'"
Blackfive's Burden says soldiers are receiving mixed messages: some receive approval from their immediate commanders, only later to be rebuked by more senior officials. Burden says his site and another milblog, Armor Geddon, were once featured in an internal Army PowerPoint presentation which described both as serious operational security risks.
"That kind of message from the administration of the Army sends a chilling signal to a young soldier who was told by his commander that it was okay to do what he was doing," Burden told Wired News.
He and fellow milbloggers gathered this year in April for a first ever MilBlog Conference in Washington, DC. They plan to reconvene in May, 2007. Debate over how to address authorities' OPSEC concerns without creating a "chilling effect" among bloggers was a heated topic at the 2006 gathering.
"My advice would be to bring together active duty, reserve and veteran bloggers to take a look at this issue in a way that would help the military," Burden says, "There's a lot of positive information coming from these 1,200 or so military blogs, and if it's not positive, it's giving people a better understanding of what it's like to be a soldier or the family of a soldier fighting this war."
Active duty milblogger John Noonan co-edits OPFFOR (military slang for "opposing force") and posts on such topics as "foreign policy, wargaming, grand strategy and hippy bashing."
Noonan is among those who believe the current flap is partly the result of a generation gap between younger, tech-savvy recruits for whom life online is second nature and older, more senior military officials who don't get the net and are accustomed to the military's long-established history of carefully monitoring release of information from the battlefield.
"They don't want to lose the traditional control they've had over information released from the battlefield to the American people," Noonan said. "It's counterintuitive for military guys who are used to total control over what information is released and what isn't, to all of a sudden having zero control."