The Army is blocking me! [Updated]

One reason why blogging is a bit light lately is that I now cannot access my website from my miliary computer at work (yes, I often check my blog at work - explained below). In fact, I can't even get into the blogger system at all. And it's not only mine, but any website that end in "blogspot.com", or "wordpress.com", which are two of the most popular blogging hosts. Here is the message that comes up:

Access Denied (content_filter_denied)

Your request was denied by BlueCoat Web filtering policy because of its content categorization: Social Networking and Personal Sites;Society and Lifestyles

If you believe this page should not be blocked, please submit a trouble ticket via 119 Online

This has gone on for three days now, so I know it's not just a temporary glitch. The problem is that blogs are usually not "social networking" sites. This particular ban previously applied only to social networks like MySpace and Facebook. I notified "119" and didn't get an answer yet. It's unlikely I will hear anything until at least Monday.

I don't know if this particular block is here in Germany only, or is now worldwide. In any case, it doesn't make any sense. If soldiers can get into political sites, ESPN, or view the latest Dilbert comic, then at least they should be able to read military blogs!

So how can I check out my web site from work? Is that ethical? Well, to clarify, I don't write to my blog when I'm actually working. But in and out at odd times, and often in the office before work hours, during lunch, or late at night waiting for a delivery or a contractor I need to meet. And of course, when I'm deployed, the military Internet is sometimes the only kind I can access.

It is absolutely verboten to use military computers for personal profit or running a business, so that is one reason why I don't run advertisements on my blog. The income I would get could be considered a business and would mean I would be restricted to using my personal computer at home only. But as long as I blog for free, there's not much of a problem.

Porn, gaming, gambling, Internet auctions, dating and hate sites are always blocked, which is understandable. Internet radio, and video sites like YouTube are blocked because they are bandwidth hogs. Theoretically, soldiers should only be using the Internet for research, news, education, and to access official DOD sites for email, regulations, documents, and recent directives. I have found sites like Mapquest, GoogleEarth, acronymfinder to be incredibly useful in my job. In reality, however, soldiers use the net for far more than official business, as I suspect anyone in any industry does. One advantage to being able to read in a foreign language is that if I want to, I can usually get on German sites from all these forbidden categories. Many non-English sites have not been added to the blacklists - yet.

In any case, if your weblog is being blocked, let me know, or if you just want me to check it out on the military network to see if I can access it, go ahead and send me a request. I'll update this as I find out more.

UPDATE 05/12/2007 06:12:00 PM:

One of the service techs at "119 Online" wrote me an email asking me to provide my office number, IP address, and some other info and he would unblock the sites for me. I wrote him back telling him that would be fine except that these sites shouldn't be blocked for anybody. If I can get Daily Kos, Democratic Underground and Maxim.com at work, then I darn well think I should be able to read soldier blogs!

The sites are still blocked. I will update this if anything changes.





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