Here There and Everywhere

Army Audits: Official Sites, Not Blogs, Breach Security

This report came out in August of 2007, on WIRED so it is not new news.

What it IS, is something for those who are considering monitoring blogs in Kuwait, to think about.

It isn’t bloggers complaining about roads, or complaining about a do-nothing-but-hold-a-grill-party Parliament, or about laws not being enforced. If bloggers are blogging and comlaining, people are grumbling. Bloggers might be considered a weather-vane, but bloggers are not creating the weather, if you catch my drift.

The US Army was blaming bloggers – until a study showed that it was their own OFFICIAL websites that gave away important information.

I used to ask AdventureMan about things and he would snap “Where did you hear that? It’s classified!” and I would tell him I read it in the New York Times – or in the Stars and Stripes.

We bloggers aren’t your problem. We bloggers are mostly geeks and nerds who love our computers, love thinking about things, and we are not out there rabble raising . . . we are sharing ideas. We don’t all agree. We are not your problem.

For years, members of the military brass have been warning that soldiers’ blogs could pose a security threat by leaking sensitive wartime information. But a series of online audits, conducted by the Army, suggests that official Defense Department websites post far more potentially-harmful than blogs do.

“It’s clear that official Army websites are the real security problem, not blogs,” said EFF staff attorney Marcia Hofmann. “Bloggers, on the whole, have been very careful and conscientious. It’s a pretty major disparity.” The findings stand in stark contrast to Army statements about the risks that blogs pose.

April 27, 2008 - Posted by intlxpatr | Blogging, Bureaucracy, Community, Counter-terrorism, Crime, Cross Cultural, Cultural, ExPat Life, Kuwait, Living Conditions, Political Issues, Privacy, Social Issues, Statistics | national security, security issues