I haven't been able to verify this through any of the official military news sources.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/11/army-bans-usb-d.html
"...The Defense Department's geeks are spooked by a rapidly spreading worm crawling across their networks. So they've suspended the use of so-called thumb drives, CDs, flash media cards, and all other removable data storage devices from their nets, to try to keep the worm from multiplying any further.
The ban comes from the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, according to an internal Army e-mail. It applies to both the secret SIPR and unclassified NIPR nets. The suspension, which includes everything from external hard drives to "floppy disks," is supposed to take effect "immediately." Similar notices went out to the other military services..."
Lockheed where I work just banned all but approved ENCRYPTED portable media.
We've been issued 'blackbox' data travelers from Kingston
There are other lockdowns as well. Defense and industry is heavily being attacked and probed
Just coming back form the Army Expeditionary Warfare Experiment at Fort Benning (sitting at KATL right now) and we were told that it only applied to thumb drives.
The interesting part is that all of the Army Battle Command Systems (ABCS) back up to removable media and we were all moving (at Army direction) to thumb drives.
Another day, another directive ...
When I was at CENTCOM HQ-All recordable media was banned. I know one sergeant who was supposed to get commissioned at the end of his tour. Instead got caught with the device which resulted in an Art 15, Loss of pay, reduction from E-6 to E-5, loss of a Top Secret Cleanance, and the commission. After all was done he still couldn't understand why!!
Quote from: Cecil DP on November 23, 2008, 01:25:45 AM
When I was at CENTCOM HQ-All recordable media was banned. I know one sergeant who was supposed to get commissioned at the end of his tour. Instead got caught with the device which resulted in an Art 15, Loss of pay, reduction from E-6 to E-5, loss of a Top Secret Cleanance, and the commission. After all was done he still couldn't understand why!!
And he probably won't understand when the Commander denies his reenlistment too!
Quote from: Cecil DP on November 23, 2008, 01:25:45 AM
When I was at CENTCOM HQ-All recordable media was banned. I know one sergeant who was supposed to get commissioned at the end of his tour. Instead got caught with the device which resulted in an Art 15, Loss of pay, reduction from E-6 to E-5, loss of a Top Secret Cleanance, and the commission. After all was done he still couldn't understand why!!
I see the Air Force is still a "one" mistake and "you're gone" service. It would appear that nothing has changed.
Deliberately and blatantly disobeying an order or ignoring a published policy is not a mistake.
This is amazingly bad for Edwards, Eglin, AFRL, and any other place doing research, engineering, or flight test work. Most likely a complete disaster across the board, but it hits the R&DE side of the house harder.
Quote from: CAPOfficer on November 23, 2008, 04:40:54 AM
Quote from: Cecil DP on November 23, 2008, 01:25:45 AM
When I was at CENTCOM HQ-All recordable media was banned. I know one sergeant who was supposed to get commissioned at the end of his tour. Instead got caught with the device which resulted in an Art 15, Loss of pay, reduction from E-6 to E-5, loss of a Top Secret Cleanance, and the commission. After all was done he still couldn't understand why!!
I see the Air Force is still a "one" mistake and "you're gone" service. It would appear that nothing has changed.
Why should it change?
^^^ Once a SAC trained killer, always a .... ;D If you only get to use them once, you better do it right and it had better work.
Quote from: CAPOfficer on November 23, 2008, 04:40:54 AM
Quote from: Cecil DP on November 23, 2008, 01:25:45 AM
When I was at CENTCOM HQ-All recordable media was banned. I know one sergeant who was supposed to get commissioned at the end of his tour. Instead got caught with the device which resulted in an Art 15, Loss of pay, reduction from E-6 to E-5, loss of a Top Secret Cleanance, and the commission. After all was done he still couldn't understand why!!
I see the Air Force is still a "one" mistake and "you're gone" service. It would appear that nothing has changed.
Actually he was in the Army, and the Art 15 and review was carried out by the Army element of Centcom.
Here in the USCG we have banned the use of all removable media as well, I think this went Department of Homeland Security as well.
The problem, according to an Army e-mail announcement, was prompted by a "virus called Agent.btz." That's a variation of the "SillyFDC" worm, which spreads by copying itself to thumb drives and the like. When that drive or disk is plugged into a second computer, the worm replicates itself again — this time on the PC. "From there, it automatically downloads code from another location. And that code could be pretty much anything," says Ryan Olson, director of rapid response for the iDefense computer security firm. SillyFDC has been around, in various forms, since July 2005. Worms that use a similar method of infection go back even further — to the early '90s. "But at that time they relied on infecting floppy disks rather than USB drives," Olson adds. In response, all military IT departments reached in and turned off USB ports so users no longer have access to scans on external harddrives. They also made scanners non-functional at the same time, as they plug into USB ports. So this is a problem that dates back 2 decades and was apparently addressed by anti-viruses, but this is the current response. Some think there's a second underlying reason (Chinese hackers) and this virus is just the current cover story. However, USB ports and the Internet are the way computers work now - as much as the military would like to, they're not going to be able to singlehandedly reset technology to 1995 nor return the Internet to a DARPAnet. A soldier who commented on an online article about this said he's now working with an Etch-a-Sketch, an abacus, and a LiteBrite. So, having computers on the military's network is now too much trouble and everyone is trying to figure out how to have them all stand alone. People may just go back to telephoning.
Quote from: Cecil DP on November 23, 2008, 01:25:45 AM
When I was at CENTCOM HQ-All recordable media was banned. I know one sergeant who was supposed to get commissioned at the end of his tour. Instead got caught with the device which resulted in an Art 15, Loss of pay, reduction from E-6 to E-5, loss of a Top Secret Cleanance, and the commission. After all was done he still couldn't understand why!!
There has to be more in there. Mistakes like that usually don't result in Article 15's.
Quote from: Short Field on November 23, 2008, 05:01:54 AM
Deliberately and blatantly disobeying an order or ignoring a published policy is not a mistake.
In my experience, it's not the mistake itself, but rather the final straw. If he was told a bajillion times with repeated written reprimands, yeah. You'll eventually get to the ARTY - especially if he's working in a classified area. That's a no no.
Of course, the occasional "[farg] you" to a supervisor at the end of the counseling session is a good fast-track factor....
Anybody heard how long this ban is going to last -- this time? It's a serious pain in the butt!!!!!!!!
Our computers suck, and our internet sucks worse. Everyone just uses personal laptops with aircards for 90% of our work, but we have to jump stuff over for some things. Not being able to do that is really cramping the style. I'm going to end up with packing a personal scanner/printer along with me to, and at that point I might as well work from home.
Quote from: DNall on December 03, 2008, 10:46:34 PM
Anybody heard how long this ban is going to last -- this time? It's a serious pain in the butt!!!!!!!!
Our computers suck, and our internet sucks worse. Everyone just uses personal laptops with aircards for 90% of our work, but we have to jump stuff over for some things. Not being able to do that is really cramping the style. I'm going to end up with packing a personal scanner/printer along with me to, and at that point I might as well work from home.
Sorry, MIKE. Didn't know what our NC-17 term was. :(
DNall,
You can still use CD-RW media, unless your NOC has banned that specifically. Its a lot slower, but still within the rules and allows me to do work.
We're still under the removable media ban until further notice. I predict the NCC's are awaiting completion of purge procedures.
It's not banned, but it isn't practical for what I need to do either. I really need flash drives back. We're critically dependent on those things. If they put this kind of restriction on us in combat, someone would almost certainly get killed because of it.
Quote from: DNall on December 04, 2008, 11:59:10 AM
It's not banned, but it isn't practical for what I need to do either. I really need flash drives back. We're critically dependent on those things. If they put this kind of restriction on us in combat, someone would almost certainly get killed because of it.
While not deployed currently, I hear ya. We live and breath PCMCIA mission data cards - but those are built with special machines to which there is porbably an approved work around. They're not worried about JMPS, but rather Airman Joe bringing in flash cards with MP3's and torrent downloads.
From AF Magazine.com:
Russian-inspired Cyber Attack?: Top Pentagon officials last week briefed President Bush on a recent cyber attack that seemed to target US Central Command networks and may have originated within Russia, reports the Los Angeles Times. There are frequent electronic attacks on US military computer systems, but an anonymous defense official told the newspaper, "This one was significant; this one got our attention." Adm. Michael Mullen, Joint Chiefs Chairman, briefed both Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the attack, which US military experts are still investigating but, as is usual with most cyber attacks, will have trouble determining whether it was the product of a lone hacker or involved the Russian government directly. The attack reportedly prompted DOD to issue a ban on flash drives, which are heavily used throughout the US military but which can spread the malicious software.