Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dennis M. Dutton on January 19, 2011 at 8:34pm

Truth to tell. There are many types of social networking base programs that are still blocked by Blue Coat. If you try to pull up revelry it will likely be blocked. Beleive it or not, some of the religious social networking sites use similar programs and will also be blocked. ThinkAtheist will likely not come up either. I have dealt with it before but ultimately...why are you socializing on a NIPR drop anyway?

Permalink Reply by Scott on January 19, 2011 at 9:38pm

I'm stationed at a remote location and the only connection we have is NIPR. If I was able to have commercial access I would. Since there are no prohibitions against using it in this way I don't see the issue. If I could get them to allow XLM I would spend my time doing course work instead. But that isn't the case. Anyway it worked until recently when they switched from Smart Filter to Blue Coat.

Permalink Reply by Jason Torpy on January 21, 2011 at 12:35pm

There are probably others in that religion category.  Before you get too far though, I would want to ask about their filters.  If they filter social networking sites like myspace.com or facebook.com, then I wouldn't bother trying to get AN unblocked.

It might be more relevant to see if they block atheists.org, maaf.info, americanhumanist.org and other sites.

The first thing is that A|N is not political/activist.  It should be listed under social networking and maybe religion.  The question is whether those categories of sites are blocked.  It's also good to point out other sites that may be allowed.  Here are a few that should be political/activist:

wallbuilders.org

nationaldayofprayer.org

aclj.org

If aclj is unblocked and aclu is blocked, then we follow up.  Or if Holy See is unblocked and americanhumanist.org is blocked, then that's a different story.

Permalink Reply by Scott on January 21, 2011 at 5:28pm

wallbuilders.org  is listed as Religion

atheists.org  is listed as Alternative Spirituality/Belief

maaf.info  is listed as Military

americanhumanist.org  is listed as Charitable Organizations

nationaldayofprayer.org  is listed as Religion

aclj.org   is listed as Government/Legal

 

aclu.org  is listed as Political/Activist Group

It also says this "This Web page matches a list of high-profile URLs which are rated correctly and will not be rated differently, thus it cannot be submitted via this page."

 

http://www.vatican.va/  is listed as Religion

facebook, myspace are listed as social networking

It also says this "This Web page matches a list of high-profile URLs which are rated correctly and will not be rated differently, thus it cannot be submitted via this page."

 

The blocking is based on the Blue Coat definition of the site. I would like to point out that anything defined as Political/Activist Group is blocked. None of the major social networking sites are blocked.

I agree with Dennis that the G-6 is not consistent in their blocking habits. I have also had a hard time getting to some .mil sites. I remember a time last year when the firewall was blocking AKO. This was not the Blue Coat system but the Smartfilter. Anyway I know that A|N is listed incorrectly on Blue Coat but have no way of getting them to change it.

Permalink Reply by Dennis M. Dutton on January 21, 2011 at 3:28pm

I'm telling you that Army G-6 and the Blue Coat filter is very erratic. I have been blocked from .mil and .gov sites and then it's hit and miss with the .org sites. It's another dysfunctional, nonsensical piece of military crap.