Wednesday, October 18. 2006

Interior Bans Reading Blogs

A reader pointed me to an FCW article that explains Dept. of Interior policy on reading blogs. The article mentions wasted time and visits to innappropriate sites as part of the reason for a ban on some websites. It seems all blogs are banned, so I guess no USGS folks are reading this at work...

The article explains the ban this way:

Interior banned blogs mostly because of fears of information leaks and the inability to know who is writing a particular blog.

an appliance at the agency's gateway that splits sites into 123 content categories, and then bans sites based on those categories. Individual sites can be appealed, although [Interior’s chief information officer W. Hord] Tipton said he could think of only about 100 sites that have been removed from the ban.

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Hi Adena - First, DOI is much more than USGS - including FWS, NPS, and BLM among other heavy GIS users. Second, I am accessing this site from a DOI computer; the ban appears to block mostly URLs that are blog-specific, i.e. blogspot, typepad, etc. Blogs with "normal" URLs seem to get through. Lastly, there is a reason "only about 100 sites have been removed from the ban." It is because of typical gov't bureaucracy - here is the message we receive when trying to access a blocked site:

The World Wide Web is a dynamic and fast-changing place. If you believe the web page you are trying to reach is no longer classified correctly, you may notify the vendor responsible for classifying web sites for DOI by filling out the form located at: Submit A Site For Review. The vendor will review the information you provide and update system filters if appropriate. Please include the URL (e.g. http://website.com) you are attempting to reach.

If you believe this web site is categorized correctly and you have a legitimate business need to access it, please submit a request for exception to the Enterprise Security Officer, through your immediate supervisor to your Deputy CIO or higher authority.

So our choices are to submit the site to a vendor, which I did with arcpadteam.blogspot.com, to no effect. Or go up through the long chain of command to try to get a site unblocked, which is likely to have the same result.

#1 BJ Richardson (Link) on 2006-10-18 15:27 (Reply)

Thanks for the details. DOI is of course more than USGS; I just know more (and communicate more) with USGS folks than those from other agencies.

#2 Adena Schutzberg (Link) on 2006-10-18 19:34 (Reply)

Hi, Adena.

Thanks for supplying more information on this topic. I just updated my Nov. 2 posting to the Poynter Institute's E-Media Tidbits blog concerning this blog ban

See: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=113330

One thing I don't get is this: If DOI is paranoid about DOI staff leaking information on their own blogs or two other blogs, how does a ban on reading blogs accomplish that goal?

I guess I just don't understand the point of a blog ban policy. I understand some corporations try this as a shortsighted productivity measure, but that doesn't seem to be the case here as far as I know.

- Amy Gahran

#2.1 Amy Gahran (Link) on 2006-11-03 14:08 (Reply)

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