[PavlovsCat]

It's not even like the soldiers aren't allowed to read it, say, in an internet cafe, right?

It might be a bit petty and bureaucratic, but hey, considering the Streisand effect I say go for it... it's bound to make a few people check it out that weren't interested before, and I doubt it will keep anyone from reading what they were interested in already.

[justinschuh]

It's not petty. Given the laws surrounding classification they're just trying to save themselves a giant mess of pointless work and a tremendous amount of money on reprovisioning systems.

[grey-area]

So according to these rules if any secret information passes onto a computer system it is somehow tainted? So all the evil terrorists now have to do to shut down the DoD is spam every military email address with secret documents or links thereto? How convenient.

If the rules truly preclude contact with any secret info (even if it has already leaked) without wiping the machines and the machines have internet access, they need to revise the rules as they are absurd. What they should be concerned about is stopping leaks of more information (quite possible), not controlling information that has already leaked (impossible).

The most absurd part of this whole catch 22 'can't look at or talk about past secrets' situation however is that the administration leaks classified information all the time in service of their own aims - for example the Osama Bin Laden raid and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Those leaks are considered good leaks, and the information leaked is just fine (in spite of not being officially declassified) sitting on government computers, in Hollywood propaganda films, and being disseminated widely and quoted unattributed by news anchors and in American media - those websites are not blocked, because those are somehow rightous leaks, but it makes a mockery of any pretension of secrecy hygiene on military computers, plenty of which access plenty of this classified information that the government chose to disseminate without declassifying.

Given the free use of sanctioned leaks, these rules are more about instilling a fear of the taint of suspicion in government employees, and consequently of whistleblowers, than about data security IMHO.

[vidarh]

The rules may seem absurd.

But consider this: You find documents marked "secret" on a laptop. What do you do? The documents happens to be possible to find online. Do you just shrug and move on? How do you know that this laptop was not used in the leak? What if you find thousands of different documents across your network. How do you verify whether or not they have leaked previously?

At the very least you end up spending more resources verifying that this was not caused by a security problem.

And the idea of spamming the military with classified documents would be hilarious to see in practice... I wonder what they'd do...

[PavlovsCat]

Saving themselves work, okay. Saving the taxpayer money. nah.. it's not like it's actually their money.

That material isn't just available at that URL, so the only way to be sure is to inspect traffic for the data. So what is this other than a pointless token gesture, or incompetence?

And there are other things other than that material at the Guardian. It's, like, a full blown newspaper. That's what makes it seem petty.

[justinschuh]

> Saving themselves work, okay. Saving the taxpayer money. nah.. it's not like it's actually their money.

Thanks for being upfront with your bigotry. So, I know that there's no point in wasting time on trying to have an honest discussion.

[PavlovsCat]

At least you're not latching onto some random thing to avoid addressing points raised or anything.