Comment by Morgan Matthew on March 19, 2009 at 5:03am

lol wow! just wow...

Comment by Nulono on March 19, 2009 at 6:57am

Even worse, a miscarriage is classed as "spontaneous abortion", so anyone looking to avoid a miscarriage will also be blocked. Thus, this ban is counterproductive.

Comment by Johnny on March 19, 2009 at 10:20am

During my time on active duty I found that some of the things blocked were rather random; but they fairly consistently blocked controversial topics.

Comment by KB on March 19, 2009 at 12:54pm

it did it to me and champ last month :(

Comment by MightyMateo on March 20, 2009 at 2:17am

That sucks man. I think it's pretty messed up to block something like that. Its a matter of preference, a stance or belief not porn or something.
I will have to try Pr0nz melissa, I wouldnt be surprised if that is filtered to. I was blocked from a site before and the category was "News" lol

Comment by Kirstin on March 20, 2009 at 4:43am

whaaaa is there any way to get around the blocks? Like browse the web threw outlook? I used to do that at work. It would also make me look like I was reading emails.

Comment by Johnny on March 23, 2009 at 1:17pm

Military has a pretty good proxy filter setup; someone with some know-how might be able to get through, but the average joe would not be able to. You can't bypass through Outlook, can't bypass with a different browser, or by using a proxy bounce (all of these I've used at other jobs, but don't work on Department of Defense networks).

DoD has four levels or routes of blocking this (or did when I was in a few years ago). First is live blocking at a local level (if they see spikes in activity to or from an address, and deem it inappropriate). Second is application filtering, based on files or engines that are accessed a website could be identified as a forum, blog, streaming video, etc (these are some of the examples they block sometimes). Third is a proxy filter that keys off words in the web address and blocks any address that contains those words (this is the one that can occasionally be circumvented with a proxy bounce).

The fourth, and broadest, is their filtering subscription; there are companies that maintain large databases of tons of websites, classifying each of them. Other companies (including the DoD or individual military branches) can then subscribe to the database from this maintaining company; then they decide which categories they want to block, monitor, or allow through. The obvious blocks are porn, hate sites, and gambling; but often auction and shopping sites will get blocked, and many video gaming sites as well. Forums, blogs, streaming video sites are the ones typically monitored, and added to the blocked list if they are deemed inappropriate.

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