<p>So I got this panic driven phone call about syncing an ipod at the Academy. Seems the CS guys are afraid of portable media. I figure by Tuesday the Cadet Wing will be very upset if this holds.</p>
<p>Yeah, we got an e-mail telling us to immediately remove anything like that from our computers with "furthur guidance" to follow</p>
<p>Possibly the reason we will see.
Cybersleuths</a> Swap Secrets - PC World</p>
<p>ds-
that article is almost 4 years old, I don't think it would take that long for that to work its way to usafa, do you?</p>
<p>Also, I thought they split the usafa network off the military network for exactly this kind of reason.</p>
<p>The thing that is strange though. USAFA issues they a USB Thumb drive when they first come to the academy. They use this thumb drive a lot. Plugging in an ipod to a computer is really not much different then plugging in a thumb drive, or any other device with a memory card. Camera's for example.</p>
<p>Should be interesting to see how this resolves</p>
<p>What year can you have iPods?</p>
<p>Actually the way things work on a global scale it could take that long for them to develop and implement a policy like this. The Command that deals with issues like this has only been around a few years. We will see soon though.</p>
<p>In my previous job as Director of Operations for a large off campus student housing provider, we wrestled with these problems every day. Only we had a more difficult job than USAFA because we were selling our network as a perk to the residents, therefore, we could hardly dictate what they put on it. They wanted to be able to have unlimited bandwidth, be able to play video games over the WAN and the LAN and set up peer to peer servers in their rooms.</p>
<p>Any and every time we tried to scale anything back or throttle their bandwidth, they would just leave. We simply could never buy enough bandwidth at an affordable price to be able to keep up with them.</p>
<p>Would have been easy though if we could have simply told them, connect your computer and nothing else and we are going to decide which ports are going to be open and which are not.</p>
<p>You can have ipods once recognized packermatt.</p>
<p>"Examples of removable flash media covered by this policy are memory sticks, thumb drives, IPods, and camera flash memory cards. The floppies, CDs, and external USB hard drives issued to cadets and similar devices are still authorized."</p>
<p>Yeah, it will make cadets with Ipods, digital cameras, and (issued) flash drives upset. Even worse, the PTB did not provide ANY explanation, as of this time.</p>
<p>well, guess i'll take advantage of my last 29 days and 16 hours or so that i can sync my iPod at a service academy. guess Navy is better in some way finally! ;)</p>
<p>So, let's be clear. This means, if all you cadets want to take pictures of your fun outings, cool memories of your time at the academy, etc., with your digital cameras, you are no longer allowed to download those pics to your computer??? Seriously?</p>
<p>Does this mean if you want photo storage, you must purchase lots of memory cards to take home or download someplace else (sponsor family?), or purchase another computer, or some other storage option to be able to do something as simple as that? </p>
<p>I understand the need for security, really I do. I am just so floored, maybe because I am way too trusting, naive, however you want to identify my amazement at the implementation of these new rules. Wow! That's all I can say. Wow.</p>
<p>Welcome to USAFA.</p>
<p>i spoke too soon...</p>
<p>USNA just sent out the same e-mail, effective Thursday 20 NOV 2008</p>
<p>you still have time to get your things in order...ours was effective immediately. bummer.</p>
<p>OK so there appears to be some as yet defined threat to all military assets. They are afraid a virus can be transfered and could affect systems to include aircraft assets. I am sure you will get more info soon.</p>
<p>looking deeper into our e-mail at least, its not completely eliminating the use. its simply limiting the use, and preventing any USB drive to run aoutmatically.</p>
<p>typically when you plug in a device it opens immediately, and often asks you what you want to do with it. instead, it will not notice its even there unless you go through your computer and tell it to recognize it and use it. not sure if USAFA's doing that, but that's what i understand from the e-mail at Navy</p>
<p>We just received an e-mail with some more details. The current situation is classified, so I'd rather see this discussion end here for the moment. Thanks all.</p>