How About a SWC "Secure" Forum?

[JeffC]

I noticed that everything posted in these forums is indexed by Google. I have a topic that I'd like to discuss with some of the experts here, but I definitely don't want it indexed by Google. Is there a way of creating a forum with NOINDEX (or something similar) for all of the posts in a thread so that the content remains visible only by SWC members?

[selil]

I thought Kidagogo (sp) and those with it were membership only (therefore not indexed)... There are other forums that I'm not supposed to know about but somebody accidentally added me to them (happy sammy was) then kicked me out again (so sad sammy is)....

[Rob Thornton]

Jeff,
You might be better served doing something like that behind a .mil if you and others have access. Its good for FOUO type stuff. I think if you want an UNCLASS "project" thread you might PM Dave or Bill. Regards, Rob

[JeffC]

Jeff,
You might be better served doing something like that behind a .mil if you and others have access. Its good for FOUO type stuff. I think if you want an UNCLASS "project" thread you might PM Dave or Bill. Regards, Rob

I think I've solved it. I set up a free Campfire (http://www.campfirenow.com/) account. I'll put up a general announcement here at SWC and then set up a private Campfire room for the actual discussion. Thanks for the feedback, Rob.

[SWJED]

We can keep this inside the SWC with a private board that will not be indexed by Google (or any other search engine) and open to those who the 'thread leader' designates as members. Advise and we will make it so.

Just so there is no confusion about SWC private boards - there are three for the moderators (SWC board issues, how to / best practices), one for peer review of SWJ online magazine article submissions (editing), one for our bloggers (blogging tips and info) and others that have been requested by members (and sometimes non-members until they sign up for the board) where they can work out an issue, always unclassified, amongst a community of interest. This varies widely - everything from an instructor working out a new course outline to a study project lead seeking a collaborative environment with project members...

These boards / threads are in no way some type of private club and we will not entertain requests for private chat rooms. That said though, anyone who has a requirement for an official or institutional project or in support of a study or authoring of an article or book can request one from us and we will try to oblige.

[JeffC]

We can keep this inside the SWC with a private board that will not be indexed by Google and open to those who the 'thread leader' designates as members. Advise and we will make it so.

Thanks. Please go ahead and set it up. I'll ask for interested parties in the public forums (Intelligence and Law Enforcement), but I don't know how to assign/invite members. Perhaps you could help with that

[Uboat509]

On a related topic I have often considered asking if any of our military or DOD civilian members would be interested in starting some conversations on the SIPR. I am not really sure if that would be practical or worth the effort and it would exclude a lot of our members but it is something I have been kicking around in my head for some time.

SFC W

[SWCAdmin]

Ditto to SWJED's post.

Not "everything" on this site is indexed by, e.g., Google. The bots aren't members, so they can't get to the forums that you have to be signed in to see. That includes the Members Only parent forum and all its child forums. Similarly, those forums do not feed to the RSS feed or to the "new threads" section on our SWJ home page. Which is both a blessing and a curse.

We have restricted our site at the server level, not user permissions, from most known malicious bots. The site is open to the "good" ones like Googlebot, etc.

This sort of semi-non-public thing is often referred to as the darknet -- not really secure, but not generally open to just anyone.

While this is pseudo-privileged, it is NOT SIPR. Absolutely no classified.

FOUO is a handling instruction, not a classification, and is always a red-headed step child. There are plenty of darknet FOUO sites out there. We have no intention of being one. To keep it simple, no FOUO, either. Members only or otherwise.

[Stu-6]

On a related topic I have often considered asking if any of our military or DOD civilian members would be interested in starting some conversations on the SIPR. I am not really sure if that would be practical or worth the effort and it would exclude a lot of our members but it is something I have been kicking around in my head for some time.

SFC W

An easy way to that might be to use the intelink forums and just post some sort of advertisment for it here. You would get some of the folks from here and it would be pretty little effort. Just a thought.

[Nathan Hale]

You should be able to use robots.txt to dictate what is and is not indexed by Google, if I remember correctly. However, keeping at least a few areas open enables new members to stumble across the community and expands the membership base.

[Ken White]

Welcome to the Board. Why not go here LINK (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=65477#post65477) and give us a brief intro by tacking a new comment on the Thread. You can scroll up and get an idea what others have said. Thanks.

[George L. Singleton]

It has been over a year since your posting about a secure sight. A topic I, too, brought up in interpersonal e-mail with SWJ founders over a year ago.

Now in January, 2009, if it is permissible to openly or private e-mail those of us who support such an idea...if it is technology doable by SWJ...I certainly would favor it.

Too, I would add that SWJ on a "secure" site should loosen it's criteria to allow sharing of direct communications from overseas foreign nationals some of us get as regular writers in overseas (Muslim and other) media, which makes us reply to targets of favorable and hostle remarks. Trash talk not intended in this suggestion, only functional, perhaps helpful to our team sharing of some of these foreign e-mails.

Belated Happy 2009 to all who may read this.

[pvebber]

Despite being a Navy guy, I have accounts on Army Knowledge Online both on NIPR and SIPR and have found it easy to set up a community of interest to work classified and unclassified projects requiring collaboration between small groups.

This is the best solution I have found on SIPR for such things. The same family of sites includes Joint Knowledge Online and Defense Knowledge Online communities. If you have access to SIPRnet, you can qualify for an account under one of those umbrellas.

The other non-classified collaboration site I have used, and is currently being explored for FHA/DR coordination between US agancies, NGOs, and participating parnter countries is www.harmonieweb.org

[Cavguy]

I am personally against a restricted discussion for SWC.

a) they are not certified to handle even Unclass/FOUO information as a non .gov/.mil site, nor should they. Even though I know both Bill and Dave to be fine patriots, they can't host anything more than we are talking about now.

b) there are several "restricted" discussion loops out there, although many are invite-only.

c) The Army has the whole BCKS infrastructure behind it's firewall (incl COIN Forum, TT forum, Company Command, NCO Net, Platoon Leader, Log Net, etc.) for FOUO type discussions not accessible to google.

d) Those with SIPR, well, there are SIPR sites.

The thing SWC does for us is provide an open, international, civilian, military and academic forum to hash out issues - behind a screen name if you wish - to preserve some semblance of anonymity.

[Steve Blair]

The thing SWC does for us is provide an open, international, civilian, military and academic accessible forum to hash out issues - behind a screen name if you wish - to preserve some semblance of anonymity.

This is a key point. You simply will not get the diversity of commentary that we enjoy behind a secure .mil-style gateway. Folks that want that sort of insulated discussion most likely already have access to such forums, anyhow.

[Rex Brynen]

I personally am against a restricted discussion for SWC.

I agree with Niel on this one. A supposedly "restricted" discussion component of the board potentially creates a false sense of what can, or cannot, be discussed in forum, and increases the chances that someone violates OPSEC.

It is far better to have the discussion open here--and therefore for everyone to be mindful of what they post because they assume that nothing is secure at all.

[Ken White]

No valid purpose to such a site that I can see.

[Entropy]

No valid purpose to such a site that I can see.

Agreed. It would do little more, IMO, than create yet another stovepipe and help encourage groupthink.