Oh my! What the heck are they talking about? Here is the article from the Washington Post dated 11/18/2009, “File-sharing software ban sought in House.” Are we proposing a ban on file sharing in government facilities and/or private residences occupied by federal employees? I thing that the former is mandatory and enforceable and the latter should not be not in the purview of the employer.
Government sites should ban access to file sharing and social networks on their networks…as should any responsible business. There is no need for that access on the computer of a government employee. The security risks are significant, as we have seen. Information of almost any nature should be kept in government facilities and on government networks. Remote access to that information should be restricted to only those who really need it and should be over secure, encrypted communication lines. Users should be able to access a remote desktop environment (Citrix, Windows Terminal Server, VMWare, etc) and be restricted from downloading anything from the private network to their home PC/network.