The U.S. military is ordering some troops to stop using removable media, including thumb drives and disks, in the wake of the recent WikiLeaks data dumps that have generated more than their share of bad press for the U.S. government, Wired magazine reports. According to an Air Force order obtained by Wired, personnel who fail to comply may face a court martial. 

The "Cyber Control Order," issued by Maj. Gen. Richard Webber Dec. 3, instructs Air Force personnel to "immediately cease use of removable media on all systems, servers, and stand alone machines residing on SIPRNET," Wired's Noah Shachtman reports. WikiLeaks allegedly obtained hundreds of thousands of files from SIPRNET, a DoD secret network, that had been downloaded by Pfc. Bradley Manning onto a CD labeled "Lady Gaga."

Other branches of the military have received orders similar to that issued by Webber, who is commander of Air Force Network Operations, according to Shachtman. A temporary removable media ban was imposed a couple years ago following the spread of a worm across hundreds of thousands of machine.

The Air Force order notes that the ban on thumb drives and disks may cause "difficulty with transferring data for operational needs which could impede timeliness on mission execution." However, the action is deemed necessary to mitigate unauthorized data transfers, and those who disobey may face punishment under Article 92 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.

For more:
- see Noah Shachtman's article at Wired

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