If it was any other president, I would say, NO WAY. Keep the technology as minimal as possible. But since it is the great and mighty Barack Obama who can stop the ocean's rise, the atmosphere's burning, the unemployment's hardships, as well as cure cancer, clean all water, stop the spread of aids, and make Al Qaeda want to be friends with the USA. I am sure he can keep chinese spies, russian hackers, maldiscontents and every other techno low life out there from infiltrating the heart and soul of the USA through electronic means.

Putting up any kind of network service going into or out of service is begging for some kind of attack. The fact that the idiot running the show doesn't know precisely what went wrong is even worse. I'd like for the new staffers to be able to blog and twatter and whatever the hell the kids are doing all day long as much as they want, but they need to understand their position and where they're coming from.


Also, cry me a damned river for them not being able to get to the iTunes store. If that's what they're doing on the taxpayer's time then it may be time for some housecleaning.

I agree with "A Stoner". If Barak Obama is brilliant enough to fix all of the problems created by George Bush, he should be allowed whatever he wants

Yay, cause then we have a paper trail, sort of. I undestand national security plenty well working for a military weapons manufacturer and it can be very useful. It's no less secure than making a phone call.

Seems like Cheney has still a foot in the white house ;-)

GO GO BARACK GO.

WTF - let's get with it...if your going to promote technology advancements, you should be allowed to use it...and if they got people who don't know what the problem is, there are plenty of laid of IT guys that might like a job in the whitehoue and could probably do a better job than the current IT staff! Time to clean house from top to bottom.

Actually, that was sarcasm. Obama is going to create many more problems than he fixes, because he is pretty much stuck with a liberal progressive group of supporters, from nancy pelosi to his KOS fans. That means he is going to do things in ways that are not too objectionable to them. Good luck actually getting any country in the world to take you seriously with that as your starting position.

Of course every country in the world wants someone in office like Obama, because then they can control him and get concessions from him that hurt America and make them stronger. Even if it is just simply making themselves LOOK better, all the way down to perhaps Iran getting Nuclear weapons because Obama is not going to do anything to stop them, thus they have nothing to fear, so no reason to stop. Maybe China will finally feel emboldened enough to invade taiwan or what ever "breakaway" province they have their eye on.

I may be wrong, maybe Obama will be better than advertised, but I doubt that he will be. He is going to be running for office again in 3 years, thus he has every incentive to do what his base desires him to do at least until re-election, then he can grow a back bone.

You may be wrong you admit. And I believe you are. So far, every time I've seen your name on this homepage, all you've done is trying to explain that Obama isn't a good choice. You do seem poorly informed, and you do seem to only read what you want to read. I think it's more likely than not, that you indeed are wrong. Only time will tell though, but I'm both hoping and expecting you to be wrong.
For a lot of good reasons I've never spoken to Obama, but for all I know, he seems to be the most promising and competent potential president to ever have attempted to get the job. And guessing from his presence in the white house, it would appear that most of usa to some extend agrees with that assessment.

STFU neiroatopelcc You don't know Jack $ from shinola! Like you KNOW what "MOST OF USA" agrees with.....PL$ noob rookie. This is an I.T. site not Politic$. White should not have itunes or any thing else of the sort!!!!! Our tax paying dollars don't pay for them to listen to crap like that! We can't even get that stuff here at work so why should they even get that at the white house? Oh yea cuz they are sooooo hard at work for us taxpayers trying to better the country... how does itunes fit into that again? Our country is going down the toilet with like 70,000 unemployed in just one day and the white house wants their internet connection, itunes, twitter, blog, RSS feeds, newsgroups prob too for their porn haaaaaa. I feel encouraged that our country is going to make it after all! Way to go white house guys, get the important stuff first. $$ joke man stinkin jokes on U$!


TSM

I'm not aware of having spoken to you before? So you have absolutely no basis for judging my knowledge. I could of course be wrong, but if that were the case, the usa would've had a mummy as president now. In any event, if you can't even address me properly, and in an appropriate language, I've got very little reason to actually even care about your statement. It's in appropriate, and written in a way hardly fitting in with a site like this, where most users are well educated on the subjects they choose to read and reason about.

No we haven't spoken >< b4. Umust be like very educated and well established white collar worker I take it then. Well this site isn't for only people like U! (I'mglad2say)You might find thi$ $hocking to your littl3 world but we don't speak the same language. The ppl I run w/we understand fine, you prob think the world is what uc.... there's another that uwill prob nvr find or und3r$t@nd. But oh well, your like totally kewl!

TSM

I understand you're proud of your roots and your ghetto language, and that is fine with me. If you think that is the proper way to voice your opinions, then far be it for me to stop you. But insulting people just because you're unable to comprehend their views is uncalled for, no matter which type of words you prefer to use. And the level of education has nothing to do with that. It's a simple matter of wether or not your parents or enviroment in general did a good job raising you, or not. I don't expect you to understand that, but I don't shy away from trying to tell you anyway.
Sorry if it bothers you, that someone you don't like could be right. But that's how the world works mate. Like it or not.

Anything that takes place in a govermental place is the publics business. If it does not endanger the country.An EXCUSE that our elected officals are all to willing to use.

I work for a well known federal government agency, as a Security System Administrator. I highly recommend they rethink their policies on web usage within the White House and the use of wireless networking no matter how encrypted it is. Also, all personal e-mail account checking on government networks should be blocked and prohibited. This is what I have been used to for the past two years.

It's not insulting you N00b! did I say anything about u? I told you to STFU cuz u don't know j@CK. Talkin like u know what USA is thinking and ur speakn on their b1/2.... plzzzzz (wtf is my parents or how I was raised got to do with this?...wow)

TSM

Children... Please chill out... And stop with the l33t sp33k.

hey bunz_of_steel so i take it that you know what USA is thinking? get real dude. you want to babble on and fight like that go to myspace or facebook, we dont need that here. bye bye.

I caused the email outage. I unplugged the servers power by accident to charge my Ipod. My bad.

In other news Obama's new email is... bobama@whouse.gov

Every time you address me, you do so with noob or similar. That is something most people would find insulting, which is why you probably do it in the first place. As for the enviroment you grow up in - I don't have the time to explain the influence that has on the resulting product (you). If you don't know, visit a psychology class or talk to a middle school teacher.
You keep stating I don't know anything, yet you don't seem to even know what knowledge is. Is there even a point to your insults? I think not. Stick to constructive comments like the rest of us. Otherwise you're just wasting people's time, and most people I know don't appreaciate that.

I suggest that you stop quoting his gibberish. Every time you try and talk reason to Bunz_of_Steel you ignite his fire; this in turn is resulting in a recursive argument. Instead if we ignore him he will burn out and leave.

As to the argument at hand:

I think it is stupid to hold back technology in the White House. If the government can't secure a internet connection or fix an email server them I agree with with the people above me: we should replace the techs and start over.

Upon reading the first article about the current administration using email I was actually excited, but weary of the security issues that would arouse. Data security is a never ending tennis game between hackers and patchers that is too volatile to handle such sensitive information. This article just confirmed my worries. If I was head of data security or the I.T. professional at the White House, I would start packing my things - you cannot have these types of issues and not have them resolved in a timely manner or not know the root of the problem. The email outage may not have been a consequence of a hacker, but it still stirs up questions on how safe sensitive data is...

P.S. This is not a politics forum. Everyone has their own opinion and it should be saved for a more appropriate setting.

-Craig