Problems Accessing IEC Journal Website

Since the founding of the IEC Journal website in 2004, a few members have occasionally encountered trouble accessing it through their office accounts. The most common cause has been unsophisticated IT staff at a few agencies who have set their firewalls to block all "blogs." These problems have typically been solved easily. It's been simply a matter of educating the IT staff so they understand that while many blogs are dubious sources of information, others are essential professional tools. 

More recently, the IT staff at one large agency has intermittently blocked access to IEC Journal as a perceived security risk. They say that the server hosting IEC Journal sometimes engages in what they ominously refer to as "malicious activity."  On questioning, they explain that by this they mean "port scanning." Port scanning is an ambiguous activity that can be benign, but is sometimes used by hackers to identify potential targets.  

Due to the nature of the software used, it's impossible for contributors to IEC Journal or the administrator to conduct port scanning. They don't have the necessary rights. Only someone with control of the web server could use it to conduct port scanning.

The web server is hosted by a reputable contractor, Six Apart, (though its subsidiary Typepad). This company has no motive to conduct port scanning. Nevertheless, we coordinated with them and verified that they do not conduct port scanning. While it is remotely conceivable that hackers could have gained root access to a Six Apart/Typepad server and are using it as a base of operations without the owners' knowledge, it is much more likely that the agency IT staff is simply confused. This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that other agency IT staffs, of equal or greater sophistication, have not had any similar concerns. 

We have deliberately avoided identifying the agency involved, because we have no desire to embarrass them.  We sympathize with the ethics lawyers at the affected agency, and wish you success in resolving this issue with your agency's IT bureaucracy. 

In the meantime, the access blockage should not affect e-mails coming from the various third parties that echo postings to the web site.  They come from different IP addresses.  One option for setting up or modifying an account with one of those services is to use a home PC to set it up, but using your office address as the e-mail destination.

The Typepad support desk suggested users at the affected agency consider using a proxy service like Proxify or Unipeak. Note: we have not tested these, and make no representation that they will work at any particular agency. Some agencies may not allow any proxy server use.