A system administrator at one of Australia's most prominent entertainment venues has supplied ZDNet Australia with electronic documentation that appears to indicate that up to 25 Defence staff were able to share emails bearing pornographic content.
"Basically they're sending it not only to themselves but to various other organisations including National Australia Bank and another government organisation," the administrator said.
The administrator alleges he has for the last two years been unsuccessful in getting the department to block a steady stream of what he termed "inappropriate e-mail" originating from its network.
The latest e-mail, detected by the enterprise's filtering software last week, bore a file containing soft-core pornography with a Christmas theme. The administrator has contacted Defence Department administrators requesting further abuses be blocked.
A spokesperson for the Department of Defence said the department had a -zero tolerance policy on Internet abuse, including traffic of pornography". The Department of Defence's code of conduct concerning use of its communication resources strictly prohibits any activity that would damage the reputation of the organisation.
"We monitor e-mails, we detect abuses and we take sanctions in line with the severity of the abuse. The most severe sanctions have been invoked in the worst cases," the spokesperson said.
However the department is yet to explain how the abuses were achieved in this instance.
-As an organisation the defence department should be tightening the screws on this sort of [activity] because it just doesn't look good," said the administrator.
There are also serious consequences for system administrators that fail to detect abuses of their e-mail. If pornographic or abusive e-mails find their way onto lists maintained by enterprises, the enterprises themselves can be held liable for legal action by recipients that take exception to the content.
