The “Access Denied” message appears because a security or access-control layer in front of Defense.gov (likely Akamai’s web application firewall/CDN) is blocking your request, returning an HTTP 403 error. This is typically triggered by rules about geography, network behavior, browser/automation patterns, or site-specific restrictions, not by anything you did on the page itself.
Technical access controls for Defense.gov are implemented by the Department of Defense’s central public web program (WEB.mil) under the Defense Media Activity, while overall release and public information policy is set by the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. End users generally cannot override these controls; if you believe you should have access, the only options are to contact the site’s public affairs/webmaster via the contact information on Defense/War Department sites or, if it is being withheld rather than just misconfigured, submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to DoD for the specific contract announcement.
The reference number (for example, “#18.260f3417.1767220953.259690b9”) is an internal ID generated by Akamai’s edge/ security system for that blocked request. It lets the website’s administrators look up exactly why the request was denied in Akamai’s logs; it does not encode readable information for end users and cannot be used by you to bypass the block.
The specific “Contracts for Dec. 31, 2025” announcement is not currently accessible on Defense.gov (and appears similarly blocked on the parallel War.gov page). A near-duplicate text of the announcement is visible in search snippets from a commercial press-release mirror (PublicNow), but that site is not an official U.S. government source, and no open official .gov archive copy of this exact Dec. 31, 2025 contracts notice could be located at this time.
Yes, the “Department of War” tag is very likely just a naming/labeling change that refers to the same institution historically and legally known today as the U.S. Department of Defense. Both the official mission statement and role described for the Department of War (“provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security”) are identical to those of the Department of Defense, and authoritative references explicitly note that “Department of War” is another name used for DoD.
Errors.edgesuite.net is an error-reporting host used by Akamai, a major content-delivery network and security provider. When Akamai’s edge servers or web-application firewall block or cannot properly process a request, they often redirect the browser to an errors.edgesuite.net page showing “Access Denied” and a reference number; this reflects a CDN/WAF decision, not a problem with the underlying Defense.gov server itself.