DISQUS

AMERICAblog: Reply-all e-mail storm hits State

  • Sally in Maine · 11 months ago
    Forget this John, you're missing '24'.

    Tonight's episode:
    Jack Bauer assists with the deadly domestic threat and the investigation of his former colleague, Tony Almeida; President Allison Taylor presides over the escalating dilemmas linked to the unrest in Sangala.
  • ITgal · 11 months ago
    HeartlandLiberal is exactly correct. LISTSERVs have been around since the 90's. This problem has nothing to do with user behaviour, it's all about an incompetent IT department building a bad system. A good system doesn't rely on end-users to be smart, because it doesn't allow stupid mistakes to amount to anything. It's regulation - even if a lot of people did something stupid, like bought homes they couldn't afford, regulation should ensure that the only ones who get screwed are the people making the bad decision. Reply-all shouldn't hurt the email system any more than some bad mortgages should damage the entire economy.
  • Bush Bites · 11 months ago
    Bush has had control of the state department for the past 8 years.

    Probably all a bunch of Regent University idiots.
  • NYCRaf · 11 months ago
    Didn't Donna Moss do this in an episode of the West Wing?
  • Ducktape · 11 months ago
    Yes, there was an email storm on the West Wing -- like 9 or 10 years ago. I remember that Donna was involved in it.
  • Nosybear · 11 months ago
    Ever tried to become a diplomat? The smartest dumbasses ever to roam the face of the Earth, or at least that's what the test seems to select for. Common sense? Individual initiative? Knowledge of anything other than the current regime's talking points? Need not apply.

    They can't think for themselves, why should we expect them to be computer-literate?
  • Jessica · 11 months ago
    That is my biggest pet peeve! So big in fact, I wrote a whole blog post about it. Most people don't understand simple email etiquette.

    http://littlemerrysunshine.blogspot.com/2008/11...
  • Donna in Rome · 11 months ago
    Maybe I've missed something over the years, but how do you "recall" an e-mail you've already sent out?
  • lucky hussein · 11 months ago
    only from outlook, afaik: open mail, select actions>recall this message - doesn't always work
  • davefragments · 11 months ago
    Where have they been living? Under a rock in a cave? I learned this back in 1994 (15 years ago) on AOL. How could anyone be this computer illiterate?
  • Anonymous · 11 months ago
    This is no surprise. Computers etc. at the State Department have lagged behind the rest of the world. Until Christmas Eve 1996, the computer on my desk there was a Wang. [Seriously.] We become aware of new technologies when the security people issue a notice saying we're not supposed to use it. Some progress, indeed!

    One reason why this is no surprise is the simple fact that our national civilian political leadership, under both political parties, is well aware of the issues, and has chosen to do nothing about it. Congress knows what IT costs, to include maintenance, support and upgrades, and has chosen not to provide the necessary resources. Of course, the White House and the Office of Management and Budget have also chosen not to request them.

    Nor is anything likely to change under President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton. Remember, it's all about her.
  • bumpkis · 11 months ago
    As a retired DOS employee, I can say...not the first time for this....yep...the best and the brightest....
  • John O · 11 months ago
    Well, the good news is that it isn't like our "enemies" don't have the same problem. And their server capacity probably isn't as good.

    It's those pesky humans!

    A funny thing to me. Welcome to the 21st Century!
  • bocephus · 11 months ago
    Educate yourself start here:

    www.disinfomatrix.com
  • FunMe · 11 months ago
    SIMPLE solution: send the email by using your email in the "to"

    BLIND COPY all your recepients ... and problem solved!
  • Smitty · 11 months ago
    The senate agrees to seat Roland Burris and all we hear are crickets? Blagojevich just took the Democrats to the woodshed, and they fell all over themselves trying to prove a point, even with the constitution on Burris' side. A second thing that the Democrats have done is make it impossible to seat Al Franken because... the Minnesota Secretary of State will not certify the election and sign his papers until Norm Coleman has exhausted every legal challenge, and with the disdain that the gop has for Franken, that could be a LONG time.
  • jefffurry · 11 months ago
    We had one of these happen in my company, just a few days after they announced upcoming layoffs. More than one of my coworkers commented that the people doing "Reply All" were self-selecting for the layoff shortlist.
  • Indigo · 11 months ago
    Not ready for technology.
  • CybScryb · 11 months ago
    Ahh...we have two categories for this type of disaster in my IT department. The first is category 1D10T for those who just react without thinking in spite of training. The second is called a PEBCAK. Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard. But we do have to take measures to prevent server administrators from deleting every user on the list with one of our email accounts.

    It won't be an eight year Mongolian hacker with super-human powers who brings down our network. Rather, it will be the email detailing the danger of posed by said fictional hacker. Either that or the $$$$ that Microsloth will pay you for tracking your email use.
  • Pete Guither · 11 months ago
    The West Wing episode (Let Bartlet be Bartlet) involved Margaret.

    MARGARET
    Anyway, she sent me an e-mail about the actual calorie count in the raisin muffin
    they’re serving in the mess. I forwarded the e-mail to several hundred assistants
    and secretaries in O.E.O.B. and in the West Wing, and that was fine. But Jolene
    Millman, who works in political liaison, then hit reply, which apparently-

    LEO
    Oh Margaret! Margaret! I’m sorry. I’m gonna have to...I hung in there as long as I
    could, but you long since passed the point when I stopped caring. If you’re curious,
    it was right around raisin muffin.
  • HeartlandLiberal · 11 months ago
    What's really funny is the stupidity of the lists. It seems pretty obvious the list(s) were huge open cc: lists. For what should be obvious at this point to even the most unenlightened, using cc: lists is NOT how you do mass mailings. For one thing, aside from mass email storms, you expose the email address of everyone to every recipient. Duh. Here is the correct way to do it. You set up and use a LISTSERV, and send messages from a LISTSERV account. And if it is used as a wide-spread means of communication to a large number of people, you flag it moderated, so that an editor or moderator has to approve any submissions. That way when some idiot recipient hits reply, it goes to the list, and the editor can choose to allow it to circulate.

    I see this as just another example of the legendary stupidity of our government in action. They don't even know how to do email right.
  • tom · 11 months ago
    I remember this happening on a qualitative research listserve--almost 20 YEARS ago! We figured it out & fixed it. We told people what to do, & they did it. As someone pointed out below, this recent error is probably due to the bushie's Regent University hiring policy.
  • Bryan "bytehead" Price · 11 months ago
    There is no cure for stupidity.
  • SkippyFlipjack · 11 months ago
    If our State Department email system can't handle a number of successive emails addressed to its own "All Users" mailing list, somebody in IT needs to be fired. That's pathetic. If it can't handle "All Users" lists, why does it have "All Users" lists?
  • Parrotlover77 · 11 months ago
    Exactly! Replying all is usually not a very huge operation. Since it's the same message with many recipients, it's only stored once in the database of most email systems released in the past decade. The only burden on the server comes from network traffic. And, honestly, if you can't handle the email generated by reply-all to a BLANK MESSAGE, how the heck do you handle any normal amount of spam?

    This does not speak well of IT at the State Department...
  • Jim · 11 months ago
    Most, if not all, e-mail systems can prevent this problem by restricting "reply all" functionality. It's very simple to implement.
  • Parrotlover77 · 11 months ago
    That's a silly solution. Reply-all is useful. Any IT worker worth their salt (and with a reasonable budget) could have easily avoided this problem without inhibiting user functionality.
  • Randy · 11 months ago
    This reminds me of an incident in my office some years ago.
    Someone sent out an "all hands" message -- 100's of addresses in the clear -- asking for update on employees SECURITY CLEARANCES, who had them, when they expired, etc...
    Over half of the recipients -- many WITH S/C -- responded ALL, thus revealing to the general world the details of their clearances -- who issued them, when where, etc... Interesting information, especially to those who didn't have them....
    All I could think of was that they should all be revoked and the employees being so stupid should be sent back for Classified Material Handling 101.
    But at least no one attached any secret documents......