US military typo sends emails to Mali for over a decade
Thread Starter
US military typo sends emails to Mali for over a decade
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66226873
Millions of US military emails have been mistakenly sent to Mali, a Russian ally, because of a minor typing error.
Emails intended for the US military's ".mil" domain have, for years, been sent to the west African country which ends with the ".ml" suffix.
Some of the emails reportedly contained sensitive information such as passwords, medical records and the itineraries of top officers. The Pentagon said it had taken steps to address the issue. According to the Financial Times, which first reported the story, Dutch internet entrepreneur Johannes Zuurbier identified the problem more than 10 years ago. Since 2013, he has had a contract to manage Mali's country domain and, in recent months, has reportedly collected tens of thousands of misdirected emails.
None were marked as classified, but, according to the newspaper, they included medical data, maps of US military facilities, financial records and the planning documents for official trips as well as some diplomatic messages.
Millions of US military emails have been mistakenly sent to Mali, a Russian ally, because of a minor typing error.
Emails intended for the US military's ".mil" domain have, for years, been sent to the west African country which ends with the ".ml" suffix.
Some of the emails reportedly contained sensitive information such as passwords, medical records and the itineraries of top officers. The Pentagon said it had taken steps to address the issue. According to the Financial Times, which first reported the story, Dutch internet entrepreneur Johannes Zuurbier identified the problem more than 10 years ago. Since 2013, he has had a contract to manage Mali's country domain and, in recent months, has reportedly collected tens of thousands of misdirected emails.
None were marked as classified, but, according to the newspaper, they included medical data, maps of US military facilities, financial records and the planning documents for official trips as well as some diplomatic messages.
Not all of this decade todays pro Russian Mali government has been in power but their pro western predecessors.
Pretty sure there were no Mail domains that matched the adressees!
Thread Starter
Hmmm - well, we've all done it ......... the question is was anyone bright enough in Mali to notice - or did they jus have the world's biggest electronic trash can
Per the usual standard there should have been an "undeliverable" message sent. However this presents a problem to the e-mail management as it allows bad people to flood the server with endless attempts at addresses to find the ones that are deliverable, leaking information about addresses that might otherwise be, ummm, less well publicized.
Instead some system operator gets to look at the list of undeliverable e-mails to try and remove the spam sources so they can be rejected on receipt. After that, it's just weeding through for near-misses. One would not want a critical government communication to fail to get to the correct person due to a one-character error.
Yeah - in Mali they have noticed and would like what is essentially spam to stop getting sent to them so the ones that matter can stand out more. Some rumor of a telegram and Pearl Harbor comes to mind.
This should have been dealt with on the DoD end a long time ago by refusing to send e-mails to anyone that the sender isn't cleared to communicate with. But since the DoD hasn't managed to pass a financial audit in a long long time, I doubt they can get this sorted out either.
What's more helpful is software that scans the text and determines that it knows the e-mail of someone mentioned in it and decides to add that person to the distribution, and that his how the CEO of a company finds out Clarence in shipping believes the CEO is full of manure. We are so close to doing that. Maybe ChatGPT can make it happen.
Instead some system operator gets to look at the list of undeliverable e-mails to try and remove the spam sources so they can be rejected on receipt. After that, it's just weeding through for near-misses. One would not want a critical government communication to fail to get to the correct person due to a one-character error.
Yeah - in Mali they have noticed and would like what is essentially spam to stop getting sent to them so the ones that matter can stand out more. Some rumor of a telegram and Pearl Harbor comes to mind.
This should have been dealt with on the DoD end a long time ago by refusing to send e-mails to anyone that the sender isn't cleared to communicate with. But since the DoD hasn't managed to pass a financial audit in a long long time, I doubt they can get this sorted out either.
What's more helpful is software that scans the text and determines that it knows the e-mail of someone mentioned in it and decides to add that person to the distribution, and that his how the CEO of a company finds out Clarence in shipping believes the CEO is full of manure. We are so close to doing that. Maybe ChatGPT can make it happen.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Problem long precedes the internet. Back in the 1980s copies several of NATO classified documents were mistakenly sent to the Brussels embassy of the German Democratic Republic rather than the German Federal Republic.
The recipients reportedly returned them with a short note saying thank you - but they already had their copy.
The recipients reportedly returned them with a short note saying thank you - but they already had their copy.
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