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Date: 1998-05-10
Der Unamailer-.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- Der Unamailer oder wie aus der Misionfiguration eines mail/accounts binnen vier Stunden eine Lawine aus vierzigtausend Mails generiert werden kann. MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, U.S.A., 1998 MAY 8 (NB) -- By Leonard Lee. This is a weekly column from Newsbytes featuring the latest in the weird, bizarre, and unfortunate when it comes to technology. Normally, this column contains several brief snippets describing recent technological glitches. This week, however, the column is devoted to one particular recent incident of note. An E-Mail Special Delivery It was an e-mail version of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Spokane County deputy prosecutor Tim Durkin was going to be out of the office for a few days last week. So he programmed his computer to send a reply to any e-mails, letting the sender know he was out of town. But the computer mistakenly flagged each reply "ALL COUNTY" and sent the message to all 2,000 users on the county's computer system. Even worse, Durkin had requested a confirmation for each message, producing an additional 2,000 return e-mails. "It was like an atom bomb went off," said Vickie Birkenthal, director of county information services. More than 150,000 e-mail messages bounced through the system in four hours. System administrators managed to trace the source of the flood of messages back to Durkin's account, and disabled the errant commands. Durkin returned to work late last week to find 48,000 messages awaiting him in his e-mail box, and has been receiving 1,500 "confirm" messages each day since then. "We were thinking of having him open them one at a time," said Birkenthal. Instead, Birkenthal yesterday issued one last e-mail. This time, it was an lengthy, apologetic note he entitled, "The Unamailer's Apology Manifesto." Durkin said he received 150 replies from "learned and concerned colleagues." He noted that if the information services hadn't disabled his errant commands, those replies would have generated an additional 300,000 e-mails. The replies ranged from the amused to the politely annoyed to the "obviously irritated." Some of Durkin's favorites include: "Mr. Durkin, this is the third message I have received regarding this subject. This is not something I care to know about." "You have sent this message several times to the whole world." "I get the picture. You will be gone for a few days." "Please stop sending this to me! I don't even know who you are!" "Tim, I think it is important to enhance interdepartmental communications, but I think you have taken this a bit too far." "Thanks for the heads up (sent after approximately 30 messages)." "Please stop the insanity." "Somebody needs e-mail lessons." Durkin also returned to find several obscene voice mails awaiting him. During his absence, his office assistants received numerous phone calls from people complaining about the out-of-office e-mail messages. But as the assistants dutifully pointed out, it was pointless to complain to them, since the whole point of the e-mail was that Durkin was out of the office in the first place. Durkin said he also received phone messages and faxes from county employees who are not on the e-mail system, expressing their disappointment that they did not receive the "cursed e-mail," and were thus "left out of the fun." The manifesto was distributed to all 2,000 county e-mail users, along with a promise it would be the final e-mail on the subject. "You could hear people laughing in their cubicles as they opened the manifesto," Birkenthal said. In his manifesto, Durkin said he wanted to "extend my most sincere, humble and just a little embarrassed apology." He noted that "I've now made some new e-mail pen pals. After 45 e-mails to them, they said that they feel like they know me. I bet that information services never tells me again that there are no vacancies in any of their computer training classes. Have a nice day. Now get back to work." "We learned from it," Birkenthal said. "Our system was strong enough to handle the situation without crashing and we were able to handle it with only a slight slow-down in the computer network." Leonard Lee is a nationally recognized consultant and frequent speaker on computer errors. Readers are encouraged to email news clippings of interesting computer glitches to doctorglitch@geocities.com ==================================== TIP 4 MB Webspace für ATS 50.- pro Monat, alles inklusive, abholbar sofort http://www.heimatseite.com - -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- edited by Harkank published on: 1998-05-10 comments to office@quintessenz.at subscribe Newsletter - -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- 
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