Email privacy SNAFU @ House Judiciary Committee (and IPv6 please)
It's IT Blogwatch: in which the House Judiciary Committee makes a basic email error, violating whistleblowers' privacy. Not to mention a stark warning of the dangers of sticking with IPv4...
Paul Kiel calls it, "a whoops with a capital W":
This summer the House Judiciary Committee launched an effort to collect tips from would-be whistleblowers in the Justice Department ... it would not accept anonymous tips, [but] it assured those who came forward that their identity would be held in the "strictest confidence" ... But in an email sent out today, the committee inadvertently sent the email addresses of all the would-be whistleblowers to everyone who had written in to the tipline ... included in the "to:" field -- instead of concealing those addresses with a so-called blind carbon copy or "bcc:" ... [including] vice_president@whitehouse.gov ... [so] the email addresses of all the whistleblowers who had written in to the committee tipline was sent to [Dick] Cheney. [more] standingup adds:
The email addresses of two DOJ whistleblowers who are also dKos diarists are there. So are the names of over 173 other people, all of whom trusted John Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee, and all of whose trust has now been betrayed by some Committee staffer who doesn't know either how to create an anonymous email header or how to pick up the phone and call the House IT department to get somebody who does know how to do so to help ... Of course, everyone on this list has a common interest in not leaking their identities. They all wanted confidentiality and secrecy. I am sure the vast majority of the people on that list would never release the names of their fellow whistleblowers. But all it takes is one bad apple -- or one scared apple. [more] FearTheReaper is, uhhh, mildly concerned:
This would be an amusing story if it wasn’t so ****ed up. The Democrats have had a tough time getting to the bottom of whatever ******** has been going on at the Justice Department ... So, what to do if you are the committee? You just made a horrendous error that completely ****ed over a lot of people who were tying to do good. How about sending out a second email to recall the original email, that also included everyone’s email address in the “to” field? Will somebody get this ******* away from the computer before he emails porn to his grandma? [more -- site not work-safe!] This CanadianCynic puts it more succinctly:
Dear [fill in recipient here]: You are officially ****ed. [more] Michael Koziarski waxes sarcastic:
Good thing it's impossible to figure out who people are from their email address. [more] John Walkenbach is wise after the event:
For $25/hour, they could have hired a geek who actually knows something about email. [more] While Wolfe snarls:
One of the nice things about Libertarianism is that one can simply say “well, government’s incompetent, let’s have a lot less of it”. And you’ll be right about government being incompetent. Most of the ambitious government projects of both the left and right ... require an activist powerful government. And said government is incompetent. Oh well ... I thought the Congressional Republicans were sluggish, corrupt and incompetent ... But the Democrats are struggling to prove me wrong. [more] emptywheel spins conspiracy theories:
I believe it was just the other day when I was saying it was more urgent to implement whistleblower protection than to write a new journalist shield law ... if we didn't force our whistleblowers to sneak around so much, this wouldn't be the monumental **** up it is ... I will at least entertain (for the moment) that this was deliberate. The Republicans have always hated this tip line--they've been trying to shut it down since Conyers started this ... it would be very smart poker if some disloyal Democratic staffer or a Republican staffer to "accidentally" send Cheney the list of all those who were revealing secrets about DOJ. [more] Slashdotters pile in:
NoTheory: Why exactly do we have to make an IT gaff, even as massive as this one, partisan? Do we know who's staffers actually sent out the email? ... It's not like this wouldn't have happened if Republicans were in charge of the judiciary committee.
HotdogsFolks: This reminds me of that Army guy who "anonymously" complained about the torture of Iraqi prisoners, only be thanked by name by the Secretary of Defense on TV while in an Army canteen in Iraq. The message is clear: if you are a whistleblower, you will regret it.
n6kuy: So here are our options: (1) Incompetence, or (2) Malice. We're screwed. And finally...
The Day The Routers Died [hat tip:
Paul Hoffman]
Buffer overflow:
Storagezilla: When it comes to OS X people never learn Daniel Miessler: Why Operating Systems Matter Dan Farber: Path 101: Starting up in plain sight George Ou: AT&T DSL 1.5 mbps service = 0.3 mbps throughput Pete Scott's Random Notes: Upgrading and patching Joe Wilcox, Microsoft Watch: The Great Double Standard programmer_mike: Why I Hate Multi Media Pt 1 Other Computerworld bloggers:
Johanna Ambrosio: Happy anniversary, Apple!Robert L. Mitchell: Gambling - and losing - on VoIP over DSLShark Tank: Another satisfied customer Douglas Schweitzer: Get even, get fired! Shark Bait: Move your cursor up... Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You too can pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.
Previously in IT Blogwatch:
Leopard reviews spotted; lost weekends ahoy! (and Boston travel)California wildfires: new tech helps victims (and don't read this)Gmail IMAP emerges, makes our day (and ninja milking)