Death By Email Blog

"By Pledging to Give or Raise" Is Not Fund Raising -- They Say

Georgia law forbids state elected officials from fund-raising for state campaigns while the Legislature is in session.  But, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that the law did not prevent Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, a candidate for Governor in 2010, from sending out the following email on January 15th:

Good afternoon.

By pledging to give or raise $20,000.00 by June 30th you have secured a place in Lt. Governor Cagle’s Founders Circle. We are having the first Circle event on Thursday, January 29th from 5:00-6:30 p.m. at Morton’s the Steakhouse downtown. We’ve reserved a private room for cocktails and light fare and hope you will join the Lt. Governor. Please RSVP at your earliest convenience.

Said spokeswoman Rebecca Cummiskey:  The Cagle campaign is aware of and fully complies with Georgia law that prohibits requesting or receiving either pledges of contributions or contributions during the legislative session. The email you reference does not request pledges or contributions during the session, and the campaign does not accept either. The email is simply about a purely social get-together with the Lieutenant Governor and a key group of his advisors.”

White House email system implodes - people have to actually talk

A tip of the hat to the Christian Science Monitor for the best coverage of the White House email outage.  If you did not know, the Microsoft Exchange system at the White House shut down for nearly 24 hours this week.  Here is how the Monitor covered it:

Flintstones, meet the Flintstones.

White House staffers who have complained loudly about the technological limits of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. even went further back in time yesterday with a collapse of the White House email system.

For almost 24 hours, email to and from the White House was stopped. BlackBerrys were dead (except Brickbreaker, of course). Could the administration function?

“Our apologies if you’ve e-mailed any of us in the last two-and-a-half hours. Our e-mail system is not working so well. So our apologies on that, and we’ll endeavor to get you information from earlier in the day, hopefully in a little bit more of a timely manner, if we can get the e-mail to work,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs yesterday unaware that the technological blackout would last for many more hours.

Stone age

So did panic ensue?

Well, people did have to talk to each other. Face to face.

One press assistant in the White House told the Washington Post that things were so desperate that he actually had to meet people in person.

It gets worse. Yesterday’s executive orders signed by the president? Passed out on paper. Things called photocopiers were used. Those pink “While you were out” notes appeared on desks.

Apparently the email system came back to life this morning.

Snail Mail Down To Five Days A Week?

While the volume of email keeps going up and up, the decline in paper mail is hurting the post office.

In testimony in front of a Senate committee, Postmaster General John Potter asked Congress today to drop a requirement to deliver mail six days a week.  He said that the average number of pieces of mail per stop declined from 5.9 in 2000 to 4.8 in 2008.

Since the decline is particularly large in the summer months, the USPS proposes dropping one day per week during the months of June, July and August is "what we're proposing for this summer and probably 2010."  The dropped day may not be Saturday.  Instead, they may drop a day during the week when mail delivery is lower.

When I lived in Canada, we had five day per week delivery.  Not only did I not miss the mail on Saturday, I actually liked not having it delivered.  I did not have a new action item from the mail on a Saturday and I did not need to put my mail on hold if I went away for a long weekend.

(Tip of the hat to my wife for pointing out this story.)

Phishing Attacks From Into Government Jobs Website Hackers

A new phishing attack, which attempts to get personal information from job seekers, led to spam and the shutdown of the New South Wales, Australia government jobs web site.  Hackers reportedly broke into the jobs website, stole information, and sent thousands of emails to job candidates with offers of the "perfect job" -- provided they replied with some more personal data.  Responses could lead to further identity theft.

We do not know exactly what information has been stolen.  A Department of Commerce spokeswoman would not provide any details to the Melbourne Age except to say that the Government was aware that users of jobs.nsw.gov.au "received spam emails advertising a non-existent job vacancy".

It is common for job seekers to upload their resumes to the jobs.nsw.gov.au website when applying for a job.  It is also common for the applicant to include employment history, date of birth, address and phone numbers.  All of this information may now be in the wrong hands.

Steve Turner, assistant secretary of the Public Service Association of NSW, said the incident was of "serious concern" and the Government had a "responsibility to protect everyone's data" by maintaining secure computer systems.  However, Turner said the blame did not lie solely with the Government as "any computer system can be hacked ... even American defense force computers".

You've Got No Email -- White House Edition

The White House's email system -- Microsoft Exchange -- shut down just before 9 a.m. today, leaving the technologically savvy White House to resort to pre-email methods.

The "last email sent by the White House was at 8:51 a.m.," Christina Bellantoni, a White House correspondent for The Washington Times. reported. As a result, she added, "they had to distribute two memoranda [on 8 1/2-by-14-inch] paper."  According to Ms. Bellantoni, "BlackBerries are not working, the 'entire system' is down and has been down for hours."

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs announced the technical snafu at his 1:30 p.m. briefing, apologizing to the media for the email silence.

The one thing that was not mentioned was whether official business was being conducted on Gmail.  The Bush White House was accused of doing that, possibly to avoid the Presidential Records Act.  The investigation is still going on.  This time, it looks like they will stick to the rules.

As to other, more sophisticated communications equipment at the White House -- including systems that might be found in the Situation Room -- an aide said: "We don't comment on security issues."  (Washington Post)

Iowa Trooper On Leave For Offensive Anti-Obama Email

Kudos to the Iowa Department of Public Safety for taking such swift and deliberate action in an email abuse case.

Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Rodney Hicok of Fort Dodge -- a man with more than 20 years of experience -- was placed on paid leave last week because he is suspected of forwarding offensive emails on Friday, January 16th.  these messages contained disparaging remarks in relation to 15 mug shots in which all the individuals are wearing Barack Obama t-shirts or other campaign propaganda.  The subject line was: "The new fashion statement for mugshots!" 

The Des Moines Register reported Friday that an accompanying note says: "I've seen some 'unique individuals' aka S---HEADS wearing these type shirts myself He has quite a fan base. Nice to know that the low-lifes are getting involved in politics now."

While people are entitled to their private opinions -- no matter what they are -- Hicok is alleged to have forwarded the e-mail while on duty and from a state email account, which is a violation of department policy. If found guilty of violating policy, Hicok could face a range of penalties including departmental reprimand and dismissal.

Iowa Public Safety Commissioner Gene Meyer said initial inquiries turned up enough evidence that the email "emanated from" Hicok to trigger his placement on leave while the agency's professional standards bureau investigates. 

Kudos to Meyer for taking the issue seriously and for working quickly.  He took action in less than a week.

Obama's Chance To Open Government

With the inaugurationn upon us, I hope it will be a time to get past the paranoia of the Bush Administration to an era of more openness.  Just last Friday the Bush administration submitted papers argued that a federal court has no authority to require the offices of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the National Security Council to preserve all of their email.

Bush left behind vast gaps in the most sensitive White House email records.  These records, which some estimate as millions of emails which, in some cases, cover entire days, could help us understand how we got involved in the Iraq War and our current economic crisis.

It is hard to imagine that one of the last acts of the Bush Administration was to block the preservation of critical email records.

President Obama has an opportunity to usher in a new era.  If he can't undo the damage of deleted emails from the past, he can ensure that no more emails will be hidden in the future.  Instead of being subject to a political process, emails can be treated as real records and subject to the same rules.  For example, after an appropriate period for national security, emails can be released to the National Archives.

I am as excited as many people about a new era that President Obama can usher in.  Open government is an important step.

Lycos Europe Shutting Down Email Service

In this economy, we all know about retail stores shutting down.  But, what about those unprofitable free email services?  How safe is your personal email address?  Will you be able to use it next month? 

Well, I have now seen the first shutdown of an entire branded email service -- without the shutdown or sale of the company. 

If you have Lycos Europe email, it is reported that your email address and all the email sitting on the email server will be gone. Lycos Europe is also reportedly shutting down the Tripod web hosting service and will be deleting all the data and websites still using the system.

Here is a copy of a message sent to Lycos users and reprinted in Blogstorm:

Dear User,

We regret to inform you that our parent company has decided to discontinue all unprofitable activities.

One of the activities that will be discontinued is our E-mail business division. For this reason, we are hereby terminating your account as of 15 February 2009. Currently, we are still working on finding a solution to provide you the service through another provider. If we should succeed to do so, we will inform you within the next 4 weeks. But as this is currently doubtful, we would like to ask you to assume the end of the service.

Prior to this date, you may continue to log in to your e-mail account and receive and send mail as usual. After this date, however, we will close your account and delete all content and access authorizations stored with Lycos in relation to your e-mail account, in accordance with legal requirements.

You will then no longer be able to receive or send e-mail under your e-mail address. The contents of your mailbox will also no longer be accessible. For this reason, we ask that you back up all important data from your Lycos e-mail account in the next few days and switch to another e-mail provider.

Should you still be entitled to services for any additional paid options, we will of course reimburse the balance to the bank account you provided.

We regret this measure and would like to thank you for the trust you have placed in us.

Kind regards,

Your LYCOS Mail Team

Sex, Drugs and Broadcom Stock -- All In The Same Email!

Few people in high-tech were as high flying and hard crashing as as Broadcom's billionaire CEO Henry T. Nicholas III.  But, in an email that can now be used as evidence in his trial, we can see how far he allegedly fell.  It is hard to be more damaging than the following:

"I am still suffering from the effects of going 'cold turkey' [off drugs] but I'm getting better.  The worst part is seeing the company falling apart because I am not fully functioning.  However, I don't care about Broadcom anymore, I just feel like a liar to the people I am recruiting into new positions ... because I am potentially fucking some things up this week that will be irreparably damaging.  Fortunately, those results take at least a year to show up on our financial performance.  However, I am willing to lie and bullshit to get key people in place so that I can extract myself from Broadcom as soon as possible."

Nicholas had sought to keep the incriminating email out of court, arguing it was a personal communication to his ex-wife and therefore privileged information.  However, U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney said Nicholas can not claim privilege, because the email was composed on a Broadcom computer without password protection; that it was circulated among several Broadcom employees and well-known to federal investigators; and that it was described in an Nov. 15, 2008, article in the  Orange County Register.

"The court cannot keep secret what is already public,” Carney wrote in a ruling unsealed yesterday.

Nicholas, chief executive officer of Broadcom from 1991 to 2003, and William Ruehle, Broadcom’s former chief financial officer, have pleaded not guilty to 21 criminal counts of conspiring to misreport $2.2 billion in employee stock options at the Irvine chip making company.

But, the entire matter reads like a TV soap opera.  Vanity Fair magazine, in an article entitled "Dr. Nicholas and Mr. Hyde," described Nicholas' parade of prostitutes, the spiking of clients’ drinks with Ecstasy, and the secret lair he built underneath the Orange County mansion he shared with his wife and kids. 

“He wanted to live above ground with his wife and three children, with the option to go below ground to immerse himself in his cocaine, ecstasy, Viagra, speed, prostitutes, and party friends,” alleged the contractors who helped build what they called “the Lair.”  (Photo by Mark Boster/L.A. Times.)

Don't miss this story.  (Tip of the Hat to Josh Kopelman.)

Press Send In Your Sleep?

Wake up in the middle of the night?  We have all heard of sleep walking.  And, many people talk in their sleep.  But, perhaps you should check your outbox for unusual messages.  An article will soon appear in the journal Sleep Medicine that details the experience of a sleepwalker who actually sent strange messages while seemingly to be sound asleep, according to the New York Times.

More seriously, sending email while sleeping really interests neurologists who thought that activities like sleepwalking were limited to gross motor skills -- not actions that require cognitive processes.  In this case, a woman not only composed messages, she navigated past two separate levels of password security to reach the email software.

The patient suffered from severe insomnia and was taking zolpidem, which is marketed under various brand names, the best known of which is Ambien. She decided on her own to increase her daily dose to 15 milligrams, from the 10 milligrams prescribed by her doctor, to counteract what she perceived as diminished efficacy of the drug over time.

Later, she received a call from a friend, asking about a strange email message that the patient had sent the caller the previous night. She had no memory of having done so. When the patient checked the computer and looked at a folder containing her sent messages, she discovered that three that had gone out within eight minutes the previous night while she was asleep, all with unusual capitalization, punctuation and language. “!HELP ME P-LEEEEESE” was the subject of one message, an invitation for “dinner & drinks,” and the message also implored the recipient to “come TOMORROW AND SORT THIS HELL HOLE Out!!!!!!”