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ComputerworldOctober 04, 2007 (Computerworld) -- A Reply All to a daily news roundup that had been e-mailed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to some 7,500 people, including thousands of security professionals, flooded government and business mail servers with over 2 million messages Wednesday.
The gaffe also revealed all subscribers' e-mail addresses, and in some cases other personal information, to other recipients of the DHS bulletin. Some of that information, including telephone numbers and titles of military personnel and government workers, may have been classified.
According to the New York Times, the unintended spam run began when a recipient of the "DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report" hit the Reply All button to transmit an e-mail address change request.
By the end of the day, more than 2 million messages had been generated as recipients also using Reply or Reply All first complained about the spam surge, then added to the flood by mailing offhand comments, humorous remarks or demands that people stop sending messages.
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