March 9, 2004
Tax Truth Spam Hits Wisconsin State Agencies Hard
Tax Truth Spam Hits Wisconsin State Agencies Hard
An ambitious citizen involved in the tax truth movement made the news recently for allegedly targeting e-mail addresses of all state employees with a provocative email. The message apparently caused enough of a stir, being received multiple times by state employees, that it caught the attention of Tom Sheehan - a government reporter. The full story is available below. We have also included the original email message that was inadvertently circulated multiple times by state employees creating the stir.
It comes again and again and again and again and
Tom Sheehan State government reporter
Source: http://www.madison.com/wisconsinstatejournal/local/67570.php
Think you've got too much spam at home?
Consider the 540,000 or so repetitions of a single e-mail message that were floating around state offices last weekend.
The subject line was: "The IRS has an Income Tax Problem." A tax protester apparently targeted e-mail addresses of all state employees, sending some employees the same e-mail multiple times on Feb. 1, said Werner Gade, who oversees e-mail administrators for the Department of Administration.
The problem was compounded when some employees replied to the message, unwittingly sending it back again to the entire list of state employees, said Dave Hinrichs, deputy chief information officer for the department.
Some state government e-mail administrators last weekend kicked into overtime to clear the hundreds of thousands of extraneous e-mails.
Some legislative staffers at the Capitol reported receiving the message dozens of times in recent weeks. And the message may still be working its way out of the system as individual users delete it from their accounts, Hinrichs said.
Some private companies and other government agencies also reported receiving the message.
Access to the list has been restricted to prevent further distribution within the department, Henrichs said. Other state agencies have had to deal with the problem individually, however, because there is no central state e-mail server, Hinrichs said.
Gade said he did not know how the addresses were acquired, but some senders of spam use programs that search for e-mail addresses on large servers. He said that he doesn't believe there is anything illegal about sending the messages.
Source: http://www.madison.com/wisconsinstatejournal/local/67570.php
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An ambitious citizen involved in the tax truth movement made the news recently for allegedly targeting e-mail addresses of all state employees with a provocative email. The message apparently caused enough of a stir, being received multiple times by state employees, that it caught the attention of Tom Sheehan - a government reporter. The full story is available below. We have also included the original email message that was inadvertently circulated multiple times by state employees creating the stir.
It comes again and again and again and again and
Tom Sheehan State government reporter
Source: http://www.madison.com/wisconsinstatejournal/local/67570.php
Think you've got too much spam at home?
Consider the 540,000 or so repetitions of a single e-mail message that were floating around state offices last weekend.
The subject line was: "The IRS has an Income Tax Problem." A tax protester apparently targeted e-mail addresses of all state employees, sending some employees the same e-mail multiple times on Feb. 1, said Werner Gade, who oversees e-mail administrators for the Department of Administration.
The problem was compounded when some employees replied to the message, unwittingly sending it back again to the entire list of state employees, said Dave Hinrichs, deputy chief information officer for the department.
Some state government e-mail administrators last weekend kicked into overtime to clear the hundreds of thousands of extraneous e-mails.
Some legislative staffers at the Capitol reported receiving the message dozens of times in recent weeks. And the message may still be working its way out of the system as individual users delete it from their accounts, Hinrichs said.
Some private companies and other government agencies also reported receiving the message.
Access to the list has been restricted to prevent further distribution within the department, Henrichs said. Other state agencies have had to deal with the problem individually, however, because there is no central state e-mail server, Hinrichs said.
Gade said he did not know how the addresses were acquired, but some senders of spam use programs that search for e-mail addresses on large servers. He said that he doesn't believe there is anything illegal about sending the messages.
Source: http://www.madison.com/wisconsinstatejournal/local/67570.php
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