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posted by on Thursday February 02 2017, @03:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the Re-Re-Re-Fwd-Re-Reply-All dept.

The NHS reply-all email fail last year involved 500 million emails being sent across the health service's network in just 75 minutes.

A test message sent on 14 November to what an unfortunate "senior associate ICT delivery facilitator" thought was a local distribution list she had created instead went to all 850,000 people with an NHSmail email account. The blank message, sent early in the morning with a subject line that simply read "test", was sent to a distribution list called "CroydonPractices". Around 80 irritated folk promptly hit "reply" to demand they be removed from the list – which was when the meltdown began.

[...] "A software configuration error meant that the system applied an 'All England' rule rather than one including only the administrator's organisation," continued the report on the snafu. "The administrator would not have known that this had occurred."

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/31/nhs_reply_all_email_fail_half_billion_messages/

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @04:08AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @04:08AM (#461878)

    Off topic but the line

    Around 80 irritated folk promptly hit "reply" to demand they be removed from the list – which was when the meltdown began.

    Made me think of this

    Q: How many internet usenet subscribers does it take to change a light bulb?

    A: 748
    1 to change the light bulb and to post to the newsgroup that the light bulb has been changed
    27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs
    53 to flame the spell checkers,
    156 to write to the ng administrator complaining about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this newsgroup
    41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames
    109 to post that this ng is not about light bulbs and to please take this exchange to alt.lite.bulb
    27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs
    14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly and to post corrected URLs
    12 to flame the AOL users for violating netiquette and blame them for starting this whole thing
    45 posts about whether or not AOL should even be allowed to exist
    4 to post 30 possible true identities of the one who changed the bulb
    33 to take all posts to date, quote them in their entirety (including all headers and footers), and add "Me Too"
    12 to post to that they are leaving because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy
    19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three"
    4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ
    1 to propose new newsgroup, alt.lite.bulb.change
    47 to say this is just what alt.physic.coldfusion was meant for and to leave it there
    143 votes for alt.lite.bulb

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +5  
       Insightful=1, Funny=4, Total=5
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday February 02 2017, @10:18AM

    by driverless (4770) on Thursday February 02 2017, @10:18AM (#461947)

    was sent to a distribution list called "CroydonPractices"

    Croydon practices? Like facelifts, that sort of thing?

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @10:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @10:25AM (#461948)

    Some things never change (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02, @04:08AM (#461878)

    Off topic but the line

    Around 80 irritated folk promptly hit "reply" to demand they be removed from the list – which was when the meltdown began.

    Made me think of this

    Q: How many internet usenet subscribers does it take to change a light bulb?

    A: 748

    1 to change the light bulb and to post to the newsgroup that the light bulb has been changed

    27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs

    53 to flame the spell checkers,

    156 to write to the ng administrator complaining about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this newsgroup

    41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames

    109 to post that this ng is not about light bulbs and to please take this exchange to alt.lite.bulb

    27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs

    14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly and to post corrected URLs

    12 to flame the AOL users for violating netiquette and blame them for starting this whole thing

    45 posts about whether or not AOL should even be allowed to exist

    4 to post 30 possible true identities of the one who changed the bulb

    33 to take all posts to date, quote them in their entirety (including all headers and footers), and add "Me Too"

    12 to post to that they are leaving because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy

    19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three"

    4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ

    1 to propose new newsgroup, alt.lite.bulb.change

    47 to say this is just what alt.physic.coldfusion was meant for and to leave it there

    143 votes for alt.lite.bulb

    Me Too

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @12:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @12:45PM (#461968)

    47 to say this is just what alt.physic.coldfusion was meant for and to leave it there

    That should be alt.physics.coldfusion.

    1 to spell check the joke.

    /going meta