Steve Davies Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 Slightly worrying... from the BBC. Confidential US Air Force (USAF) e-mails, some including flight plans for a presidential visit, have been mistakenly sent to a tourism website. The e-mails were meant to go to the US airbase at RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk, via its website. But instead they went to a town tourism website which had a similar address. The USAF said it had sent out an e-mail advising contacts, family and friends of airmen based at the site to use the correct address. Gary Sinnott, of Mildenhall, set up the website "mildenhall.com" in the late 1990s to promote the town. But by 2001 he was starting to get hundreds of e-mails meant for people at the airbase. The e-mails included jokes, spam, personal information and military information. He said he contacted the base a number of times, but officials told him not to worry about it. But on one occasion, he said, when he told an official at the base about receiving information about presidential flight plans, the official "went nuts". "That kind of information is not meant to be passed out to Joe Public," Mr Sinnott said. He added that another e-mail he received was about US "military procedures and tactics". "It had the notice 'Destroy by any means to prevent capture'," he said. Mr Sinnott has now decided to take his website down to avoid getting these messages. A spokesman for the USAF said: "In 2004, The 100 Communication Squadron advised Mr Sinnott to block unrecognizable addresses from his domain and have an auto-reply sent reminding people of the official Mildenhall domain." So, it's his fault, then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JarheadBoom Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 So, it's his fault, then? Of course it is. How could it possibly be the fault of someone who didn't double-check who he was sending sensitive info to (that probably should've been sent via SIPR anyway)??? Just so there's no misunderstandings, that's a healthy dose of sarcasm... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hercster Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 Can we say COMSEC incident on a near catastrophic level??? No no, that would damage someone's self-esteem. We'll call it a "boo-boo" instead and put an offical AF "Above All" band-aid on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uhhello Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 I'm calling bullshit on this. There is much more to this story than steve posted. He has a running fued going with the 100th. Has anyone ever seen "destroy by any means to prevent capture" in any sort of email? Give me a break. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Davies Posted March 4, 2008 Author Share Posted March 4, 2008 Maybe, UH, but since the Air Force isn't denying it, one can infer that the basic facts are true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Davies Posted March 4, 2008 Author Share Posted March 4, 2008 Has anyone ever seen "destroy by any means to prevent capture" in any sort of email? Give me a break. He's presumably paraphrasing, and it could well be that a dissemination or classification notice was carried within an attached document. I am not suggesting that you are wrong, but I wouldn't discount the veracity of the story so quickly, especially in light of the absence of any denial. Speaking of which, can you expand on this guy's ongoing feud? Interested to know more... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uhhello Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 (edited) He's presumably paraphrasing, and it could well be that a dissemination or classification notice was carried within an attached document. I am not suggesting that you are wrong, but I wouldn't discount the veracity of the story so quickly, especially in light of the absence of any denial. Speaking of which, can you expand on this guy's ongoing feud? Interested to know more... It was in a local paper here. Basically he requested that the base do something and they didn't. He then started making these email claims. The claims were investigated and not found to be damaging or worth any further effort. He didn't like their answer so then started releasing emails he claimed to have received. Base still didn't do what he wanted so now it continues. I believe he had some damage done to some of his property or something of the like and is now on a mission to discredit the USAF in the area. I'm confused as to how someone would actually email this address on accident and how it would even end up there? If someone sends to joe.blow@mildenhal.com, why would the message get through to his site? I'm uneducated on this Al Gore stuff. Edited March 4, 2008 by uhhello Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Davies Posted March 4, 2008 Author Share Posted March 4, 2008 It was in a local paper here. Basically he requested that the base do something and they didn't. He then started making these email claims. The claims were investigated and not found to be damaging or worth any further effort. He didn't like their answer so then started releasing emails he claimed to have received. Base still didn't do what he wanted so now it continues. I believe he had some damage done to some of his property or something of the like and is now on a mission to discredit the USAF in the area. I'm confused as to how someone would actually email this address on accident and how it would even end up there? If someone sends to joe.blow@mildenhal.com, why would the message get through to his site? I'm uneducated on this Al Gore stuff. UH Interesting that the BBC have missed the history between him and the base. I wonder if PA have tried to explain? Regarding the email thing, if he owns the domain www.mildenhall.com, then any email going to that address will go to his 'catch all' email server. Thus, it doesn't matter what you put in front of the @ - if it ends @mildenhall.com instead of @mildenhall.af.mil then he'll receive it. Asking him to disable the catch all facility on his email server is unreasonable given that there are often very valid reasons for having this set-up in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uhhello Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 UH Interesting that the BBC have missed the history between him and the base. I wonder if PA have tried to explain? Regarding the email thing, if he owns the domain www.mildenhall.com, then any email going to that address will go to his 'catch all' email server. Thus, it doesn't matter what you put in front of the @ - if it ends @mildenhall.com instead of @mildenhall.af.mil then he'll receive it. Asking him to disable the catch all facility on his email server is unreasonable given that there are often very valid reasons for having this set-up in the first place. Thanks for the explanation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outbreak Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 I wouldn't think it would be an issue anymore. Didn't we change to a us.af.mil format without the name? shouldn't the emails have stopped? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sky_king Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 Why do I get this feeling that the Air Force is going to try and fix this problem by requiring a 24 character password? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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