We get emails sent out to the entire company. The email will say in big bold letters not to reply with everyone CCed. People do. Always.
 

Dave

Staff member
There was a big kerfuffle at Apple a few years ago where someone accidentally sent out a message to all employees. The problem wasn't people replying all back, the problem was that their Out Of Office messages did not differentiate between a new or repeat email. So if you sent a person 100 emails you'd get back 100 OOO messages.

So this person sent out a message to everyone in the company. The X number of people who were out of the office sent everyone an OOO message...who then got OOO messages back, which caused them to send out an OOO message to each recipient again. It grew very quickly and melted their servers.

Basically, bad architecture caused a simple email chain to act like a worm, which took down the email for the entire company for a few days (it may have been a whole week).
 

GasBandit

Staff member
There was a big kerfuffle at Apple a few years ago where someone accidentally sent out a message to all employees. The problem wasn't people replying all back, the problem was that their Out Of Office messages did not differentiate between a new or repeat email. So if you sent a person 100 emails you'd get back 100 OOO messages.

So this person sent out a message to everyone in the company. The X number of people who were out of the office sent everyone an OOO message...who then got OOO messages back, which caused them to send out an OOO message to each recipient again. It grew very quickly and melted their servers.

Basically, bad architecture caused a simple email chain to act like a worm, which took down the email for the entire company for a few days (it may have been a whole week).
Meanwhile, every sane e-mail system (all the ones I've used/administrated, including our current Google Gmail for business solution) only replies directly to the sender with the OOO notification.
 
Meanwhile, every sane e-mail system (all the ones I've used/administrated, including our current Google Gmail for business solution) only replies directly to the sender with the OOO notification.
That would not have been enough. You still would've had a situation like the one described since the OOO people would've continued to bombard each other (individually) with OOO messages.
It's an interesting idea for a DDoS, though.

--Patrick
 
Reminds me of when one of the PhDs at my old job left for a sabbatical, and instead of using OOO simply set an MS Outlook rule to reply to every single e-mail she received with an "sorry not here" message.

After the second or third institution-wide e-mail chain, the CIO called me and had me unplug that computer :p
 
Yeah, i'm good thanks.

I'm pretty far north of the epicentre of the quake so compared to what they experienced down south what I felt was pretty minor.
It's actually the first earthquake I have ever felt. This area is very stable.

I actually thought something was wrong with me at first since I could detect something funny going on before I really picked up on things moving. I thought that maybe I was just getting dizzy :)
 

figmentPez

Staff member
That would not have been enough. You still would've had a situation like the one described since the OOO people would've continued to bombard each other (individually) with OOO messages.
Even assuming that people with OOO messages are sending emails to people with OOO messages (why are you sending email if you're out of the office?), that's still only an infinite chain of back and forth emails, not an exponentially growing chain reaction.
 
They've been good while I on my extended sick leave, but I would get calls and urgent emails on my sick days and vacation :(

If I didn't respond quickly enough, I'd get bombarded on my personal phone.
 
Even assuming that people with OOO messages are sending emails to people with OOO messages (why are you sending email if you're out of the office?), that's still only an infinite chain of back and forth emails, not an exponentially growing chain reaction.
That's...exactly what I said, yes.

--Patrick
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Somewhere there is a parallel dimension where the Gas Bandit was born female. That's the only difference, and of course, that means that instead of what you guys are used to, she just keeps posting THESE kinds of pictures.

 
Somewhere there is a parallel dimension where the Gas Bandit was born female. That's the only difference, and of course, that means that instead of what you guys are used to, she just keeps posting THESE kinds of pictures.

Fucking Walmart axe. Back to the gym roidy.
 

fade

Staff member
So, uh, some, uh guy I know found a zip file with nearly every NES rom ever made in it, and it's amazing how many movie and TV tie-ins there were in that era. Even bad syndicated shows. Like Time Trax. "My only weapons are badly executed martial arts and shooting car keys from the future which for some reason I never just use right off the bat."
 

GasBandit

Staff member
So, uh, some, uh guy I know found a zip file with nearly every NES rom ever made in it, and it's amazing how many movie and TV tie-ins there were in that era. Even bad syndicated shows. Like Time Trax. "My only weapons are badly executed martial arts and shooting car keys from the future which for some reason I never just use right off the bat."
Wow, I have no idea where anybody could find a file like that.
 
Somewhere there is a parallel dimension where the Gas Bandit was born female. That's the only difference, and of course, that means that instead of what you guys are used to, she just keeps posting THESE kinds of pictures.

. . . That's actually been the case for most of the dimensions I've slided through.
 
Every year the people in the office lottery pool use their winnings to have a meal of cheap Chinese food and pop.

Every year when they have this meal I eat steak, using the money I saved by not joining their lottery pool.


It's medium rare and delicious!
 
Nearly every Friday I would go to my local small village diner and order their steak. But they have under cooked it the last couple of times that I've been there. Last time it was seared well but raw (not rare) in the middle for a medium rare order.

It really is a shame. I hate giving up on a restaurant that I really like for other meals.
 
Somewhere there is a parallel dimension where the Gas Bandit was born female. That's the only difference, and of course, that means that instead of what you guys are used to, she just keeps posting THESE kinds of pictures.

Somewhere there is an alternate universe where the Gas Bandit was born male and keeps posting these kinds of pics.
But we don't judge him for that.

--Patrick
 
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