Reply all. Take me off this email chain.
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2025
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I was working at a large company, and an external party that pretty much everyone in the industry was working with, sent out a regular blast email to all its users about the industry. Unfortunately, they CC'd everyone. What ensued was an infinite loop of out-of-office replies being sent to everyone. I came back from lunch and I had over 500 emails in my inbox, and they kept coming. IT had to step in to put an end to it. Pretty funny to watch in real time.
I think we auto block emails with more than 50 recipients. The only exception I think is the union who are allowed to email as many people as they like since they complained.
That's funny because that happened to me not long ago. Sitting at my desk and bing but I'm doing something else so I ignore it but a few minutes later it's ringing so much you'd think I had suddenly become a celebrity.
Someone opened some sort of help ticket but managed to email tens of thousands of employees. And there were >300 emails within just a few minutes, all saying something along the lines of "unsubscribe me from this list". People are so dumb.
Then there was some sort of status update 15 mins or so later that started the whole thing again.
I was working for an international company that was very modular.
At a large event, they sent out an update to all attendees. Due to the way the internal mailing list worked, replies were sent to everyone on the list.
All the non-english language mailboxes were set up with an automatic reply that detects the language and replies along the lines of "we speak French, if you need to contact us in English, please contact...".
The event update was in English.
The mail system was down for about an hour.
After the initial rush, I'm pretty sure there were also "we speak French, if you need to contact us in Spanish, please contact..."
The power of BCC (always use BCC for mass mails).
If the distribution list is set up properly that won't work unfortunately.
You have been arrested by the FBI for “DDOS”
Me too!
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Yeah, the IT folks in charge of that are doing so at gunpoint. Had someone do that at a giant size corp and the chain of events goes like this.
Email to all gets sent
A few people wonder why they are getting messages not related to their role and reply all to be taken off a list.
Those reply-all get replicated to the same few hundred thousand boxes causing stress on the system.
You well meaning college sends out a reminder via reply-all that you shouldn't reply-all.
Because those few transactions created somewhere in the order of 2-3 million emails in a short time the servers have a backed up que to chew through causing some people to get things out of order, so maybe they get a 'take me off the list' after the fist 'stop replying all', now this person decides to help reinforce the 'stop replying all' with their own message of the same.
Rinse and repeat until the servers are entirely unable to operate and you need to find a way to flush the cache.
BONUS: Because this is the federal government you can bet that several entities they have contracts with would have automatic relays to distribute incoming messages to required teams for quick responses, so there's a good chance the effect bleeds into private businesses too because Donnie & Musky will demand that ALL means everyone in the federal contacts list.
This man does not bcc
A majority of corporate idiots don’t bcc. That’s why the above happens a lot.
There’s a way in most email environments to setup a mail flow rule that will convert any email with over x number of users CC’d to BCC.
The system must handle the idiots, not the other way around
Interesting. I’ve never seen that, but I haven’t worked in a company where I’ve needed to send to more than, at most, 15 people at a time.
Probably should be a standard default setting. I wonder what the case for not doing this is? If someone needs to see who is in a group they can usually just open the group in their client and view the emails.
"why tf did stupid outlook convert my 400 CC's to BCC THEY SHOULD RESPECT THE USER'S CHOICE
I'd rather a system that weeds out the idiots
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I'm going to flag every suspicious email i see as a phishing attempt. That's why I take a mandatory federal training every year on cybersecurity.
This will hit a dead end as soon as Trump sends classified intelligence in an "All Hands" email.
BCC: vlad
He already used Twitter to leak classified spy satellite info. Or discussing Israeli intelligence with Russia in a meeting, or posting a video of himself with Seal team 5 with unblurred faces.
I guess what I'm saying is that Trump spreads enough classified information without email.
Next headline: "Trump administration being blocked by every ISP for spammy behaviour"
Wow they're going to send an email that's amazing.
A modern marvel. Isn't it amazing what they can do these days?
Mark as spam
Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed
Behold, LISTSERV
Trump: Major Domo? Never heard of him! I think he just gets coffee.
Don’t mention their name else their lawyers will come after you and your children for licensing.
I don't understand why they even needed this.
I assume the US Federal Government works like other jurisdiction where the message is passed to all the departments/agencies who then send it to their employees from someone on high (Deputy Minister/Secretary) or a dedicated internal email address.
While this may seem like duplicating work dozens or hundreds of times, it's not that much work and it's not used that often. Plus, it has the advantage of not coming from an external email address.
Elon Musk thinks he's very important
if you think that he is not, you're mistaken
i hope he dies in 3 days, counting from yesterday
North Korea has radios that play state-sanctioned propaganda and it's illegal to turn them off. Dictators like to cram messages directly into the people.
This is so Elon Musk can send out "morale boost" emails about working very hardcore.
Thats exactly how it works right now....really interested to see how they plan to use this...
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He's gonna be asking for campaign contributions and selling his meme coin?
"Whenever I'm not in your email, people should ask where's Trump" - Trump, probably
Note: Trump died on the way back to his home planet
god that would be wonderful.
Better way for the dictator in chief to directly control the government with his latest whim and completely skip congress or any other people actually in charge.
"Hi Abidan, it's Don. I need you to pick up some Amazon gift cards for me."
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Just CC or BCC everyone duhh
CC and that one dude who hits "relply all"...
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