Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: Have You Ever Gotten Someone Else's Email? (ieee.org)
Wave723 shares an article from IEEE's Spectrum:
I was scrolling through emails on my phone one recent morning when a strange message appeared among the usual mix of advertisements and morning newsletters. It was a confirmation for an upcoming doctor's appointment in New York City, but came from an address I'd never seen before. And at the top, there was a friendly note: "I guess this is for you :)" The note, I would later learn, was written by a Norwegian named Andre Nordum whose email address is just a few letters different from my own... he'd Googled my name to try to track down my personal email address and forward the message to me.
All day, I thought about Andre's act of digital kindness and the heartwarming fact that a stranger had spent time and effort trying to send me a bit of important information. I also felt a twinge of guilt: I'd received emails in the past -- from car dealerships and daycares -- that were clearly meant for other people, and I'd never forwarded any of them along.
The 33-year-old Norwegian banker later joked that he did it because "I did not want to get emails about your dermatology history for the foreseeable future." But another Norwegian has been returning mis-directed emails for over a decade with mundane stories about the family dog and games of pickleball -- meant for another E. Nordrum.
"It's a little bit like sitting on the bus or overhearing somebody in the restaurant or something," he says, admitting that when they finally stopped coming, "I was a little bit sad, actually." In 2017 the other E. Nordrum flew from America to Norway on a vacation, finally meeting the man who'd been returning all his mis-addressed emails -- and they ended up talking for hours.
The article calls it a reminder "of how downright pleasant it can sometimes be to interact with strangers on the Internet." But it also asks an interesting question: "Do these email mix-ups happen to everyone? " I know I'm still getting emails about a storage space somebody opened 1300 miles away. And Slashdot reader antdude writes, "A few days ago, I got an USC.edu's doctor email (CCed with a few other people) about an upcoming surgery for a transplant. I was like huh?"
How about the rest of Slashdot's readers. Have you ever gotten someone else's email?
All day, I thought about Andre's act of digital kindness and the heartwarming fact that a stranger had spent time and effort trying to send me a bit of important information. I also felt a twinge of guilt: I'd received emails in the past -- from car dealerships and daycares -- that were clearly meant for other people, and I'd never forwarded any of them along.
The 33-year-old Norwegian banker later joked that he did it because "I did not want to get emails about your dermatology history for the foreseeable future." But another Norwegian has been returning mis-directed emails for over a decade with mundane stories about the family dog and games of pickleball -- meant for another E. Nordrum.
"It's a little bit like sitting on the bus or overhearing somebody in the restaurant or something," he says, admitting that when they finally stopped coming, "I was a little bit sad, actually." In 2017 the other E. Nordrum flew from America to Norway on a vacation, finally meeting the man who'd been returning all his mis-addressed emails -- and they ended up talking for hours.
The article calls it a reminder "of how downright pleasant it can sometimes be to interact with strangers on the Internet." But it also asks an interesting question: "Do these email mix-ups happen to everyone? " I know I'm still getting emails about a storage space somebody opened 1300 miles away. And Slashdot reader antdude writes, "A few days ago, I got an USC.edu's doctor email (CCed with a few other people) about an upcoming surgery for a transplant. I was like huh?"
How about the rest of Slashdot's readers. Have you ever gotten someone else's email?
It's been a couple of years (2011), but for a couple of weeks I got multiple emails a day all originating from the Indian branch of a large global travel agency that you've most likely heard of. My gmail address happened to be similar to the name of one of their travel offices, and I guess that's what they were trying to use for their internal emails.
/I immediately deleted all of these emails and their attachments immediate after sending the notice //Always check your recipient address, folks
///And don't send unencrypted JPGs of other people's passports to complete strangers on a gmail account
Not just any emails though -- it would mostly be scans of customer passports and other ID, travel visa applications, etc. Things that should NEVER be sent by email in the first place, let alone to an external free address on hosted a different continent and ESPECIALLY NOT unencrypted..
The first bunch of times I replied with a friendly message pointing out their error, and asked to please make sure to use the right address -- but they kept sending things. The next few dozen notices I sent got progressively less friendly. No change. I briefly considered just ignoring them altogether but felt bad for their customers getting screwed over and having their vacations or other travel plans fall through.
I also send a direct emails to the main email address listed on the website of the travel office explaining the situation, to no avail. The only thing that finally stopped it was sending a nastygram to their UK parent company asking them what kind of Mickey Mouse outfit they were running by their ongoing efforts to send me their confidential customer information despite my continuous reminders not to. Although the emails stopped abruptly after that, even the parent company never acknowledged or replied to my notice. No one ever did.
So... Just keep that in mind should you ever 'need to' hand over your passport to a travel agency or have them help you with a travel visa -- no guarantee that they didn't forward it to a complete stranger using a free mail account on the other side of the planet. A less morally inclined recipient could have REALLY screwed some people over.