The Navy Launches a Denial-of-Service Attack on Itself

I am currently suffering through a textbook example of what happens when idiots are faced with spam. In my case, every individual in the US Navy with a last name of Berrios - Dieter was emailed that dumb "Bill Gates will pay you for forwarding this!" scam. This particular email has been in circulation since 2004, and is carrying with it a history of email addresses so long that the message body itself is 9 MB in size.

Understandably, we all feel ticked off and harassed for having to put up with this email. Incredibly, people feel the need to "Reply All" and to tell everyone else how ticked off and harassed they are. INFURIATINGLY, they keep the original message in the reply so that I now have twenty 9 MB emails trying to squeeze through my already taxed email server. We are launching a denial-of-service attack on ourselves. I'm sure the Chinese couldn't be prouder.

I have deleted most of them, but being that I can't do much else while this is going on, I figured I would share some of these thoughtful insights that employees of the world's most powerful Navy deemed important enough to share:

"So now I have to hear from each one of you that this is a scam?!?!?!?!? Just STOP, delete it and let it be!!!!!!! You are wasting valuable DoD time!!!!"

"Stop this, it overloads Outlook."

"All, Do not respond the this hoax email! Maybe the sender should do some research before they send a mass email such as this. This is a hoax!! Read the following at: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/microsoft-aol.asp or http://www.hoax-slayer.com/ms-money-giveway-hoax.html and many others, if they would do some research. Also, sending mass emails, such as this, is a violation of the NMCI user agreement."

"PLEASE stop hitting "reply to all." You're clogging up the system more than the original garbage did. Thanks in advance."

"This is bogus. I remember getting this same junk email about two or three years ago. I don't believe it has resurfaced."

"ALL, Please do NOT act on the email sent to you. This is TOTALLY fake, hoax, scam, urban legend. Please read the following from Snopes = http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/microsoft-aol.asp. All you've done is spread spam email...which is one of the goals of the originator who came up with the hoax."

"Remove me from this list. Don't resend. NMCI notified. "

"DO NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT SEND THIS TO ME. You people have clogged up my email several times now. I've reported this to NMCI. Take me OFF this list. Thanks"

"Whoever has me on their distro list take me off now. I am tired of my inbox filling up with this crap. Last time I checked mass spamming is not authorized. Quit hitting reply to all..... "

"Do NOT reply to all on this list. This email is bogus and if this continues, action will be taken."

Note that most of these individuals came to the prescient conclusion that Replying All was in fact causing the majority of our ills, but that conclusion could not in itself prevent them from also clicking on Reply All.

It is worthwhile to note that some of the individuals making these replies are in positions of considerable influence, and these individuals, who couldn't muster the mental fortitude required to think through the consequences of a single email action, most definitely have a hand in the expenditure of millions of taxpayer dollars and responsible for the welfare of our Sailors.