Taliban Spokesman Accidentally Copies Mailing List On Press Release Email

from the oops dept

Fri, Nov 16th 2012 2:37pm — Timothy Geigner

You know that mistake you make, where you want to send an email to a bunch of people, typically annoying chain letters about finding love next week if they forward it to twenty people immediately (luck doesn't just wait around, you know), but you don't want to expose all of your friends' and family's emails so you blind copy everyone...except you didn't. Now you're the jackass sending emails with forty addresses listed and your grandmother hates you for spamming her?

"Why is my grandson trying to help me find love? I'm 200 years old."
Image source: CC BY 2.0

Well, funny story: it turns out that one of the few things we freedom-loving folks in the States have in common with our Taliban enemies is an amusing incapacity to check to whom we're sending our emails. Take a look at the oops Taliban spokesperson, Qari Yousef Ahmedi, made when he accidentally CC'd, rather than BCC'd, the Taliban's mailing list on a press release email this past Saturday.

In a Dilbert-esque faux pas, a Taliban spokesperson sent out a routine email last week with one notable difference. He publicly CC'd the names of everyone on his mailing list. The names were disclosed in an email by Qari Yousuf Ahmedi, an official Taliban spokesperson, on Saturday. The email was a press release he received from the account of Zabihullah Mujahid, another Taliban spokesperson. Ahmedi then forwarded Mujahid's email to the full Taliban mailing list, but rather than using the BCC function, or blind carbon copy which keeps email addresses private, Ahmedi made the addresses public.

I'm sure years from now, when the CIA has once again employed the Taliban to fight on our behalf against the Chinese-Australian-Alien Alliance, we'll all look back on this and have a nice laugh, but there's no understating that this is a massive screw up. Sure, most of the folks on the distribution list were journalists, but exposing their names that way, particularly for those that are working within Afghanistan, isn't a good thing. Besides that, not all the people who were exposed were journalists.

[The list] also includes an address appearing to belong to a provincial governor, an Afghan legislator, several academics and activists, an l Afghan consultative committee, and a representative of Gulbuddein Hekmatar, an Afghan warlord whose outlawed group Hezb-i-Islami is believed to be behind several attacks against coalition troops.

Somehow I don't see this making the Taliban brass very happy. And Senator Joe Lieberman wants internet services to block Taliban messages? Why? Let them keep making these kind of mistakes.

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Filed Under: cc, email, taliban

16 Comments

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Atkray (profile), 16 Nov 2012 @ 2:04pm

Attn. Senator Lieberman
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Napoleon Bonaparte
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sehlat (profile), 16 Nov 2012 @ 3:00pm

Senator Lieberman Is A Terrorist Sympathizer
After all, he IS trying to help them. :)
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Anonymous, 16 Nov 2012 @ 3:05pm

I don't believe a word of this.
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Beta (profile), 16 Nov 2012 @ 3:11pm

Allah Karre
Thank goodness they aren't nearly smart enough to make a mistake like this on purpose.
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Pixelation, 16 Nov 2012 @ 3:30pm

In other news...
Taliban spokesperson found hanging by genitals.
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Paul Renault (profile), 16 Nov 2012 @ 3:37pm

Well-troden territory - The Terrorist as Gumby. (No, not the plasticine figurine.)
Bruce Schneier, Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot
http://www.schneier.com/essay-174.html

Byman & Fair, The Case for Calling Them Nitwits
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-case-for-calling-them-nitwits/30813 0/

Max Fisher, The Incompetent Terrorist
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/05/the-incompetent-terrorist/56272/

Tim Harford, Dumb Bomb
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_undercover_economist/2007/07/dumb_bomb.html

..as well as many other essays.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2012 @ 4:14pm

Not to mention being in trouble for forwarding a copyrighted press release...
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2012 @ 6:48pm
  
  Re:
  copyrighted press release...
  
  moron !!!
  
  so the press are not allowed to you know,, print this release (RELEASE) and make many copies of it to publish in their own forum ??
  
  you know what 'release' means ??
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  - btrussell (profile), 17 Nov 2012 @ 7:20am
    
    Re: Re:
    Same thing it does when a band releases a new album?
    
    Or when there is a new movie released?
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CD (profile), 16 Nov 2012 @ 4:27pm

This will go unnoticed. The Government, including the CIA, are too busy having wet daydreams about affairs than caring about terrorist attacks and platter served intel.
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ECA (profile), 16 Nov 2012 @ 4:32pm

humans...
Lets think abit, as we dont have SOME info on this..

HOW to Pass the problems to PEOPLE we need to get rid of..
Fake an email from a known group, to those we DONT want around or need to embarrass..

Nothing new, its been done before, lets do it again.
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Mike, 16 Nov 2012 @ 5:10pm

Alien
I look forward to joining the Chinese - Australian - Alien alliance. MRE to include good Yum Cha.
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justok (profile), 16 Nov 2012 @ 6:04pm

Gonna go watch Four Lions
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2012 @ 6:41pm

stop the bloodshed !!! outlaw religion
stop the bloodshed !!! outlaw religion
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rosspruden (profile), 17 Nov 2012 @ 12:58am

Dear Qari,

I've constantly asked you to remove my name from your mailing list, and now every Afghan Warlord, jihadi nutjob and newbie activist knows my name and email. In the world of Google search, that's all most people need to drop a smart bomb through my doggy door (poor little puppy). With friends like you...

Even though it's too late for me, remember: http://bccplease.com/

Hugs and kisses from my afterlife compound of 72 Virgins,

Ohjes al-Dyesoon
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Jordan, 19 Nov 2012 @ 7:33pm

Grandma
That photo is actually of my grandma, who never used a computer in her life, and would never be able to comprehend this article, or how to comment on it. But if she figured out how to comment on it she would likely have said "to heck with you"
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