Taliban Spokesman Accidentally Copies Mailing List On Press Release Email

from the oops dept

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?

Grandma
"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


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

    Attn. Senator Lieberman

    Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

    Napoleon Bonaparte

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    sehlat (profile), 16 Nov 2012 @ 3:00pm

    Senator Lieberman Is A Terrorist Sympathizer

    After all, he IS trying to help them. :)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous, 16 Nov 2012 @ 3:05pm

    I don't believe a word of this.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Pixelation, 16 Nov 2012 @ 3:30pm

    In other news...

    Taliban spokesperson found hanging by genitals.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2012 @ 4:14pm

    Not to mention being in trouble for forwarding a copyrighted press release...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Mike, 16 Nov 2012 @ 5:10pm

    Alien

    I look forward to joining the Chinese - Australian - Alien alliance. MRE to include good Yum Cha.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    justok (profile), 16 Nov 2012 @ 6:04pm

    Gonna go watch Four Lions

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2012 @ 6:41pm

    stop the bloodshed !!! outlaw religion

    stop the bloodshed !!! outlaw religion

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    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 ??

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. icon
    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

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. icon
    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?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    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"

    link to this | view in thread ]


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