Do Not Reply

Plenty of traffic and questions recently, so I figure I will answer them here.

Why did I buy the domain donotreply.com?
No malicious intent at all. Back in 2000, I was buying “wacky” domains for a new mail service -evilemail.com. Those were wacky, crazy bubble days. When you are buying domains like BettyWhiteIsHot.com, Chlamydia-is-not-a-flower.com, and DaddySaysIFrenchKissTheBest.com, DoNotReply.com seems reasonable in comparison. It was meant as a joke, nothing more.

Why did you turn on the catch-all and post the messages?
Our original mail server died under the weight of the messages. Even bouncing emails gets expensive. I was trying to figure out what was going on.

Why don’t you bounce them back?
One reason, because the domain is also used by spammers. So I would just be compounding the problem of spam by bouncing the mail back. We did this back in the day and got blacklisted as a spammer/bad mail server.

Why not contact the people?
I tried that. I spent plenty of time and money only to be accused of this or that, mainly that and that being hacking their mail server.

Is this extortion?
While discussing the issue of a blog post with a lawyer from a fortune 500 company, he asked to compensate me for my time. I was uncomfortable with that so we agreed on a mutual charity, the local pound. The tradition was born.

You actually don’t have to do anything but contact me and I will take it down. The donation is more of a suggestion. Anyone who has contacted me can tell you this is true, I am changing the wording to reflect that.

They are allowed to be removed because I believe people can change, correct their mistakes and learn from these lessons.

Hey you make money off of this!
The adsense on these pages was a habit, not a thought out one . In the life of this site it has made about $500. I have contacted this charity (Cap)about donating that money to them. If all is well, I will donate the money. If there is an issue with that organization, I am open to suggestions (removed adsense to avoid people clicking to help a charity).

Why post them?
Because companies pay lip-service to security and privacy. Most of the companies listed here are giant corporations who should know better, who should have better policies in place. Some even offer services to you for if your credit cards or identity is stolen, yet they aren’t proactive about stopping that from happening.
The problem is, companies don’t always hire the right person for system administration jobs. Look at the horror stories over at thedailywtf. The position of system administrator is often left to hiring someone’s family member who is “good with computers”. It is a job that demands technical excellence, a system admin is not the janitor of the future, stop treating the position like it is. It is a hard job that needs smart people.

And remember, if they are willing to be this careless with your information, where else are they careless? This is a minor, almost silly thing, what happens when it comes to things that are hard? That are expensive? I don’t trust them, do you?

Why don’t you just list all the emails like other sites do?
That was my original thought. But then I read some. Too many contain people’s private information. Innocent people would be hurt by the posting of all the emails.

Don’t you have better things to do with your time?
Like what? Email some guy who posts emails and complain to him he should find something better to do with his life?

You know that problem with L____ P______? His Kevlar/Ballistic Helmet is Unit # L0893__ and his Ballistic Vest is Unit # L198__ Both are in the transit warehouse (at least as of 09/29/2007)

Paying $2.93 per unit for Sauce, Soy, Fermented, 12/20 BT seems a little expensive.

B____ K_____ has been using the Ford F-250 Pick Up lately.

Mohammed took a very dignified picture for his Sri Lanka Driver’s License

If you are looking for the Magnum 5kw lightset at Camp Taji… it is no longer in the tool room area, instead it has been moved to the front gate entrance.

J___ J___ I____’s pay seems decent, but $3,000 R&R pay? Come on, the airline ticket recovery for him is $3,218.86! Give the guy a break, cover his air fare at least.

M____ C____ ordered almost $5,000 worth of portable toilets. Better watch out for this guy, sounds like he is planning a rave.

Get it? I don’t think I need to go on. I have plenty more, and most of it more revealing. Accident reports, job requests, transfers, etc - almost all dealing with people currently stationed in Iraq. I hate Halliburton, I hate them… but the people working in these jobs still deserve our respect and privacy, so I won’t post anymore and have hopefully made these vague enough to not endanger anyone.

But this is ridiculous that a major defense contractor actually sends some of their bounced faxes (all of this info was inside of complete faxes) to a domain they do not own. That puts every single one of these people at risk.

Halliburton is not alone. Plenty of people have started slugging in donotreply.com to their fax systems to avoid dealing with bounces. Come on!

The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is
addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review,
retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon,
this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.
If you received this in error, please contact the sender and destroy any copies of this
document.

Well it is addressed to me… so when Charles B lets them know he had to do the order “in swoop”, is there anything I need to do? Because later Vanessa complains about swoop not letting her do something… so what is swoop? It sounds like a code word for the bird flu. Or maybe, unlike brighthouse, the kids at cinbell ain’t so bright. While I have made my share of typos, this email from a cinbell employee makes me cry (and not just for replying to the original email).

YES THEIR IS AN ORDER OUT THEIR FOR SWOOP AS WELL AS COCRIS. I SENT THE SAME THING TO YOU YESTERDAY ?

But I will give her credit for being consistent. She later replies to an email with;
THIS IS THE THIRD TIME I HAVE SENT THIS… ACCORDING TO THE SWOOP ORDER IS DOES NOT HAVE
THE CORRECT ORDER NUMBER ON IT BUT AS YOU CAN SEE THEIR IS AN ORDER OUT THEIR AND IT HAS
THE SAME TN#, THE SAME DUE DATE, THE SAME NAME…. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO WITH
THIS… I DON’T KNOW WHY SWOOP CANNOT SEE THIS ORDER ? HELP !!

I too wonder why swoop cannot see this order. But even more, I have to wonder why their internal system sends me all their bounced emails. Why they decided to share all their private customer data with me? Maybe I can write swoop and it will give me the answers?