[LINK] another email bungle - Victoria

[Jan Whitaker]

This one is hilarious:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/10/08/1191695823667.html
Anger at new email blunder
Paul Austin
October 9, 2007

SENSITIVE emails to a senior state Liberal MP 
about Parliament's inquiry into the gaming 
industry have been wrongly sent to a Government 
departmental official, the latest breach of 
security in the parliamentary communications system.

Opposition gaming spokesman Michael O'Brien 
discovered last week that emails meant for him 
were being received by another Michael O'Brien 
who works in the Department of Justice — the 
department whose conduct is being investigated by the gaming inquiry.

Parliament's information technology section has 
confirmed three emails meant for the MP were 
wrongly forwarded to the departmental official 
last week. But the IT section says its records 
only go back to September 27 — and the Opposition 
fears more than 100 confidential emails to Mr 
O'Brien may have been misdirected since he was 
elected to Parliament last November.

Liberal leader Ted Baillieu has written to 
Ombudsman George Brouwer asking that he 
investigate how many emails to the MP had gone 
astray and "whether any of this material has been 
copied, forwarded or disseminated in any fashion".

The Ombudsman is already investigating what the 
Opposition has branded a "parliamentary email 
interception scandal" in which hundreds of faxes 
sent by Liberal MP Christine Fyffe over nearly 
seven months were copied and emailed to the 
office of a Labor MP — which did nothing to alert Ms Fyffe to the error.

Mr Baillieu told The Age last night: "We now have 
an incredible situation where communications 
about the upper house gaming inquiry sent to the 
shadow minister for gaming have been re-directed 
to the very Government department which is the 
subject of the inquiry. The failure of the 
security and integrity of the parliamentary email 
communications systems is turning into a scandal."

Mr O'Brien MP was alerted late last week by a 
departmental officer who had access to the other 
Michael O'Brien's email inbox while he was on leave.

Parliament's IT operations section manager, June 
Neilson, investigated and told the MP that a 
search of the email server's logfiles had found 
that three emails had been sent to the wrong 
Michael O'Brien since September 27.

"To put this in context, over a four-day period 
we can process over 25,000 emails and as this was 
not showing as an error, this is why it was not 
spotted," Ms Neilson wrote to the MP. "We have 
made the requested change to your email account 
that has stopped this error from occurring in the future."

Mr O'Brien MP told The Age yesterday: "I was 
shocked to discover that emails sent to me at a 
parliamentary address can be diverted to the 
Department of Justice without my knowledge. It 
means that I can have no confidence in the integrity of the email system."

He said if three emails had been misdirected in a 
week, it was possible that about 130 had gone 
astray since he entered Parliament last November.

Mr O'Brien from the department was still on leave 
yesterday and could not be contacted.

A departmental spokeswoman said the matter would 
be investigated further, while Parliament's 
Speaker, Jenny Lindell, said she was waiting for a report from the IT section.

Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/

Living, like writing, requires no wisdom. Only 
revising does. - Jim Sollisch, Sept, 2007
'Seed planting is often the most important step. 
Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005
_ __________________ _