[LINK] Digital disaster as online security firm loses personal data in the mail

[TKoltai]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Jan Whitaker
> Sent: Tuesday, 10 July 2012 3:17 PM
> To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Digital disaster as online security firm 
> loses personal data in the mail
> 
> 
> At 02:58 PM 10/07/2012, David Boxall wrote:
> 
> >Why was it detected as SPAM? The fact that all the links 
> point to send. 
> >ladoo. com. au/ might have something to do with it.
> 
> Now that is interesting. Is that a 3rd party mailing service?
> 
> I have been watching this happen with a few government agencies who 
> outsource their distribution procedures.
> I looked them up. They appear to be a content management service.
> 
> The reason I raise it with departments is because they are handing 
> over mailing lists to a 3rd party without consent, not to mention the 
> tracking processes embedded in their emails. I have not succeeded in 
> getting them to acknowledge that this is a potential breach of the 
> privacy act. The best I could do with one organisation is unsubscribe 
> and insist that they contact the 3rd party to remove my email address 
> from their database. Of course I have no way of knowing if the latter 
> part occured. And to date I haven't seen any advisory on any mailouts 
> from other government departments to indicate to the receivers that 
> the mail is coming from a 3rd party.
> 
> Thoughts?
> Jan

Sometime ago, (1994 I believe) the US Postal Service issued a tender for
building an ISP and mail server solution for the USPS.

In the specifications was a clause that the expected volume of mail from
Government departments (Federal, State and County), would be equal to an
aggregate 120 million mail messages per day to Americans. (Including
American Samoa, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Wade Is. and of course
Hawaii).

Although my company's Portland office responded to the tender, no
"winner" was ever announced and the idea seemed to fade away.

In Australia, we have Australia Post with an advanced IT department. 
Their recent innovation with eBay and parcel tracking methodologies that
evolved from that initiative are I believe in the category of worlds
best practices.

I am not aware of any reason why Australia post that has had the
people's trust for over a century should now not be trusted by our
Government for the delivery of their content.

It almost seems that by using outside contractors, the Government is
telling us that they don't trust Aussie Post. 

Or maybe, no-one in Government thought of using the official Government
mail carrier...

TomK