It appears to be caused by an someone replying to all, instead of just the originator of the message. Since most of the recipients were role accounts under a ticketing system, the auto-responders took over, creating an interesting loop; It provides a good reason why an auto-responder should strip out the Cc: when sending a response.
The original message is below, although I still question its intent. Please don't reply to the message if you receive it, it should die out. Joe > Hello, my name is Jim I am the Transport NOC Manager at ICG > Telecommunications. I would like to know if you will be working under a > moratorium during the holidays? I am also interested in building a solid > working relationship between our departments. Please respond with contact > information so that we can begin working together. > > Sincerely, > > Jim Meslovich > NOC Transport Manager > W Ph. 303-414-8087 > Pager 303-826-6931 > Cell 303-915-6344 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, Joe Abley wrote: > > > On Monday, Nov 25, 2002, at 22:31 Canada/Eastern, Randy Rostie wrote: > > > We received the following email, with an incredible number of email > > addresses in the cc: field. We did not even get the original message. > > Maybe someone has a virus on their computer? > > Maybe someone forwarded all the addresses to a public mailing list > which is archived on the web in multiple places, and the addresses got > harvested by spammers? > > Oh well, if not, I'm sure it will happen shortly. > > > Joe >
