Spring Break
Error in mailing system results in mass e-mail to URI students
Greg Gentile
Issue date: 2/6/09 Section: News
02/06/09 - Parents will always embarrass their children. However, this was taken to a whole new level when Cindy Schicho, mother of sophomore student Andrew Schicho, told every student at the University of Rhode Island that, "Unfortunately, or fortunately (however you want to look at it) Daddy makes too much to qualify for anything."
Monday, Feb. 2, Enrollment Services sent out a mass email about IRS tax returns on a supposedly secure listserv to the entire student body. Andrew Schicho forwarded this to his mother Cindy to see if he could apply.
She clicked "reply all," which, unbeknownst to her, launched the e-mail through cyber-space to approximately 13,000 students. She refused to comment yesterday on the listserv incident.
The glitch in the system has been dealt with by Enrollment Services, the originators of the message. The specific listserv the message was sent on has been restored back to a secure server, according to Johdi Redlich, Johdi Redlich, a university specialist in public information and communications.
"My mom replied and is a total dork, like everyone at the university now knows," Schicho said yesterday. At first, Schicho said he thought it was hysterical. That is, until someone posted his mother's cell phone and house phone on 4chan.com, an image-hosting site.
As a result, both phones were flooded with calls.
"Now she has to change her [cell] phone number and house number," Schicho said.
Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications David Lavallee was stunned when hen was presented with the information that someone responded to a listserv message.
"My understanding is that you couldn't respond to a listserv message," Lavallee said.
A listserv is set up as a source for the university to have one-way communication with the students Redlich explained.
"Somebody at URI has no idea what they're doing," Schicho said. "It's a little lame this was possible."
Redlich said the only way that something like what happened to the Schichos could occur was if the listserv was not secure.
With the fear of student spamming, this issue became a large source of concern for the department of Communications & Marketing and Enrollment Services.
On any other listserv, "if someone were to reply they would have got an error," Redlich said.
This message was different then others, because it was a public service announcement forwarded from the IRS to the school. On the bottom of the original text, it says, "please do not reply by return e-mail."
The malfunction was corrected by Enrollment Services, according to Interim Provost of Enrollment Services Dean Lebutti. "We have added an extra level of security so it doesn't happen again," Lebutti said.
Monday, Feb. 2, Enrollment Services sent out a mass email about IRS tax returns on a supposedly secure listserv to the entire student body. Andrew Schicho forwarded this to his mother Cindy to see if he could apply.
She clicked "reply all," which, unbeknownst to her, launched the e-mail through cyber-space to approximately 13,000 students. She refused to comment yesterday on the listserv incident.
The glitch in the system has been dealt with by Enrollment Services, the originators of the message. The specific listserv the message was sent on has been restored back to a secure server, according to Johdi Redlich, Johdi Redlich, a university specialist in public information and communications.
"My mom replied and is a total dork, like everyone at the university now knows," Schicho said yesterday. At first, Schicho said he thought it was hysterical. That is, until someone posted his mother's cell phone and house phone on 4chan.com, an image-hosting site.
As a result, both phones were flooded with calls.
"Now she has to change her [cell] phone number and house number," Schicho said.
Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications David Lavallee was stunned when hen was presented with the information that someone responded to a listserv message.
"My understanding is that you couldn't respond to a listserv message," Lavallee said.
A listserv is set up as a source for the university to have one-way communication with the students Redlich explained.
"Somebody at URI has no idea what they're doing," Schicho said. "It's a little lame this was possible."
Redlich said the only way that something like what happened to the Schichos could occur was if the listserv was not secure.
With the fear of student spamming, this issue became a large source of concern for the department of Communications & Marketing and Enrollment Services.
On any other listserv, "if someone were to reply they would have got an error," Redlich said.
This message was different then others, because it was a public service announcement forwarded from the IRS to the school. On the bottom of the original text, it says, "please do not reply by return e-mail."
The malfunction was corrected by Enrollment Services, according to Interim Provost of Enrollment Services Dean Lebutti. "We have added an extra level of security so it doesn't happen again," Lebutti said.
