The Department of Defense has confirmed that typos often result in leaks of US secrets to Mali
A common typo by users of the US military’s email system has resulted in millions of messages, including many containing diplomatic documents and other secret information, being inadvertently sent to government addresses in Mali.
The Pentagon confirmed the “unauthorized disclosures of controlled national security information” on Monday, saying it was “aware of the issue.” While many of the messages were innocuous, some reportedly contained such information as travel arrangements for top officers, tax returns, password retrievals, maps of military installations, and crew lists for ships. None of the emails were confirmed to be classified.
The large-scale confusion came about because the military’s “.MIL” domain name was commonly mistyped as “.ML,” which happens to be the suffix used for government email addresses in Mali. Although the Pentagon claimed that emails sent outside the “.MIL” domain name are now being blocked, Dutch internet entrepreneur Johannes Zuurbier told the Financial Times that he collected nearly 117,000 US military emails that landed in Malian government mailboxes in the first six months of this year.....more below
