Keep your e-mail seperate
You see this is why you should never use your ISP's email - set up your own somewhere else with 123-REG for instance.
Oh, wait...
The UK's biggest broadband provider BT redirected its customers' outgoing emails to a single account for three hours on Tuesday. The telco said the flooded inbox was an internal account it uses for test purposes and not a random unlucky subscriber. While BT did not provide details on the reason for the disruption, it appears …
It seems one insider at BT can intercept & redirect all customers email to a random address, and Mark Hughes (BT Group Security boss) remains oblivious for 3 hours.
But yet he tells MPs he can be trusted to store the UK's browsing traffic for 12 months securely?
BT's Group Security Officer has new clothes. And they're somewhat transparent.
It's not just now that BT's behaviour has been problematic either. Remember ACS:Law and the problems BT had sending out details unencrypted? Then there's their email accounts previously being hacked, Phorm, and god knows what else.
How in hell do they keep on having problems like that but never seem to face the music?
Too big to fail.
All essential telecoms infrastructure and operating practices should be centrally managed and regulated to the teeth. All customer relations should then be managed by limited access (m)vno's be that for pots, isp's or mobile. Companies can then bid to work on local systems, with mandatory competition and be performance reviewed.
The /gooberment/ can still sink it's treacherous claws in, and we all get accountability and standard operating practices.
But no, we have this monopolistic sham where we have to put up and shut up.
Yesterday I had the problem that the sub accounts on my main BTinternet.com address were all being polled at the same time as the main one. Those are used by my kids who don't get what 'spam filters' are for, so masses of ancient spam and adverts flooded into my mailbox. Happens every so often but not for a year or so.
...they might like to try to find out why emails sent by some users with TT accounts (including those with ISPs gobbled up by TT) sometimes never get to recipients with btinternet email addresses.
One of life's enduring mysteries... although on second thoughts perhaps it isn't. One friend of mine who is trying to resolve this runs into blanket denials of responsibility from both ISPs.
Snail mail might be slow but by and large it does get there.
"One friend of mine who is trying to resolve this runs into blanket denials of responsibility from both ISPs."
I've had similar things happen before. Got tired of it at one point and FORCED a 3 way call between me and service reps from both ISP, then sat back with pop-corn as they argued with one another.
I had a 2 month gremlin back in about 2003 with BT. Btinternet email was not working properly (either sending or receiving) with... It mostly arrived, but delays could be as long as a month. I actually got as far as BT third line support, some outside consultant rather than an internal bod who was already aware of the issue, and they resolved it.
But I'd already resolved the problem myself, by suggesting that it was about time the company stopped using a micky-mouse ISP address, and got us a domain. Although I just got an email through on that old address last week - from a customer we've had for years, I'm amazed it's survived in his Outlook autocomplete for so long.
The bit in my post that mattered, got deleted. If I thought they were competent, I'd blame a BT conspiracy.
The domain that btinternet emails were dropping with, and vice-versa was btconnect. Their own small business service, that one of our clients was with.
I'm sure Mark Hughes of BT can explain it all next time he appears before a parliamentary committee. Meanwhile, we can wait for the ICO to wring their hands and do absolutely nothing about it. Again. Let's just admit it - BT's email is not fit for purpose - either the Yahoo! offering they are supposed to be ditching (and can't) and the new cloud offering called BTMail that is going badly wrong too.
They put DPI kit in the network for Phorm, their Beta forums leaked like sieves, they mess up their email migration, and now they send everyone's mail to a third party email address. Remind me again - how much were they fined for all this? Oh yes - nothing at all.
As compenation, can we have an interview about it on Channel 4 News with that nice Emma Sanderson please? For old Phorm's sake?
BT's email is not fit for purpose
Neither is the ICO when it comes to data protection.
It also seems that more than one member of the current BT board of directors was around during the Phorm trials?
Sir Michael Rake confirmed at the 2008 AGM, in front of 800 shareholders, that the decision to intercept web communications was taken at board level within BT.
https://nodpi.org/2010/10/14/two-years-of-corruption-lies-and-deceit/
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/suitability_of_person_nominated/
(personally I wouldn't expect any sort of useful reply, but you never know...)
Having had access to BT e-mail systems in the dim and distant past, surprised this hasn't happened more often.
Sounds like one of the drones decided to not use Oneview (internal program for getting customer details, and send things to fixing people) and went to the older SMART one, which if used incorrectly can do major damage/fun (like sending 100 routers to someone you don't like on your last day, or deleting the command to bill someone) and then committed it across the whole system.
Would take about seven or so logins, easy enough if been there across a few desks for a number of years, and using a script to copy over information from one to another.
My Dad's emails to me sometimes vanish into a void. Then two weeks later he gets a weird bounce that says something about a queue timing out. My mail server logs show no SMTP traffic originating from BT/Yahoo servers on these occasions. I also never have problems with any other sources. I spoke to BT about it once and even played the 'He's 80 years old and I need reliable contact with him' but to no avail. I was told it was an internal server issue and 'these things just happen sometimes'. They actually recommended that I set up a GMail account for him.
Clearly they don't have any 'loveable but stuck in a groove' elderly relatives yet. I'd rather not force him to learn something new just because they are incompetent. I'm still struggling to reprogram his telephone use so that he tries my mobile if he gets my answering machine. I doubt I'll ever get him to try my mobile first but you have to start somewhere. He's one of the few people I always want to speak to :(
Perhaps somebody ought to set up a few dummy accounts and send all sorts of goatse-related emails from one dummy account to another. Maybe add a few copies of 'Two Girls One Cup' into the mix too.
It won't stop them from seeing the contents of said emails, but at least they'll go blind when they do...
I've had a BT POP3 box since forever. I know I should set up my own elsewhere but I've got the best part of 20 years' interactions via that address. This latest problem comes on top of the fact that BT seem to go through phases of just silently dropping about 25% of incoming mail. And they have the cheek this month to tell me they are more than tripling the monthly fee for this POP3 box.
I think it may be long past time for a change...
POP3? Not even IMAP?
It's a lot easier than you think to make the change and everything up to step 7 is risk free and reversible.
1) Set up new email, either buy a domain or just use gmail / outlook.com
2) Set new email server to fetch your BT email (leaving a copy on the server)
3) Allow new email server to send mail as teacake@btinternet.com
Optional) Add new email server in to your mail client (as IMAP) and upload all your folders to it.
Now you can use the new email server exclusively and disable the BT account in your email client but there is no external change.
4) At some point in the future when you're sure you're happy with the new set up, tell people to use your new email address and set your new email server to send as teacake@gmail.com
5) Set your mail client to flag emails that are sent to teacake@btinternet.com so that you can correct those senders (if they aren't spam).
6) Wait until you don't get any flagged emails.
7) Stop paying BT.
I'd consider copying *all* outgoing mail into the mailbox of a contractor and then owning up to it only after said contractor's data slurping script borked and the mailbox overflowed to be a tad more serious than not routing any mail at all.
Seems like BT tries to play down the security implications. Imagine the mails would not have bounced. No one would know and Steve Webb would still have a full feed of BT mail traffic.