Reply-all e-mail storm hits State

We've all been there. Someone sends an email to a slew of people, cc's them all instead of bcc'g them, then more than a few brainiacs decide to reply to the entire list, everyone on the list, perhaps hundreds of people, to complain that they want to be taken off the list. Then the replies hit replies, and pretty soon, it's a mess. Well, it seems this rather low-tech threat nearly brought down the State Dept. computers. Kind of fascinating.

Officials said the storm started when some diplomats used the 'reply all' function to respond to a blank e-mail sent recently to many people on the department's global address list.

Most demanded to be removed from the list while others used 'reply all' to tell their co-workers, in often less than diplomatic language, to stop responding to the entire group, the officials said.

Some then compounded the problem by trying to recall their initial replies, which generated another round of messages to the group, they said.

Ah yes, America's finest.