And he wants to make sure there's no possible confusion about the fact that what he's entering into the form as a test isn't real information. So he simply types 'test' into each field and clicks 'Submit.'
'The form was created to grab the user's ID number and automatically mail the user a copy, in addition to the appropriate personnel,' says fish. 'Since I had entered 'test' in the user field, an e-mail was sent to 'test@ourcompany.com.'
'Little did I know that someone had created a massive e-mail group -- called 'test@ourcompany.com.' '
Within minutes, hundreds of bewildered users are replying to the e-mail, asking why they've been sent a confidential form with some very strange entries in it.
And because they're replying to 'test,' copies of each reply are sent to everyone on the list, and the e-mail avalanche keeps building.
'It took us a while to figure out what happened,' fish says. 'Meanwhile, the e-mails were piling ever deeper while I desperately tried to phone the e-mail administrator. Finally, the admin deleted the group and removed all the unsent messages he could.
'Since then, I've had to endure several remarks concerning my homegrown spam virus. That's the last e-mail I'll ever send to 'test'! '
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