NASA's inbox goes orbital after email mishap spams entire space industry
- Reference: 1742560153
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/03/21/nasa_maptis_reply_all/
- Source link:
Someone tell DOGE to rehire whoever maintains this email list
NASA's [1]Materials And Processes Technical Information System (MAPTIS) is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to put a payload into space. For many agencies, checking the materials being used against the contents of MAPTIS is part of the qualification procedure.
MAPTIS is used by space agencies worldwide. Its users also include academia and commercial space providers.
Say you wanted to know how the materials selected would behave in space. The data is probably going to be in MAPTIS. Physical and structural properties? MAPTIS again. How to configure an email distribution list? Ah, now that isn't something MAPTIS knows about, as evidenced by a recent unfortunate event.
As Reg readers know, an email distribution list is a set of email addresses to which a message can be sent, much like a contact group. These are usually controlled and secured to prevent unauthorized access.
[2]Boeing's Starliner future uncertain as NASA weighs next steps
[3]Crew-9 splashes down while NASA floats along with Trump and Musk nonsense
[4]SpaceX Dragon pod arrives at ISS to finally pick up stranded Boeing astronaut pair
[5]Bubble trouble in hydraulics blamed for NASA and SpaceX Crew-10 scrub
According to a space agency source, a user managed to accidentally send a message to a MAPTIS insecure email distribution list, and the result was ... not good.
"By the time he realizes," our source explained, "he has spammed everyone in almost every space agency who works on flight qualifications – half the planet was replying to all asking to be removed from the list.
[6]
The incident could almost have been a space-age version of The Register 's [7]Who, Me? tech mishaps column.
[8]
"The funny part was someone saying, 'Someone tell DOGE to rehire whoever maintains this email list.' Followed by other people saying stuff like, 'Just forward the entire email chain to DOGE.'"
DOGE is the now Department of Government Efficiency, headed – sort of – by billionaire Elon Musk, with the avowed intent of removing waste and unnecessary functions from the US administration.
[9]
Recently, DOGE fired then rehired staffers from the US government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), but we're sure that an overzealous application of the resource scalpel has nothing to do with the MAPTIS email whoopsie.
The Register asked NASA to provide details on the maintenance of email distribution lists. The US space agency has not yet responded. ®
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://maptis.nasa.gov/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/20/boeing_starliner_whats_next/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/19/crew9_mission_misinformation/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/17/crew10_iss/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/14/spacex_crew_10_scrub/
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[7] https://www.theregister.com/Tag/Who%2C%20Me%3F/
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[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Two obvious problems here
1) NASA's mistake - All correspondents in TO/CC field - should have been individual emails. Isn't that what a distribution list is for? Reply-To should also be filled in.
2) Recipients mistake - Reply all not disabled when the TO/CC field is *a lot* of addresses.
Re: Two obvious problems here
Yes and no...
A Mailling list ( since that's what it appears to be ) is just a mail forwarder. It has a list of addresses to foward any emails it receives to....
It's not like a group in Outlook.
If it's configured correctly, it sets the Reply-To: field to the mailling list address, and sends an email ti receives in the form of an individual emails to each list member with one single member a recipient of said individual email.
IWith the Reply-To field set to the mailing list address, if somebody reply to the original mail, everybody in the list will receive the reply.
With a mail client thats not Outlook you'd be able to notice the nested answer and who answers to who and the Reply-To field... which would make it easier to get a grip of what's occuring and avoid replying to the list.
But sadly with the all encompassing Outlook you have a flat view of all the mails with the same title and no (easy) way to see the Reply-To field ( or any other very important header stuff ).
At best, unless you spent days tinkering with the setup you can coax Outlook tino a not even semi decent nested threading, but that won't give you an easy access to all those header information that many old hands find important.
So people ended up thinking it was an Outlook group and just clicked on reply which used the Reply-To field to generate the To. So even if they didn't hit Reply All, their answers were received by all.
Who, me?
That would be a great "Who, me?" moment.
"How I got to spam the whole MAPTIS base by accident and keep my job".
Coming from the type of people that put a man on the moon before putting wheels on a suitcase, I'm not surprised. Amused, yes.
Re: Who, me?
Luiz Abdala,
Don't believe the lies. Man never landed wheels on a suitcase! It was faked in a studio in Arizona. The wheeled suitcase is a myth, propagated by NASA in order to try to claim some kind of superiority over the Communist alternative of the shoulder bag.
Re: Who, me?
"The wheeled suitcase is a myth,"
But... But, I've SEEN one, honest.
I didn't get a photo though...
Re: Who, me?
I *hear* them rumbling en masse from BHM down the ramp every Friday around 5pm. Must have taken ages to come up with such a noisy wheel design.
Icon: no railway train image, in fact no transport icons unless you count the helicopter
I can see it...
One Act Tragedy - Much To Undo About Everything
Doge nong: "What do you do around here boy?"
Greybearded Sysadmin: "Hell I spend every working hour just stopping shit happening ."
Doge nong: "You're obviously not with the program. Definitely not hardcore. You're outa here boy!"
[ Exuent Greybeard to a well deserved, long overdue retirement and the Nong to his just desserts.]
"The US space agency has not yet responded."
Probably still trying to clear its inbox.