IP: From the White House that Invented the Internet [or Unix strikes again djf]

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

As I told several people (reporters) , in a world where the majority 
operating environment that most people see is Windows (and Mac OS) 
most folk don't realize that file names in Unix/Linex are case 
sensitive.It has gotten many a computer scientist who use both 
Windows and Unix. It is real neat to have in Unix and obviously a 
real danger. I also have been caught by this several times and I am a 
lot lot more aware of OS features than most especially in the EOP.

Dave

> From: jod () ccat sas upenn edu (James J. O'Donnell)
> Subject: From the White House that Invented the Internet
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 08:49:44 -0500 (EST)
>
> NYTimes, http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/wh-email.html
>
>       White House Aides'
>         Defense in E-Mail Case Is
>         Ignorance
>
>
>         Related Article
>         White House E-Mail Feud Grows (March
>         20, 2000)
>
>
>         By MARC LACEY
>
>              ASHINGTON, March 24 -- White
>              House officials learned almost two
>         years ago of a major computer problem
>         that resulted in the mishandling of the
>         administration's electronic mail. Now, as
>         they defend themselves against
>         accusations that they illegally concealed
>         the situation from investigators,
>         presidential aides are arguing that they
>         lacked the computer expertise to
>         understand the severity of the problem.
>
>         "As you know, this matter involves
>         complex technical issues," the White
>         House counsel, Beth Nolan, said in a
>         statement to Congressional investigators
>         that she is scheduled to deliver next week.
>         "Of course, my staff and I are lawyers with
>         laypersons' understanding of the technical
>         complexities of electronic messaging and
>         archiving."
>
>         Large numbers of e-mail messages sent to
>         White House officials from outside the
>         office's network from 1996 to 1998 were
>         not properly stored in a computer archive.
>         Specialists who have reviewed the problem
>         say it was caused by an unintentional
>         error when someone mistakenly
>         capitalized the name of a computer server,
>         writing MAIL2 instead of Mail2. As a
>         result, when the White House received
>         subpoenas from various investigative
>         agencies and searched the archive for
>         relevant electronic mail, many messages
>         were overlooked.