When did you get your first email account? I’m thinking mine was probably around 1991, maybe, and I had to dial in to CompuServe to use it. Certainly, we’re talking pre-Web here.
When did you get your second email address? Probably not too long after that, if you’re anything like me. Now I was dialing into Prodigy.
Next came the AOL address. Still dialing directly in. Still before the Web.
Not so for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, which is partying like it’s 1989:
NEW YORK (AP) -- Budget constraints are forcing some FBI agents to operate without e-mail accounts, according to the agency's top official in New York."As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts," Mark Mershon said when asked about the gap at a New York Daily News editorial board meeting.
"We just don't have the money, and that is an endless stream of complaints that come from the field," he said.
FBI officials in Washington denied that cost-cutting was putting agents at a disadvantage.
Spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan said e-mail addresses are still being assigned, adding that the city bureau's 2,000 employees would all have accounts by the end of the year.
[from AP via CNN.com]
Um, what? Money issues? Are they kidding? I wanna make some joke about the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, but it’s all just too sad and scary.
Lou Reigel, head the FBI’s Cyber Division:
Cyber crime is expanding. Computer intrusions, particularly from Asian and Eastern European countries, are going to continue to grow and get more complicated. Hackers are getting more sophisticated. It’s a business and they’ve become organized in their efforts.
But is the FBI getting more organized and sophisticated?
The whole thing kinda puts this story from last year in a new light:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Don't open those e-mail attachments that appear to be from the FBI. They might contain a computer virus.The FBI late Tuesday warned computer users that scam artists pretending to be FBI agents are at work spreading the computer virus.
"These e-mails did not come from the FBI," the Bureau said in a statement released from its Washington headquarters.
"The FBI does not engage in the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails to the public in this manner."
Well, of course the FBI doesn’t send email to people: the FBI can’t send email to anyone. Sheesh.
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