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Academics up in arms over No 10 'porn spam'
John Vidal
Friday November 19, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1354874,00.html

When Calestous Juma, UN consultant and professor of international development at Harvard university, opened an email from 10 Downing Street last week, he was horrified.

Instead of a sober appraisal of the economic costs and benefits of agricultural biotechnology from the inner sanctum of the British government, he found a graphic invitation to take part in "raw and live" sex.

And it is not only the outraged Professor Juma who has been getting hardcore porn in emails from the No 10 strategy unit.

Yesterday it emerged that porn had been sent to more than 100 leading academics, scientists and industrialists who had been invited to be part of an exclusive email list.

Most people on the offending list have filters preventing porn getting through, but those it has reached have sent some explicit comments back to Downing Street.

"Will you prats please close down this bloody email list?" said John Manoochehri, a senior policy adviser in the UN environment programme.

"I'm incensed, and think we all deserve an apology," said Marcus Williamson, editor of Genetically Modified Food-News, adding that the stream of spam and porn had been going on for a year.

Prof Juma was relatively restrained: "This is now a list from hell. Please shut it down!"

Yesterday Downing Street apologised. "We regret any inconvenience and offence caused," a spokeswoman said.

But she added: "The porn ... received did not originate from No 10 or any government source and I have been reassured that the lists have been closed down."

She said there were several possible explanations: that the email address was "spoofed" by hackers; that it had been copied from an external website; or that someone on the list had received an email infected by a virus that copies addresses.

But it was all too much for one unnamed porn recipient. If No 10 was "supposed to be full of high flyers who influence the future of Britain, yet they can't resolve a simple mailing list security issue, then this country is really in trouble."