X allows ads for political parties and candidates, starting in the US

Due to a typographical error, Dutch webmaster Johannes Zurbier has received 100,000 emails for the US military since January. writes that Financial Times. Zuurbier administers Mali’s domain, which ends in .ml (similar to the Netherlands’ .nl) — similar to the US military’s domain .mil. As soon as people forget the ‘i’, he gets emails. Sometimes with very important content: tax returns, passwords or travel plans of high-ranking officials.

Zuurbier raised the issue ten years ago and sent another letter to the US this month. “The danger is real, and America’s adversaries could exploit it,” he writes. On Monday, Zuurbier and his company Mali Dili will hand over maintenance of the .ml domain to the government of Mali, which has close ties to Russia.

Before Zurbier took over Mali’s domain name in 2013, he already managed the domains of the Central African Republic, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the New Zealand archipelago of Tokelau. In Mali, he suddenly discovered many requests for domains such as army.ml and navy.ml that did not exist. Zuurbier suspected these were emails. When he installed a system to intercept those messages, he was quickly overwhelmed by it, after which he dismantled the system.

Also Read: Earlier this year, Zurbier bought radio spectrum for ‘financial news radio’ in first spectrum auction in 20 years. It’s not clear what he wants with that channel.

When Zuurbier realized what was happening, he sought legal advice and tried several times to alert the US authorities. He was so nervous that he gave his wife a copy of the legal advice: “Just in case black helicopters suddenly appear in my backyard.”

According to a Pentagon spokesperson, emails sent to a domain outside of .mil are automatically blocked — so military personnel must first click on a message that urges them to verify the sender. Zuurbier says that while most emails are spam, in many cases that’s not enough.

Secret mails, if classified Marked, he did not receive. But internal investigations into X-rays and other medical information, identity document data, maps of structures, photographs of military bases, passwords, contracts, (criminal) employee complaints, bullying and tax and financial documents. “Even without documentation is enough to gain valuable insights classified‘ says retired US Admiral Mike Rogers.

Coincidentally, Zuurbier also received emails from the Dutch army: army.nl, a Dutch domain, is an invalid key away from .ml. For example, he gained insight into a Dutch operation collecting explosives in Italy and a detailed report between Dutch Apache helicopters in the US – including a complaint about the vulnerability of a cyber attack. He writes that the Ministry of Defense did not respond Financial Times. (Simon Hermes)