杏吧原创

USERS of Freeserve, Britain鈥檚 recently floated free Internet access provider,
shouldn鈥檛 be too surprised if they get e-mail intended for other people. Owing
to a quirk in the way Freeserve handles e-mail, it鈥檚 all too easy to send
messages to the wrong person鈥攁nd with 1.3 million Net novices using the
service, it happens all too often.

The company admits that many of its subscribers are receiving e-mail intended
for others and says it is trying to come up with a fix. Meanwhile, it has been
forced to put an explanatory note on its website entitled 鈥淲hy do I get other
people鈥檚 e-mail?鈥�.

鈥淧eople are trying to guess others鈥� addressing and getting them wrong,鈥� says
Justine Moon, a spokeswoman for Dixons, which owns Freeserve. The problem is
that Freeserve鈥檚 highly simplified e-mail addressing system makes it easy for
incorrectly addressed e-mails to reach the wrong person.

With other providers, a user鈥檚 name is usually placed ahead of the @ sign,
followed by the domain name. But Freeserve usually puts the account holder鈥檚
last name after @, and its e-mail system ignores whatever is in front of it.
This gives the user an infinite number of mailboxes, but the downside is that
any messages sent to, say, an @smith domain name, will end up in the mailbox of
the first Smith who registered with Freeserve. Many novice users are forgetting
to place the relevant number, such as @smith21, in the address. Freeserve is not
the first to use such a system, but its huge user base has exacerbated the
problem.