Misuse of government e-mail comes with hefty consequences Published Aug. 1, 2014 By Holly Logan-Arrington Robins Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- Sometimes, good intentions lead to a bad outcome. That's especially true when it comes to sending email. Although many who have sent personally-motivated emails or have hit reply to all unnecessarily may have done so thinking they were doing the recipients a favor, the sender may have violated Air Force instruction. David Grosche, 78th Air Base Wing Information Assurance Office information technology specialist, said emails with numerous recipients can cause major problems with the entire system in a short time. "Consider that if one person forwards one message to 10 people, and each of them forwards it to 10 people, by the sixth generation you have more than a million emails sent, along with all the network use, time and money spent reading," he said. "Worse than that, if there are attachments, they can add up to hit the personal or group mailbox size limits in a hurry, preventing recipients from receiving other emails until the mailbox is manually emptied or cleaned up." Grosche said once a message is sent, the fate of it is out of the sender's control, but its impact is still the sender's responsibility. "It's also possible for a message to be distorted when additional interpretations are added in subsequent replies or forwarded emails which may not have been seen by the original sender or authoritative source of information, causing unintentional confusion," he said. "Company reputations can be ruined by forwarded emails based on a hoax (rumors should be verified through resources like snopes.com or official resources like the Judge Advocate Office before potentially facing legal repercussions for libel)," he said. Reply All should only be used when all of the people in the To and CC blocks need to see the reply, Grosche said. Air Force email policies state that users should only reply to electronic messages that absolutely require a response and minimize the use of the Reply To All function. Hefty penalties await violators of the AFIs. "Depending on the type of message sent and the consequences of those emails, different penalties could be incurred," Grosche said, "especially if the sender sends viruses or other malicious messages." Penalties could include monetary penalties, removal from position or jail time, he added. For more information, call the 78th Air Base Wing Information Assurance Office at 926-8523.