Ride the Lightning

FRAT BOYS IN W.V. – SPOOFING E-MAIL GOES MAINSTREAM

November 3, 2008

Still in W.V., but now watching black bears on a mountain top instead of lecturing. Much more serene.

And no, this post really isn’t about “frat boys” – in fact, they are law school associates who simply, by their own admission, acted like frat boys. Here’s their story: they had a paralegal come into their firm and quickly formed the opinion that he was pretty useless. Apparently, he was fairly unresponsive to the associates, though he hopped to it whenever summoned by the senior partner. This is where the light bulb went off for the associates. They begin to spoof the senior partner’s e-mail, issuing instructions to the paralegal along the lines of, “I want you to blah, blah, blah by tomorrow. Give your work product to Mr. Doe (one of the associates) and he’ll review it and give it to me." This worked pretty well, since the paralegal promptly complied with all of the senior partner’s requests and, by using these high jinks, the associates could get work done for them with neither the senior partner nor the paralegal being the wiser.

All good things come to an end, and their amusement with the game hit a new high (or low) when they sent the paralegal an e-mail “from the senior partner” saying “Geez, I noticed this morning that my Jaguar is filthy. There’s a sponge and a bucket in the supply closet. Make that car shine for me, will you son?” Thoroughly duped, the unwitting rube obligingly went to the supply closet, got the bucket and sponge and prepared to discharge his duty. At this point, our frat boys came clean and confessed their game to the paralegal. No blood was shed, they smoked a metaphorical peace pipe, and all’s well that ends well.

But what struck me about the story, obviously, is that e-mail spoofing is so easy that even law firm associates in frat boy mode chose to utilize it to their advantage. Is what they did illegal in W.V.? Probably, I frankly didn’t check. But you’ll notice I used no names. They did, after all, give me grist for the blog. Turnabout is fair play.

E-mail:     Phone: 703-359-0700