You've Got Mail

The e-mail appeared to come from me. It began with something I'd previously written. Then the font changed and the English degenerated. "Attched [sic] is I want to know and discuss the issues," said the note to the new leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India. Lobsang Sangay was savvy enough to figure out that neither the message nor an attachment in Chinese were really from me. The Tibetan PM wanted to let me know that someone had hacked my work e-mail account and pressed "reply." But before he began composing a warning, he saw that the reply was not being automatically routed to me. Instead, the "to" field bore the e-mail address of the private secretary of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. It looked as though my e-mail was designed to spread virally to other users and cause maximum confusion.

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