I generally get a lot of email. Sometimes as many as 500 messages a day. But the last 24 hours have made all previous records look ridiculous. As of 7:30 this morning, I had received more than 50,000 emails. And they’re still pouring in.
Unfortunately, they’re not from adoring fans. My inbox looks like this:
As you can see, Gmail’s spam filter—which until now I’d never had the slightest complaint about—caught only half the messages. Who organized this, I haven’t the faintest idea. I assume it’s the same characters who arrange bot attacks and DDoS attacks. Yesterday morning I wrote to Gmail support. Maybe they replied with something useful, but finding their message is simply impossible. I haven’t found any option to “disable incoming mail,” or anything like that. I’m not entirely sure what to do about this. It’s not some enormous disaster, and I hope the Gmail people will help, just as they did before when my email account was hacked. It’s a pity the spam attack happened right after the announcement that I was looking for lawyers. But getting in touch with me isn’t difficult; anyone resourceful will find a way. Let’s treat this as an extra force-majeure creative challenge. For now I’m not using the navalny Gmail address, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep using it. If you wrote to me in the last three days, then unfortunately, don’t expect a reply. It’s strange, really, that such a crude method as spam has turned out to be so effective. If a user suddenly starts receiving 50,000 emails a day, the system ought to react somehow. It’s a little suspicious. Can it really be that easy to block anyone’s email? Curious. Questions for those in the know: How is this organized technically? Is this even legal? If I file a crime report with Directorate “K” (the Russian Interior Ministry’s cybercrime unit), or officially ask Google to contact them, would that oblige them to do anything? In America, people get jailed for this, don’t they? And if it is legal, can the same thing be done to the personal email accounts of Yakemenko, Surkov, and other crooked buffoons? This is the classic situation of “we can play that game too.”
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