This is not Steve Webb. (Photo: Gale Sherry/Public Domain)
This Tuesday afternoon in Britain, millions of internet users emailed dinner plans, business deals, and/or life-changing secrets to their friends, family and coworkers.
Or so they thought. Instead, all these emails got redirected to a guy named Steve Webb. For three hours on Tuesday, UK internet giant BT forwarded all messages sent through their network on to "stevewebb2@btinternet.com," The Register reports.
BT, which serves about 8 million customers, told The Register that they had run into a "testing error," and that the emails had been routed to an internal account. But customers who sent messages through the company received bouncebacks that looked like this:
Has anyone else received an email bounce back mentioning #stevewebb2pic.twitter.com/Ax30pmXv8a
— Robin White (@whitemailbox) April 19, 2016
The Register followed the Webb of intrigue all the way to LinkedIn, a time-tested source of mysterious emails from people you don't know. There, they found a Steve Webb who works as a tech support specialist for Synchronoss Technologies, the very company that recently started handling BT's cloud services.
While there's no reason to think stevewebb2 wasn't a test account, it's certainly the kind of test account that makes you wonder how the real Steve Webb's day went. "I am currently waiting to find out if my role will change in the new organisation," his profile begins. Looks like he just got an update.
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