DSC Honors College sends email, reveals addresses

I got this email from the Honors college department today, at 10:41 A.M. local time (EDT):

From: Beverly Gibson <gibsonbe@daytonastate.edu>

Welcome Daytona State College Student,

Would you like to get more out of your college experience? Then consider joining the Honors College! The benefits are numerous and include, smaller classes, a tightly knit group of fellow motivated students, more in depth and interesting classes, research experience, and many opportunities for scholarships. You are receiving this correspondence because you have been identified as having an excellent record of academic performance, and as such, you may be eligible to join the Honors College. If you are interested in this great opportunity then consider applying today! Just stop by Bldg. 330, Rm. 238, and see Dr. Ron Morrison, chair of the Honors College and pick up your application and get started right now on your road to academic excellence!

Beverly Gibson
Staff Assistant
Honors College

What was more interesting than the message is that Beverly Gibson failed to use the blind carbon-copy (BCC) field in her email software, so I got a whole list of all the people this message was sent to. The list is below. I’ve removed the .edu part to shield the account holders from spam bots.

richard_mcgahey@falconmail.daytonastate,
richard_owens5230@falconmail.daytonastate,
richard_sanders5418@falconmail.daytonastate,
richard_savidge@falconmail.daytonastate,
richard_thripp@falconmail.daytonastate,
richard_walker3229@falconmail.daytonastate,
richard_williams3330@falconmail.daytonastate,
richard_wilson5807@falconmail.daytonastate,
rina_lopez@falconmail.daytonastate,
rita_osborn3621@falconmail.daytonastate,
robbie_cooper@falconmail.daytonastate,
roberta_enquist@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_bowden@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_colavita@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_coleman4430@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_eichorst@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_haley1715@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_hehre@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_holzschuh@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_horn640@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_mcginty1226@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_mckee3117@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_mitchell4230@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_mustone@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_ogden508@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_rauh@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_renforth@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_rogers846@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_ryan847@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_smith2927@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_stewart508@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_wohlrab@falconmail.daytonastate,
robert_wolfe847@falconmail.daytonastate,
robin_beddard@falconmail.daytonastate,
robin_feger@falconmail.daytonastate,
robin_hodge@falconmail.daytonastate,
robin_jackson@falconmail.daytonastate,
robin_parks@falconmail.daytonastate,
robin_powell@falconmail.daytonastate,
robyn_ferguson@falconmail.daytonastate,
robyn_winkler@falconmail.daytonastate,
rochelle_forbes1509@falconmail.daytonastate,
rodriguez_carol_a._rodriguez_c@falconmail.daytonastate,
roeill._kristina_roeill._krist@falconmail.daytonastate,
roger_buccolo@falconmail.daytonastate,
rohini_persaud@falconmail.daytonastate,
romina_dana@falconmail.daytonastate,
romina_perri@falconmail.daytonastate,
ronald_barnard@falconmail.daytonastate,
ronald_bryant@falconmail.daytonastate,
ronald_powell@falconmail.daytonastate,
ronald_zimmet@falconmail.daytonastate,
ronnie_gutierrez@falconmail.daytonastate,
rony_bailey@falconmail.daytonastate,
rosalie_villecco1841@falconmail.daytonastate,
rosalynda_frangi@falconmail.daytonastate,
rosa_rodriguez4059@falconmail.daytonastate,
roselyn_brown@falconmail.daytonastate,
rosemarie_nazarak@falconmail.daytonastate,
rosemarie_savini-volpe@falconmail.daytonastate,
rosey_withrow@falconmail.daytonastate,
rose_carlson@falconmail.daytonastate,
rose_freycinet@falconmail.daytonastate,
rose_mazzullo@falconmail.daytonastate,
rossana_matos@falconmail.daytonastate,
rowena_sarmiento@falconmail.daytonastate,
rowland_spellman@falconmail.daytonastate,
roxanne_moodie@falconmail.daytonastate,
ruben_ramirez@falconmail.daytonastate,
rudo_nemasango@falconmail.daytonastate,
rudra_desai@falconmail.daytonastate,
rudrea_kirkpatrick@falconmail.daytonastate,
russell_gibbons@falconmail.daytonastate,
russell_haworth@falconmail.daytonastate,
russell_jordan4759@falconmail.daytonastate,
russell_lee2856@falconmail.daytonastate,
russell_mccloud3255@falconmail.daytonastate,
russell_parish@falconmail.daytonastate,
russell_sandberg@falconmail.daytonastate,
russell_wasileski@falconmail.daytonastate,
ruthann_omeara@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryanne_collier@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_favreau@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_harris234@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_heise@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_hunt2051@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_ianacone@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_kalle@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_manos@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_revek@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_rivas@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_ruffel@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_sutton@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_truong@falconmail.daytonastate,
ryan_urice@falconmail.daytonastate,
rylee_martin@falconmail.daytonastate,
sabrina_girard-stuckey@falconmail.daytonastate,
sabrina_johnson2006@falconmail.daytonastate,
sabrina_tirfagnehu@falconmail.daytonastate,
sadye_greenberger@falconmail.daytonastate

Doubtlessly, these names and emails are all public record, but I’ve never got an email from the college where the addresses were shown. This is unusual. It must’ve been Beverly’s effort, rather than the normal channels (such as the “mass mailers” we students get for tuition billing). I assume this email was sent to several thousand students in chunks of 100, as there are just 100 addresses in the list and they’re all alphabetical. We don’t even get a whole letter. Just two-thirds the R’s and the start of the S’s.

I find the college’s collision-handling interesting―that is, assigning accounts to students with names that are already taken. It seems to be a birthday in some cases, like 1226 or 508, but other numbers like 3229 disprove that. sabrina_johnson2006@falconmail.daytonastate is different; it seems to be for the year 2006. Maybe students get to pick the numbers?

Then again, seeing richard_walker3229@falconmail.daytonastate and richard_williams3330@falconmail.daytonastate right next to each other is odd, as the numbers are incremented one. Could it be a sequential counter of the people whose names have proved too common?

I don’t think so. We couldn’t have low numbers like 234 and 508 mixed in with high numbers like 5807. If it was a counter from one in order of enrollment, the people in the hundreds would’ve long since graduated.

Most of the numbers are four digits. If the students get to pick, why don’t we see numbers popular with the youngsters, like 1234, 6969, and 1337?

Could it be the last few digits of the students’ DSC ID numbers? That would be dumb, because those numbers should remain semi-private as they’re used as a password in many places, sometimes even by default.

I’m confused by these mystery numbers. 27 of 100 of the emails have them. That’s more than one-fourth. I was in QUANTA [1] in the last two semesters. Everyone gave their email accounts, and the class list was given to each student. At least 20 of them used the college-provided accounts, and none of them had numbers.

Perhaps the numbers are meaningless? Maybe I can add any sort of numbers to my address and it will work just like normal? I should test it some time.

I also learned that the college respects hyphenated last-names in email addresses. The only two on the list are rosemarie_savini-volpe@falconmail.daytonastate and sabrina_girard-stuckey@falconmail.daytonastate. I see no hyphenated first names, but I assume the same is true for them. [Personal commentary: women with two last names are always trouble.]

Even periods seem to fly. I see rodriguez_carol_a._rodriguez_c@falconmail.daytonastate and roeill._kristina_roeill._krist@falconmail.daytonastate on the list. What is up with those addresses, anyway? They must be glitches, because they just repeat the name twice in a different way. The original typist may have fouled. I bet Rodriguez and Roeill have been missing all the automated college messages.

How about these long addresses? @falconmail.daytonastate.edu is just too much. The longest unglitched ones on the list? rosemarie_savini-volpe@falconmail.daytonastate and sabrina_girard-stuckey@falconmail.daytonastate. 51 characters each, with the .edu part. Consider that with Gmail, the longest email you can even choose is 40 characters. Would these two, with their unfortunately prolific monikers, chosen a matching electronic version? I doubt it.

I think we should choose our own addresses. Really, would immaturity be such a problem? The college could screen the addresses for swears and racial slurs. Sure, we’d have stale staples like coolguy123 and surferchick1254, but also insightful originals like morningraindrops and learnforlife.

Also, please, drop the “falconmail” thing. We know it’s mail. It’s got an @ sign in it. Even students.daytonastate.edu or u.daytonastate.edu would be a step up. Even better, would be to put us right in the root space with the faculty. I’d be richardxthripp@daytonastate.edu. Why do you have to distinguish, or poison the students with novella-length addresses? Are students much different from faculty anyway? With innovate events like QUANTA [1]’s student-takeover day, the lines are blurring. And you just know colleges are headed toward run-away, student-run learning communities.

But what if a new teacher’s name has been taken by a student? Just put some numbers on the end of it, or let him choose an interesting address. I doubt many people would want sharplk@daytonastate.edu anyway.