Spam

Spam Recently I was reading some posts in an online forum concerning spam. The initial question was: Should spammers simply be blocked, or could they be legitimately prosecuted?

Response 1: If by "prosecuted", you mean hunted down like animals and killed, then yes.
Response 2: No, spammers need to be persecuted, not prosecuted.
Response 3: If by "persecuted", you mean hunted down like animals and killed, then yes.

I, for one, get lots and lots of spam. Everyday I am greeted by hundreds of graphic propositions, colorful confessions, and ten-story promises. For the most part it doesn't bother me. I mean, I could have told you the Pasta Pot would be a "hot property' way back last August.

On the other hand, spam has certainly caught the flag-waving attention of the politicians, technophiles and lawyers. On June 17th, Microsoft filed 15 lawsuits against alleged spammers in the US and in the United Kingdom. The lawsuit claims these enterprising, albeit enormously annoying guys and gals have sent over 2 billion emails to Microsoft's Hotmail and MSN users.

There are some logistic problems with regulatory actions and lawsuits though. The first is simple, the Internet is worldwide. No matter how aggressively the United States tries to spread the joys of democracy, there are still a few countries out there that really don't care two hoots about our laws. And suing someone in Botswana's Kalahari Desert might be a bit troublesome even for a heavy handed giant like Microsoft.

Another problem comes with the technological stealth of the accomplished spammers. These folks are very clever and they don't necessarily live by the moral codes of our existential heroes. They have the ability to find even the smallest worm holes in every new filtering mechanism or regulatory mandate. To top it all off, they make lots and lots of money.

Let's dissect the spam issue into understandable chunks.

1. Most spammers are smart fellows with at least a T-1 connection. That means they can send whole bucket loads of emails at once.
2. It is easy for them to gather up millions of email addresses with rather simple software. In short, they create a program to crawl through the links on websites and through the postings on discussion forums and newsgroups. Its mission: find email addresses and place them in a database.
3. Armed with a good supply of email addresses (say 20 million) our spammer sends a carefully worded email off to each and every one: "EXPLODE YOUR SALES BY 500% OVER NIGHT!........Send your message to 500,000 willing recipients for only $99-Spam Free! Imagine emailing 500,000 recipients and 1 out of every 1000 orders your product, that's 500 new orders!"
4. This process takes a whopping 5-10 hours.
5. Most folks will delete his correspondence. Or they will fire off a hateful message to his already defunct hotmail return address. Or they will do the latter plus they will make an impassioned call to their ISP (Internet Service Provider). It is prudent to note that the ISP is probably a totally innocent hijack victim itself.
6. So Mr. or Mrs. Spammer's return is a mere .001% or 200 takers or $19,800. Not bad for an honest day's work. (I take that back, spam is illegal unless it has ADV. in the title line in 33 states, including our own South Dakota.)
7. Now s/he sends out the promised e-messages for his loyal 200 clients and guess what, they are happy with their returns too. So they just keep coming back.

To be fair, becoming an accomplished spammer isn't that easy. To really have the 'knack' one needs a strong creative side that concurs with the analytical. Fortunately, most folks with balanced brains have a conscience.

One comment I hear a lot from folks who chose simply to use the Internet rather than live inside it is, "Why can't THEY stop spam?" To answer without getting all boring and technical is practically impossible. So let's stay with the most basic integer. There is no 'THEY'.

The Internet is public. It isn't owned by anyone. Rather, it is a "decentralized worldwide network of millions of computers." So the concept of "THEY" is a myth. It is also one of the components that makes the Internet and the World Wide Web so interesting. It is this lack of regulation that opens up unprecedented levels of communication for the common man.

So before you cheer the politicians, lawyers and software monopolies for saving your index finger from the delete key, at least take time to read and think about what these THEY are really doing. If you choose to support them, that's fine. Judging by the weight of my 'deleted items' file, something probably should be done….but carefully.

In the meantime, here are some spam rules to live by:

• Don't ever accept a spammers offer, no matter how good it is.
• Unless you trust the sender, don't request to be removed from the mailing list. The true spammers use this trick to verify that your address is active i.e. sellable.
• If you feel you have to, go ahead and notify your ISP. However, be aware that they are probably busy trying to clean up the bandwidth hit they took when they were hijacked by the spammer.
• Don't bother sending a heated retort to the sender. If the message came from a spammer, more likely than not, the return address will have been abandon.
• If you are getting too much junk email, consider changing your email address.
• If you have a website, ask your webmaster to protect your email address from being harvested with javascript.
• Open your email server i.e. Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape Communicator etc. Go to the 'help' dropdown on the top of the screen. Click on the 'help' link and read about email filters. You can set up who you will and won't accept mail from.

For a full definition of spam and lots of links to sites who have made its banishment their life missions go to www.webpedia.com and type 'spam' into the search box.

For some fun go to www.j-walk.com/blog/docs/conference.htm and read all about the 3rd Annual Nigerian Email Conference.