Spammers
Spammers
About 85% of the mail in your e-mailbox is spam.
This doesn’t seem to surprise anyone; in fact it seems to be taken rather phlegmatically, in a way The Luddite finds disgusting.
The 85% figure comes from an organization called CAUCE, which stands for Citizens Against Unsolicited E-Mail. That percentage surprised The Luddite, as he thought it was a lot less, like maybe 55%.
When The Luddite was first entering the computer age—back when dial-ups were still the only way for ISPs to go—The Luddite said he wanted one that would filter out all the spam he was getting after he stupidly posted something to a Usenet group and was promptly targeted for all kinds of offers. The Computrons in charge at the ISP laughed at him.
They were very patient and very patronizing. They said spammers were very persistent and very smart; they were working all the time to hack the system; it was impossible to keep them out and so forth.
The Luddite got annoyed with their patronizing attitude and found himself saying, “Well, you guys are smart, too. Can’t you find a way to keep them out? After all, you’re smarter than them, aren’t you?” It turns out the quickest way to piss off a geek is to question their intelligence, which I had just done. Before they could order me to leave, a guy with a little bit of PR experience was wandering by at the time, saw what was going on and saved the day, at least for the company. He assured me that the company had those spammer swine on the run. So I opened an account with them.
In short, he blew an entire load of smoke up my ass. That was eight years ago and the company I was talking to doesn’t even exist anymore. The spammers are still there, however, sending their crap from China or Korea or wherever. What they don’t know and probably don’t care because spam is incredibly cheap, is that I can’t read their writing, so I couldn’t order something from them even if I wanted to. Whenever something with ideograms appears on my screen, I just delete it. I never see it.
In fact, hitting the ‘delete’ key over and over is what defenders of spam—and there are some—suggest you do. Delete, delete, delete…. how hard is that, they say.
Well, you tell me, The Luddite shoots back. How many hours of everyday do YOU spend clearing unsolicited ads for mortgages and prescription drugs and erection aids off YOUR computer?
I have a law librarian friend who lives in Oregon. She gets about 200 e-mails every couple of hours from lawyers, every one of which has to be gone through. She tells me she has to set aside at least a half-hour every morning just to wade through the junk and eliminate it. This does not even take in the viruses that malicious hackers try to slip in, but that’s another topic. What’s important is more than two-thirds of the e-mail she gets, is a waste of her time. This does not a communications medium make.
There seems to be an attempt to equate spam with junk mail, something else The Luddite loathes. However, equating it with junk mail is wrong. If you have mail that exceeds the capacity of your post office box, the post office will hold it for you until you can come and pick it up. E-mailboxes are different. You get charged for how big they are. Filling them up with spam is costing YOU money, not the advertiser. They might as well be selling stuff on your front lawn because you have a good location and not giving you a share of the proceeds.
One possibility is to force businesses to make everything opt-in rather than opt-out. In other words, the only way they can legally send you further e-mails is if you opt into a service, rather than automatically making you a member until you say otherwise. The Luddite believes this is how it works, but is not positive.
Another possibility that The Luddite has toyed with is prosecution. Not the spammers, they are too busy hiding for that; no, the companies that get advertised. Prosecute THEM. They have to have an address. Go after THEM. Follow the money.
There was something else; something dark and sinister that The Luddite saw on Slate.com. Maybe you saw it, too. It was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion—at least I HOPE it was tongue-in-cheek, but now I don’t know—that since hackers cause much more damage to society with their viruses than murderers do, they should be put to death. It was a very fact-laden, cold argument, fraught with cost-benefit analysis. It was also hard to argue with if you had most of your data corrupted by some pimply-faced, 14-year-old geek in New York City that was mad at the world because he’d been bullied that morning but wanted to demonstrate his power. That had to do with hackers, not spammers, but The Luddite is too pissed off right now to note the difference.
About 85% of the mail in your e-mailbox is spam.
This doesn’t seem to surprise anyone; in fact it seems to be taken rather phlegmatically, in a way The Luddite finds disgusting.
The 85% figure comes from an organization called CAUCE, which stands for Citizens Against Unsolicited E-Mail. That percentage surprised The Luddite, as he thought it was a lot less, like maybe 55%.
When The Luddite was first entering the computer age—back when dial-ups were still the only way for ISPs to go—The Luddite said he wanted one that would filter out all the spam he was getting after he stupidly posted something to a Usenet group and was promptly targeted for all kinds of offers. The Computrons in charge at the ISP laughed at him.
They were very patient and very patronizing. They said spammers were very persistent and very smart; they were working all the time to hack the system; it was impossible to keep them out and so forth.
The Luddite got annoyed with their patronizing attitude and found himself saying, “Well, you guys are smart, too. Can’t you find a way to keep them out? After all, you’re smarter than them, aren’t you?” It turns out the quickest way to piss off a geek is to question their intelligence, which I had just done. Before they could order me to leave, a guy with a little bit of PR experience was wandering by at the time, saw what was going on and saved the day, at least for the company. He assured me that the company had those spammer swine on the run. So I opened an account with them.
In short, he blew an entire load of smoke up my ass. That was eight years ago and the company I was talking to doesn’t even exist anymore. The spammers are still there, however, sending their crap from China or Korea or wherever. What they don’t know and probably don’t care because spam is incredibly cheap, is that I can’t read their writing, so I couldn’t order something from them even if I wanted to. Whenever something with ideograms appears on my screen, I just delete it. I never see it.
In fact, hitting the ‘delete’ key over and over is what defenders of spam—and there are some—suggest you do. Delete, delete, delete…. how hard is that, they say.
Well, you tell me, The Luddite shoots back. How many hours of everyday do YOU spend clearing unsolicited ads for mortgages and prescription drugs and erection aids off YOUR computer?
I have a law librarian friend who lives in Oregon. She gets about 200 e-mails every couple of hours from lawyers, every one of which has to be gone through. She tells me she has to set aside at least a half-hour every morning just to wade through the junk and eliminate it. This does not even take in the viruses that malicious hackers try to slip in, but that’s another topic. What’s important is more than two-thirds of the e-mail she gets, is a waste of her time. This does not a communications medium make.
There seems to be an attempt to equate spam with junk mail, something else The Luddite loathes. However, equating it with junk mail is wrong. If you have mail that exceeds the capacity of your post office box, the post office will hold it for you until you can come and pick it up. E-mailboxes are different. You get charged for how big they are. Filling them up with spam is costing YOU money, not the advertiser. They might as well be selling stuff on your front lawn because you have a good location and not giving you a share of the proceeds.
One possibility is to force businesses to make everything opt-in rather than opt-out. In other words, the only way they can legally send you further e-mails is if you opt into a service, rather than automatically making you a member until you say otherwise. The Luddite believes this is how it works, but is not positive.
Another possibility that The Luddite has toyed with is prosecution. Not the spammers, they are too busy hiding for that; no, the companies that get advertised. Prosecute THEM. They have to have an address. Go after THEM. Follow the money.
There was something else; something dark and sinister that The Luddite saw on Slate.com. Maybe you saw it, too. It was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion—at least I HOPE it was tongue-in-cheek, but now I don’t know—that since hackers cause much more damage to society with their viruses than murderers do, they should be put to death. It was a very fact-laden, cold argument, fraught with cost-benefit analysis. It was also hard to argue with if you had most of your data corrupted by some pimply-faced, 14-year-old geek in New York City that was mad at the world because he’d been bullied that morning but wanted to demonstrate his power. That had to do with hackers, not spammers, but The Luddite is too pissed off right now to note the difference.
posted by S. Olson at 8:22 AM
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