FIGHTING SPAM!
(with apologies to
Hormel Foods, Inc.)
For the benefit of those who need to ask...
WHAT IS "SPAM"?
In the semi-real world, "Spam" is a heavily-salted
and vaguely-meatlike food substitute product from the fine folks at Hormel
Foods. On the Internet, "spam" is a slang term for junk e-mail. It's usually
advertising, and usually sent in huge, randomly-targeted mass mailings.
WHY DO THEY CALL IT "SPAM"?
Hormel Foods calls their vaguely-meatlike food substitute
"Spam" because it's an acronym for "Spiced Pork and haM" (which sounds
dubious to me, but that's the official story. Personally, I think it really
stands for "Suspicious Pieces of Alleged Meat".) The Internet calls junk
e-mail "spam" because of the classic Monty Python sketch about a restaurant
where everything on the menu has spam (the vaguely-meatlike food substitute)
in it. Don't ask me who made this connection, but junk e-mail became known
as "spam" because you don't want it and didn't ask for it, but people keep
dumping it on you anyway.
WHY IS "SPAM" A BAD THING?
Several reasons:
* It's rude, intrusive and annoying.
* Weeding it out takes time and effort.
* The expense of delivery is borne by the recipient,
not the sender. If you pay for your Internet access by the hour, every
piece of spam you download costs you money. Even if you have an unlimited
account, the sender is exploiting your service provider's storage and transmission
systems, and your ISP has no choice but to pass the costs on to you.
* It wastes online resources and slows down the entire
Internet.
IS THIS REALLY A BIG DEAL? WHY NOT JUST IGNORE IT?
Because there's so damn much of it and you
can't make it STOP! Here's an analogy:
You lock your front door. A burglar breaks into your
home anyway, helps himself to coffee and donuts, then leaves you a note
apologizing for the intrusion and listing instructions on how to ask him
not to do it again.
You follow his instructions and ask him not to do
it again. The next day, another burglar shows up, breaks in, helps
himself to coffee and donuts, then leaves you a note apologizing for the
intrusion and listing instructions on how to ask him not to do it again.
You install an alarm system. Several more burglars
come back the next day, disable your alarm system, break in again, help
themselves to more coffee and donuts, then leave you more notes apologizing
for the intrusion and listing instructions on how to ask them not to do
it again.
You buy a big dog. Even MORE burglars come back the
next day, shoot your dog, break in again, help themselves to more coffee
and donuts, then leave you MORE notes apologizing for the intrusion and
listing instructions on how to ask them not to do it again.
You call the police. The burglars say, "Hey, we didn't
do anything wrong. It's a free country. The Bill of Rights says we're entitled
to other people's coffee and donuts. Besides, statistics prove that most
people LIKE it when we do this."
To your utter astonishment, the police agree with
them!
Now... replace the word "burglar" with the word "spammer".
WHAT CAN I DO TO STOP "SPAM" FROM REACHING MY MAILBOX?
Your single most important precaution is to keep
your e-mail address a closely-guarded secret. Don't give it to ANYBODY
except family, friends and business associates. The spammers can't bother
you if they can't find you.
If the spammers already have your address, change
it and protect the new address with your life.
Don't list yourself in online directories. It's the
first place the spammers will look.
If you need to post on public newsgroups and bulletin
boards, or want to accept incoming responses to a personal web page, set
yourself up with a junk mailbox. There are many Internet services that
offer free
e-mail addresses, some of them with built-in options for filtering
and forwarding incoming messages. If the spammers pick up your address
from a newsgroup, the spam will go to the junk box instead of your "real"
address.
(A side note: posting under a completely phony address
does foil the spammers, but it also causes error messages to ricochet all
over the Internet. Posting from a real-but-disposable box gives the spam
a relatively harmless place to go.)
Contact your local elected officials and tell them
that you want spam declared illegal. There's already a law
on the books forbidding unsolicited advertising by fax machine, and Congress
is considering a bill that would extend the existing law to cover e-mail
as well. There is also a movement toward anti-spam laws in individual states.
State laws may be more effective than a national ban because the spammer
has no way of knowing which state each individual recipient lives in.
Despite all temptation, don't waste your time replying
to spammers, and do NOT try to take revenge. Click here
to find out why!
On a humorous note: To read a poem about the horrors
of spam withdrawal, click here!
Wanna see a really funny (if slightly sick) cartoon
that depicts a spammer getting punished? Click here!
