Spam blamed for death of e-mail

Writing in Microsoft’s online magazine Slate in 2002, independent technology analyst Kevin Werbach argued that neither legislation nor litigation against Internet spammers has stemmed the onslaught of junk e-mail, nor is likely to have any effect in the future, and it’s clearly time for you and me to surrender.

“Spam” is unsolicited commercial bulk e-mail that pushes everything from cheap credit cards to real estate boondoggles and Viagra pills. Most anyone who works a computer knows what a royal pain it can be in clogging up the system.

“Spam has won. Spam is killing e-mail,” Werbach wrote. “Or at least it’s about to destroy the e-mail we’re used to: The tool that lets a stranger respond to something you posted on your Web site or that lets a potential client contact you after reading an article you wrote. E-mail is pervasive because it’s simple to use, remarkably flexible, and it reaches everyone. The trouble is that e-mail is too good at that third task. Because e-mail inboxes are open to anyone, longtime Internet users now receive hundreds of spams per day, making e-mail virtually unusable without countermeasures…”

At the time, I thought the man to be a bit of an alarmist. When generations of blue-collar Americans have doggedly survived lunchbox sandwiches made from canned Spam with a capital S, what’s to worry about in dealing with a little lower-case spam served up via cyberspace? E-mail dying? No way.

Boy, was I ever wrong. Werbach was so on the money, so prescient, when he wrote that piece 18 months ago he should be inducted into the Divine Omniscience Hall of Fame on the first ballot. He’s made a belated believer out of me. If not already dead, my e-mail hookup is surely on life-support. I’ve taken to cleaning my e-mailbox daily with reckless abandon, working the computer’s “delete” key at a fever pitch and possibly throwing some of the legitimate babies out with the bath water.

.

The amount of unwanted junk mail I attract would make a lesser mortal say the hell with it, hang a Gone Fishin’ sign in his window and exit permanently, stage right. Twenty e-mail messages might include 17 pieces of unsolicited junk; a batch of 30 might include 25 or more; and so on. The killer came Tuesday, when I fired up the computer after several days away from its clutches to find a whopping 58 messages waiting. Four were messages from legitimate correspondents. Four. The game has become akin to watching a television program where 97 percent of the content is ads and the remainder programming, and I don’t want to play any more.

Among losers wasting my time and using up my computer storage space without permission – and making it harder for genuine e-mailers to reach me – were “Beulah,” who was touting enhancement of the male plumbing situation; “Grace Brooks,” who wanted to know if I was having trouble getting in shape for the summer; “Lois,” who was pushing “quality medicine,” including an early-bird special on Vicodin; and some guy who assured me I’m a dope if I fail to get in on his scam ripping off the cable television company.

I rang up BDN computer guru Phil Joyce to ask him what’s up with all the sudden junk mail. He speculated that I’m probably getting only half my fair share, commiserated with me, told me a couple computer geek war stories, and suggested several possible temporary fixes, with emphasis on “temporary.” The good guys’ attempt to thwart the bad guys is just one continuing cat-and-mouse-game, he said, “and the mice are winning.”

Federal and state anti-spam legislation seemingly slows spammers not a whit. Select the “Unsubscribe Me” box on a piece of spam, and likely as not up will pop the same sorry sales pitch that keying on the “Sign This Sucker Up” line would jump-start. So much for legislated rules of the game.

Filters have been designed to intercept some spam, but spammers have easily found ways to jam the radar, so to speak, and sneak their crap into our mailboxes anyway. Anarchy and chaos reign in E-mail Land, and the cost to American business alone, much of it in wasted time deleting unwanted junk mail and trying to outwit the scammers, is mind-boggling. Many organizations have stopped posting their e-mail addresses because of the onslaught, an approach that BDN sports columnist Gary Thorne recently took in hopes of gaining relief.

I’m not quite that drove up over the deal yet. But check me in a week or so, after a couple hundred more Viagra ads have jammed the works.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address for everyone but spammers is olddawg@bangordailynews.net