©02 The Media Desk
http://themediadesk.com
The Desk got this note back from a friend's autoresponder:
NOTE: questy@questy.com and questy@questy.net will be deactivated. Due to the extremely high volume of SPAM, these accounts became high maintenance. Please contact Questy directly for the e-mail address that will replace these. Also, in the near future, web forms will be used on all Questy web sites that allow folks to communicate with Questy, but at the same time, not publish an e-mail address on the page itself. Thank you for your cooperation.The Desk knows how he feels.
TODAY'S! Totals....
Out of seventeen emails in the Media Desk main account delivered since yesterday morning, it read one. The one above.
In the Desk's day job box behind the State's firewall and filters, there were three SPAM messages that came in last night. Including one offering State Employees discounted cel phones.
Out of forty-one new messages in the Desk's Hotmail inbox. (By email standards, this account is ancient. It has been continuously active for over five years.) Two were opened, one was read. In that box's bulk mail folder, all fifteen were deleted unread. Since Microsoft-Hotmail started taking cash bribes from SPAMMERS to allow them to bypass the filters, the bulk mail folder has almost become useless.
In one of the Desk's outside accounts that is simply a SPAM collector. It had twenty-three useless emails dated yesterday touting everything from horny teen websites to herbal prescription wanna-bes. Another six had this morning's date/time stamp on them.
In the Yahoo Accounts... In the Desk's main mailbox, which has its security set all the way up and has a long list of 'deliver to trashcan' addresses in the filter, there were seven SPAM emails that got through the filters. In its other Yahoo mailbox, unfiltered so all of Yahoo's SPAM partners can have a field day, there were over thirty, since just yesterday.
The Desk went out and checked its Russian mailbox. Eleven SPAM.
India: Fourteen SPAM dated yesterday and today.
Malaysia: Nine.
South Africa: Fifteen.
And so on.
Yes SPAM is a major problem for email servers. For ISPs. For those trying to conduct legitimate business or simply to send a message to a friend.
Questy never saw the note from the Desk. It was immediately deleted and the auto-reply sent out. Now the Desk has to chase around and try to find his new mailbox and remember what it had wanted to ask him in the first place.
And things are getting worse.
One of those emails in the Desk's main account was a chain letter...
Greetings,...No he doesn't
I'll make you a promise. READ THIS E-MAIL TO THE END! - follow what it says to the letter - and you will not worry whether a RECESSION is coming or not, who is President, or whether you keep your current job or not . Yes, I know what you are thinking...
The letter goes on to sell you on the idea of MLM worthless reports through direct mail to fifty million email addresses. And make stupid amounts of money, and... the whole thing is ILLEGAL: See ChainMail
Fifty Million Addresses. Sorry guy, at last count, twenty-two of those email addresses belong to the Desk, and all that is going to happen to those emails is a quick tap on the Delete button.
The Bad News is that IF the SPAM keeps up. And the Desk only sees it getting worse in the near future. Congress and other Politicians (curse-spit) will get involved and try to legislate it.
One. It won't work. All it will do is drive the SPAMMERS even further underground. Two. It will cause ISP's and other providers to do unnecessary paperwork, raising prices, and forcing marginal operations out of business or to merge, limiting competition, and raising prices. And Three. ANY regulation of the NET by the Government will pretty much kill the Web by causing honest citizens to worry about things while the bad guys go on their merry way. Like gun control. It regulates the regular people, while the drug dealers and stick up men go free.
What will work?
One thing.
YOU. Yes YOU... have to QUIT reading, answering, forwarding, SPAM.
When you get it, delete it. Do not fall for the Scams. Do not perpetuate Hoaxes. Do not write for more information. Do not click on the ad to see the deal. Do not... Do not... do not.
Sooner or later the SPAMMERS will get the idea and it will die down.
Unfortunately for Questy. It's too late.
The SPAM control project http://www.spamcon.org/
Back to the Desk's Main page
the Urban Legend and SPAM page