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![]() It's Getting Worse22 April 2002 by Marc Zeedar Contributing Columnist print format | email this story | talk
I hoped it was my imagination, but it's not: spam -- unsolicited email -- is getting worse. Advertising my various email addresses on websites, I've always gotten a lot of spam (50-60 per day). While it was annoying, it wasn't the end of the world. In the past six months, however, my spam levels have risen to ridiculous proportions. Now I typically get over 300 per day. That's at home. My work account averages about 100. Worse, I've started noticing some disturbing trends in spam.
Duplicate Messages
Deceptive Subject Lines (As an aside, this is the number one reason I refuse to use any email program that supports HTML. With HTML, it's too easy to include a reference to a website so that just opening the email gives the website a hit and confirms that you received the email. Some people have told me that you can "turn off" HTML support in email programs, such as Apple's Mail program in OS X, but even that doesn't seem to work for me: HTML spam shows up with graphics and fonts and stuff and I don't know what's going on behind the scenes. Worse, Apple's Mail program doesn't give you a way to select a message without opening it: just clicking on the email views it!) My solution to the deceptive subject line is to look at the sender's name. Usually they're something idiotic like "bjuyajpozkcurdim@yahoo.ie" and I know it's spam without even reading the message.
HTML Spam All those HTML files just pile up, though, wasting disk space. (They aren't deleted when I delete the email message.) The other day I (reluctantly) did some clean-up and threw away over 7000 of these HTML attachments (they're numbered by Emailer) and recovered 115MB of hard disk space! Even dumber, some of the spam I get is completely empty: it just says something to the effect that if I can read this, I don't have an HTML-enabled email client. Brilliant sales message. ;-)
Large Attachments Some of this is caused by viruses that forward large attachments from the computers of morons, but I still classify this stuff as spam since it's unwanted.
Grammatical Errors
Greek Messages
Extremely Vulgar Sex Spam Now I don't open these messages, so I can't tell you what they include inside, but it really bothers me when the subject lines contain material inappropriate for children. If I had kids, I'd have serious concerns about them surfing the 'net without supervision, but with the growing trend toward explicit spam, I'd hesitate them even having their own email account!
Subscribe Spam Conveniently, the same spams come to both subscribe-on and subscribe-off addresses, so they're added and removed and don't clutter up my mailing lists. But since my filter also sends a confirmation email to the usually fake return address, I get message failures bouncing back to me all the time. It's very lame because I have to check every failure message in case it was a failure of a legitimate message I sent out.
Faster Propagation of Email Addresses When I first started doing this, I found most companies were honest and kept my email address private, but a few weren't. Gradually, I'd start getting spam addressed to those addresses. Once I noticed, it was easy to blacklist those emails and have nothing to do with the company any more. Recently, I've noticed that when this happens, my email is given out to hordes of spammers at a much faster rate than before. For instance, a couple months ago I noticed my palm@ address had been compromised. Before I could even complain to Palm about the leak, I was deluged with spam. I did a quick count for the month of March: I had received over 180 message addressed to my palm@ address! I reluctantly closed down that address at the mail server and told Palm about it. Now Palm has no way to contact me, a valuable customer. But that's what they get for giving away my email address. The point here is not to complain about Palm, but to point out how rapidly my email address was spread. I did receive a nice email of concern from someone at Palm who wanted me to forward him the spam I'd received so he could trace the leak, but once I told him I'd gotten over 180 messages that month, I never heard back. I guess even he realized the futility of trying to stop that flood. That email address is pretty much dead to me forever. It'll take a decade to get it removed from all the marketing lists.
Unused Accounts Get Spam I've got a few accounts I rarely use and I'm finding that now they get spam! I recently checked the email account with my ISP, an account I've never used since I got DSL a couple years ago, and I was shocked when it contained hundreds of emails. I downloaded them and they were all spam. I deleted them all, but when I checked the account again a few days later, there were several more spams. That disgusting: since it's my ISP account, I can't change the email address, so that account is useless. If you don't believe creating an account brings in spam, just create a new Hotmail account. Within days you'll start collecting spam, even if you never use the account! I have no idea how these email accounts are discovered by spammers: I've heard that spammers are so desperate (and computing power so cheap) they'll actually generate emails to common names, like marc@hotmail, in the hope they'll get lucky and hit on a valid email address.
Spam from Reputable Companies A lot of "associate"-type programs promote this. The person sending the email gets a cut for each purchase or new customer, so these people find spam as a useful way to reach large numbers of people. Recently, for instance, I've gotten quite a few spams trying to get me to join Netflix, the DVD rental program. First off, I'm already a member and have been for years. Second, I don't do business with companies that send or support spam. But these Netflix ads are not sent by Netflix, but by other companies that, apparently, receive some kind of kickback. I've complained to founder@netflix.com, but have never= received a (non-automated) response. If it continues, I'm going to call and complain, and if that doesn't work, I'll have no choice but to cancel my Netflix service.
Pseudo-Spam Other companies seem to think I'm a millionaire. A couple years ago I bought my surround sound system from HiFi.com and it's excellent, but every week since then they send me offers like "$100 off $750 purchase." Come on! How many surround sound systems do I need? An email a month is plenty, folks. Lately Amazon's started sending me emails promoting stuff they think I'll like. "As someone who's bought books by Tom Clancy, we think you'll like Danny Bonaduce's new autobiography..." While Amazon's predictive technology isn't the worst on the planet, it's certainly not perfect. Just because I once bought a sewing book as a gift doesn't mean I have the slightest interest in sewing. And please, Amazon, stop sending me promos for DVDs I already own!!!
Doesn't Even Apply Second, eighty percent of the spam I get doesn't even apply to me. I don't need bigger breasts. Nor do I need software to "make Windows more reliable" (that's an obvious impossibility, unless you're replacing it with Mac OS X ;-). But the bottom line is I never read or reply to spam, so why do they keep sending it to me? Do they think persistence will get me try some "herbal viagra" or a "get rich overnight weight loss" scheme? Enough already.
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