Well I have made it; and it was long overdue. So last night I wrote to my family and friends to break the news. I had been thinking about it since 2006; and I don't usually take that long to make a decision.
"What started the ball rolling", so to speak, in 2006, was the sight of 200 emails, (more or less), tumbling in to my Inbox. They had come from around the world, from postmasers, all of whom were keen to make it known, that the emails I had sent while on holiday, could not be delivered. Oh dear! Not only had I not sent emails in the three weeks that I was in Italy, but, before leaving home, besides shutting the computer down, I had unplugged it from the wall.
So while we were basking in the sights and sounds of Venice, Florence, Sienna and Rome, some anonymous individual, in a sub-culture all of their own, was busy raiding e-mail address books; and finding my address there, posted out trash, (supposedly from me), in what was to become an endless cycle of duplicated junk.
Well I would hate to think that I learned more about "real life", in the seconds that it took for those reject slips to tumble into my email box, than I did in my time in Italy. I doubt it. For while I was inspired to write a poem: "Italy 2006", after the holiday, I have shown no such inclination towards SPAM.
Now I have tried talking to my wife, (who has her own computer), about SPAM; but I get no sympathy whatever. She keeps insisting that I must have, "clicked on something", that I should have been suspicious of. How des she know? (Well, here's the galling bit). She knows because she never gets SPAM. But of course, that's not the whole truth. A part of the truth is, that we use the Internet differently. Apart from paying for games from reputable sources, and researching her family history, Jenny mainly uses the Internet for practical and domestic reasons. I on the other hand: who never pay a domestic bill, or order the weekly shopping online, and don't even know how much is in my personal bank account, (because I trust my wife to know), stray much further afield on the web. And, as we used to say when children, (to prove the truth of it), "cross my heart and hope to die", but, before I shut down the computer, unplugged it from the wall, and left for Italy, I never had a serious problem with SPAM.
But when it comes to taking on the enemy, I am well endowed. For I am, by nature, both decisive and a problem solver. And while I knew that I couldn't defeat the spammer, I though I had enough about me to keep them at bay.
At first, my strategy was to reduce the volume. So using the tools provided, I instructed the service provider, to deliver all incoming "failure" notices straight to the Deleted folder. And following on from this, it wasn't long before I had issued, close on a hundred different sets of instructions, all calculated to steer unwanted mail away from my Inbox. Among the prohibited words and phrases, ware: "mortgage", "stock", "shares" and "close of business". And as a result, I was having success. But -
within months, those who were keen to help me to buy a house, or to re-mortgage, were starting to reappear: They had thrown away the rule-book. They were fighting back. And any spelling would do, so long as the word looked like Mortgage. "Mortgagee", was all that it took to beat the system. And as though the spammers were drinking in the same pub, and sharing their trade secrets, others followed suit. Among them, those who had tried to persuade me to invest in dubious stocks and shares. They had changed the format of their e-mails, from text to graphics; and that was sufficient to beat a system, that couldn't decipher text, in a graphics format. And worse was to follow. The number of those vying for my services, or who wanted to deceive, was getting, longer - and longer. And now, it was my bank account that they were after.
There is a problem, they were telling me; so I must go to the link provided and update my records. Otherwise, my account would be suspended. Besides being a nuisance, these emails were disturbing. Targeted at the unsuspecting, they were the first step in a process calculated to defraud. In my own case, they came, supposedly, from reputable High Street banks. But an obvious flaw in their strategy, was that they came, from banks that I had no dealings with, either now or in the past. And as if on cue, a new type of email began to arrive. It was the turn of the online casino. Often these emails arrived in blocks of six or a dozen at a time. "Everyone's a winner", they were telling me, and I was urged to open an account. And with "4 girls" waiting here, and another "4 girls" waiting there, you won't be surprised to know, that by far the greatest nuisance came form emails for cut-price viagra, blue pills and pills that would add at least three inches to a part of my anatomy, that had never compleained about its size. And still, when I was thinking of quitting, and a new strategy occurred to me, I though I could cope. And I found myself wondering why I hadn't though of it before.
Instead of playing catch-up, I set the parameters so that all emails prefaced SPAM by my service-provider, (and that was almost all of them), automatically went to the Deleted folder. Much easier, I thought, to scan this folder for the few emails I might want, and "kiss goodbye" to the rest, as they disappeared on closure.
Now one of the terrible things about SPAM, apart from the nuisance factor, and the potential to deceive, is its divorce from reality. No great physical energy or stamina is required to produce the millions of new emails that are flooding the system. And "To Cormac", as an inducement in the Subject Box, means nothing. Despite the pretence, such e-mails are not personal to me. The sender, (who electronically, is no more real than the electronic Cormac), has no idea that I exist. Instead, it is just another pieces of electronic junk, attached to a pilfered e-mail address. And they, (whoever they might be), will only know about me, if I am foolish enough to respond.
Well I have had enough. In the face of this particular service provider's inertia, and the fact that I am still receiving upwards of 200 junk e-mails each day, I have decided to close the account.
Instead, I will run two Hotmail e-mail addresses: one for family and friends, and the other for Internet business transactions only. The beauty of Hotmail is, that you have the ultimate sanction. You can set the parameters to exclude messages from anyone who is not in your address book. And if I use the second Hotmail e-mail address, to communicate with reputable businesses, and don't disclose it to anyone else, I should not have a problem. But if I have, I have Plan B. I will create an e-mail address for a given Internet transaction and close it when the purchase is complete.
Now this ultimate sanction that Hotmail provides, is one that all e-mail service providers could offer if they wished. If they did and it was widely used, it would make an enormous difference, and bring some of the enjoyment back into e-mail.
And lastly, this piece of junk that arrived today. Not just once, but twice, and on both occasions, in triplicate. It is offering me, (and millions of others), presumably for a fee, the opportunity to purchase a degree or diploma, (or better), over the Net. Pay attention. It would be funny if it wasn't a rip-off, and an affront, and a reason why SPAM of this kind, and much worse, should be stopped. This one, (all three had different names), is supposedly from Bert Brooks :
"Life can be a different thing for you now! Start right ahead! We now happy to introduce to you a totally different option to acquire your qualification online! Any field you master in you will definitely go better with a diploma record in your CV.
Lot's of people worldwide appreciated this unique opportunity of getting bachelor's, PH's and Masters through the net.
And plus you now able to reach your aim almost instantly Ladder you carrer! Call us ........... for 24/7. Your diploma is just a few day away."
__________
© Cormac McCloskey
Note: This blog, "My first big decision of 2008, was first published on Windows Live Spaces, by me, on 7th January 2008
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