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Modern life |
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NEED SOME cut-price Viagra? I’m your man. Penis extension surgery? I can put you in touch with an expert. Height enhancement? I know a chap with a rack. Mortgages and loans for those with bad credit ratings? Just an email away, old fruit. I should stress that I’m not the sort of person who consorts regularly with doctors who make liberal use of their prescription pads, or genitally fixated plastic surgeons, or loan sharks. They seek me out, emailing me with offers of the goods and services outlined. This is ‘spam’ — the online equivalent of junk mail. The term is believed to have originated in the early days of the Internet, when a Monty Python obsessive bombarded several online discussion groups with lengthy messages consisting entirely of a repetitive quote from the ‘Spam’ sketch. Thus, sending useless messages became known as ‘spamming’. (Hormel Foods, the manufacturers of the canned luncheon meat of the same name, seem to have taken the hijacking of their trademark philosophically.) Given that the main purpose of the Internet seems to be the dissemination of pornography, it will come as no surprise that some of the most vigorous spammers are selling sex, as well as the accessories and modifications mentioned above. Sometimes, a piece of spam can actually provoke a laugh, although this is usually unintentional. Recently, I was offered the chance to ‘WORK FROM HOME!’ (which I do anyway) by someone called Pele. Not the Pele? Can an international footballer work from home? Imagine the scene at the 1970 World Cup: ‘Where’s Pele? At home practicing dribbles in the garden. He never was a team player.’ Shortly after that, I was offered a ‘Keep God in the Pledge’ T-shirt. It took me a web search to discover that the slogan referred to the campaign to keep God’s name in the US Pledge of Allegiance, rather than a link-up between the Church and furniture polish manufacturers. Other forms of spam are rather more sinister. The Nigerian scam, as mentioned by the Old ’Un a while back, appeals to the ‘something for nothing’ mentality, presenting a tale of woe about the riches that a former figure of authority has had to leave behind in the old country, but which you can help him or her gain access to by giving them your bank details. Needless to say, there are no riches, and what little you had will disappear pretty sharpish. How does all of this rubbish get to you in the first place? If your email address appears on any website then you are a sitting duck for spam. Also, everything you buy for a computer seems to require registration, which is simply so that the company can get your email address. Indeed, there are unscrupulous agencies that sell lists of email addresses to those who want them. Some, in a neatly circular manner, advertise their wares via spam. Unfortunately, ‘direct mail’ — as spam and junk mail tend to be known to their perpetrators — is not very effective unless it is targeted at those who might want to make use of it. Spam seems a case of throwing manure at a wall and hoping some sticks. As an example of how badly targeted it is, a friend recently changed his email address because he was ‘sick and tired of being contacted by companies that seem to think that I’m a poorly endowed midget with a bad credit rating and an interest in taking out a mortgage in Pennsylvania’. In fact, he is a prosperous six-footer living in suburban London. I can’t speak for his endowment, though... © Louis Barfe 2002 |
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