Point/Counterpoint: SPAM
an NIH special report!Spam e-mail – either you hate it or you detest it, right? That's what we thought, until we broached the subject with some of our contributing editors. As usual, our NIH contibutors had a wide range of opinions. We asked regular contributors E. N. Beej and Hope Candyfloss to debate the issues for us.
Part 1. SPAM
by NIH technology correspondent, E. N. BeejWhen I was a kid growing up in the 50s, SPAM was a canned pseudo-food that fed the armies of the world and was used by moms everywhere in their children's school lunch sandwiches. Now, SPAM has come to mean something very different. Like its pseudo-food predecessor, SPAM is now pseudo-email.
Just like its food-like cousin, SPAM isn't really email. Although, it does arrive in your inbox like real email, can be read like real email, can be filed like email, can probably be replied to like real email, unlike real email, it is almost always undesirable and damn hard to get rid of.
Lately, I have been greeted by up to fifty SPAM emails of all kinds when I log on. Want your breasts or penis enlarged? I know where you can get help. Want to go the other way and drop some weight? I can help there too. Need a mortgage or a loan? Look no further. Facing legal problems? No problem. Drugs? Name your poison. Porn? What's your pleasure?
I finally decided to do something about the daily onslaught of SPAM to which I was being subjected. Easier said than done. They've made it virtually impossible to do it. Here are a few ingenious examples that I've come across.
Open a SPAM email and usually at the bottom of the message you will find instructions on how to "unsubscribe" or remove yourself from the SPAMmers list. You scroll down to the bottom of the message to find the 'unsubscribe' prompt. However, before you can move the mouse over to click on it, the cursor jumps back up. You have to be very, very fast and very, very accurate to do it. You also have to be very, very patient.
On other occasions when you do manage to click on the unsubscribe prompt, nothing happens. Click on it all you want and nothing happens. It's a dead prompt.
Another thing that SPAMmers do is to simply allow you to reply to the email with the word 'REMOVE' or 'UNSUBSCRIBE' as the subject. But I have found that these emails must go to the dead email box because nothing ever happens. With rare exceptions, I continue to get SPAM from these advertisers.
Another trick of the SPAMmers is to direct you to a web page to "unsubscribe" but require a password (undivulged) to view the page. I have yet to be able to get into any of these sites to unsubscribe myself. And if no password is required, the page to which you've been linked to unsubscribe is often unavailable.
However, the best one in my opinion is the SPAM that provides no instructions on how to remove yourself from their lists. You will be SPAMmed for life. I'm not sure if its the absurdity of the situation that I appreciate or the honesty to let me know that I will be SPAMmed for life and there is nothing that I can do about it.
I have the feeling the Kafka would have taken great delight in the Spam of today.
Part 2. Spam I Am
by Hope Candyfloss, popular futures expert and licensed macrame therapistGosh! People do have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Information Age, don't they? First an epidemic of computer phobia kept the population from enjoying the benefits of computerization, and now people are turning their backs on the many benefits offered by spam!
The original Spam fed the troops who won the Second World War, and that's no pseudo-achievement! Today, the Spam name has been proudly adopted by an information-rich form of communication which is winning the war against sexual dysfunction, homelessness, and poverty! That's no pseudo-achievement either!
People readily admit that we live in an Information Age. But look at the e-mail you receive. Of all your e-mail, which is the most informative? That's right, the spam!
Spam fills you in on the latest technological and medical breakthroughs, such as herbal Viagra! It tells you where you can get a loan for that house you've been wanting to buy! It shows you how to reunite unfortunate Nigerians with their money!
In contrast, ordinary e-mail fills you up with information-free material such as other people's opinions, "explanations" of why your invoice hasn't been paid, and jokes about minority groups. Is it any wonder that we at the College of Macrame Therapy have installed spam filters on our computers that filter out all e-mail except spam?!
The College has decided that if you don't have a product or service to offer in your e-mail, we don't want to hear about it! As you might expect, the spam filters have drastically reduced the time people spend dealing with internal e-mail! Once supervisors learn that they can't e-mail orders any more but instead have to e-mail inducements, organizational life is transformed!!
When you check your e-mail, which would you prefer to read – an e-mail from your boss arbitrarily moving forward an already close deadline, or an e-mail from your boss promising you an improved sex life?! The choice is obvious, isn't it? You can believe me that macrame therapy took a turn for the better when macrame therapists decided their sex lives took precedence over their bosses' abilities to toy with their working lives!
So let's get over those old Puritan hang-ups which are keeping us from enjoying the benefits of spam! In particular, let's stop denying ourselves!! Order some of that discount Viagra! Help out some of those teenaged girls just starting out in their first business! And, above all, surf into the future on the boundless ocean of spam!!!
Point/Counterpoint: SPAM © Coolth, 2002
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