| |
| |
|
Spam Blocker Information |
|
|
|
The Vanishing Mail
Am I Just Being Paranoid Or Are The Robots Out To Get Me? It all started in the early part of the twenty-first century. In the early days of email we were thrilled with its speed and reliability, far superior to "snail mail" but there's always somebody who has to go and spoil things for everyone else. In the case of email it was the purveyors of the namesake of a certain pork-based substance. They became such a nuisance that large teams of robots had to be employed to keep them under control. As the porkers got smarter, the robots had to become smarter still. At first, everybody agreed that stringent measures must be taken to defeat the porkers. Ever hear the phrase "throwing the baby out with the bath water" or "the cure is worse than the disease"? The number of spam merchants multiplied over and over. Eventually, the only way of controlling them was for every email user to have his or her own robot to filter their mail. I did not want a robot filtering my mail but I didn't have much choice: nobody was allowed an email account without a robot to monitor its use. Every time I log into my email, I pause and listen for the faint metallic scraping and a slight pneumatic wheeze as the robot wakes and prepares to filter my mail. No matter how quiet I am, he always knows and is instantly awake and alert, ready to do his job. I did not request robotic help, don't want it, don't need it but the robot is here to stay. I think my robot is like the paranoid android in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: slow moving and depressive, so I call him Marvin (not to his face, of course). I don't suppose my Marvin feels that censoring my mail is a suitable occupation for a robot of his caliber, any more that his namesake thought attending the car park at the end of the universe was a great career for a robot with a brain the size of a planet. On my part, I am sure that I am old enough to take full responsibility for my own correspondence. There is no need for Marvin to wear out his circuits on my account but it appears that we are stuck with each other for the duration. The extent of Marvin's power first caught my attention when a regular newsletter which I enjoyed failed to arrive. Delivery just stopped altogether. I asked my email provider if there was a problem with this particular mail and they said there was nothing wrong with my mailbox, it must be a problem with the sender. I asked the sender why delivery had stopped and they said it hadn't, it must be a problem with my mailbox. I gave up and just resubscribed myself to the newsletter. Every time delivery stopped after that I wondered what else I might be missing in the way of interesting mail. It was shortly after this that it became apparent to me that Marvin has a bad attitude. Now I can sympathise with him because I know how it feels to be stuck in a boring job while the brain cells shrivel. That doesn't mean I think he should behave badly, he should do the job to the best of his ability (even if it is beneath him) and not make mischief. Everyone seems to believe that the robots keep changing the rules in an effort to keep ahead of the porkers but I don't believe that. I think they keep changing the rules mostly out of boredom but, in Marvin's case, I sense a certain underlying malevolence. This surfaced recently when I sent an email to a friend I had not heard from for a while. My mail bounced back with a message to the effect that spam would not be delivered. How dare they, Spam indeed! From that day on, every mail I tried to send bounced straight back at me. Angrily, I contacted the email company support desk to complain. They helpfully told me that this problem was nothing to do with them, I must have used forbidden words in my emails and that was why they bounced. The forbidden words included "friend", "free", "you", "internet", "remove". The list of forbidden words is long and growing longer by the day, it is difficult to make up proper sentences without using the forbidden words, soon our only way of emailing will be by inventing a new language. My problem now is that I cannot get email through to my friends and they cannot get email to me. Too late I realised that we neglected to exchange phone numbers: there seemed no point when email was so quick and easy. Now I can't send email, can't receive email, the robot has isolated me. Only one way left to break out of quarantine and it's a long time since I sat with pen and paper to write letters. I won't use the word processor as I am convinced Marvin will recognise it as a means of communication but I don't think he will know what the pen is for and I doubt he'll be suspicious if I take some envelopes with me next time I go out. A glorified email filter is hardly likely to know the purpose of a mailbox which is not of the virtual variety. I hear Marvin stir even though I have not switched on my computer, he seems to have the ability to read my mind. There is a faint clanking sound, the smell of ozone, an electrical crackle in the air. His hand on my shoulder is heavy and cold, the steel joints creak as his fingers tighten. I don't think I will be going out to post any letters. This is one of a series of articles published by the author, Elaine Currie, BA(Hons) at http://www.HuntingVenus.com The author's monthly newsletter is available free from mailto:networkerhvm@ReportsNetwork.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Spam-Blocker - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Three Faces of SPAM Like everybody who will ever read this, I get spam in my e-mail. Mine seems to fall into one of three categories. Fight Spam and Fortify Your Web Site with RSS RSS is the answer to the Spam epidemic of the past. Spam, any mass distribution of material across the Internet, can cause systems to back up and crash with unwanted and unsolicited material. Dont Give the Spammers Your Address From Your Page Spammers get email addresses from web pages using programs called spiders which tour the internet capturing letter strings with the "@" character in it.Signing up for extra information at some sites and giving your email address can also get you a flood of unwanted mail, but although it feels like spam, it is, or started as, "Opt-in" email. What To Do When You Get Spam When you go to your mailbox and find pieces of junk mail mixed in with important correspondence, you throw it out. It is a mild nuisance and you probably don't even give it a second thought. The Definition of Spam Spam can bring down your website faster than a speeding bullet, but what is spam? Originally, spam referred to unwanted emails. We all hate the tons of email we receive day after day trying to get us to buy that or click this. The Vanishing Mail Am I Just Being Paranoid Or Are The Robots Out To Get Me?It all started in the early part of the twenty-first century.In the early days of email we were thrilled with its speed and reliability, far superior to "snail mail" but there's always somebody who has to go and spoil things for everyone else. What Exactly is Spam? Spam, as defined in the context of computers, the Internet and electronic messaging, is a term used to designate unsolicited bulk electronic messaging and communication. In particular, spam is unsolicited bulk mailings that are commercially oriented. Spam - How to Report it I'm sure you find spam just as frustrating and annoying as I do. So I've done some investigation in how to report it to get these people hopefully in a bit of strife! And put spam to an end or at least lessen it ;-)You see, I actually didn't realize for a while I was actually making the situation worse. Ignoring These Tips Could Result in an Inbox Full of Spam Although there still seem to be some differences among the US Government, the lawmakers, the anti-spam organizations and the spammers regarding what is spam and what is not, identifying it is actually pretty easy: if you did not ask for it, you did not sign up on a mailing list related to it, and did not leave your e-mail address on a web form asking for more information on it?it's spam! The spam issue is not about content, but solely about delivery method. The content of spam is and has always been irrelevant. How To Identify Spam Most of us have opened our email program and found, alongside correspondence from people that we know, offers for products from commercial web sites. Some of these emails we expect. Your Dolphin E-mail Caught In Spam Tuna Net? Let me ask a couple of questions:If (potential) customers sends an e-mail to your company, do they want to receive an answer?If you, in return, e-mail your customer, do you expect that your e-mail is delivered to the customer?Well, in my case, I answered "YES" on both questions. After all, the customer asks for an answer, so it's normal to expect that when you send an e-mail in return, that the customer receives it. Lockspam Free 3.0 Released! 6 August, 2004: Polesoft Inc., home of Professional anti spam software, announced today that Lockspam Free 3. Blackhole or Fail - Which One Is Better For Your Mail Server? Very often SPAMMERS take advantage of catch-all email setup on webservers. Every email no matter what the recipients email address is will be caught by the default email account. Dealing With SPAM - An E-mail Address Strategy With SPAM being such a problem it might seem the right thing to do is never give anyone your email address. As a strategy that's not bad but it misses one rather important point; the purpose of having an email address is to be able to exchange emails, both with friends and also as a means to receive eZines from online forums and information sites. Take Back Control of Your Inbox: Eliminate Annoying and Potentially Harmful E-mails Are you tired of spam stealing your time, your money, your bandwidth and your hard disc space?The time you devote each day to sort and delete spam from your inbox could be put to much better use. In the European Union alone, the working hours employees are spending on sorting and deleting spam is costing the companies and estimated 10 billion euros every year! By manually sorting out spam after it has reached your inbox you are loosing time and money, as well as bandwidth and space. The 4 Ws of Junk E-mail Junk e-mail or spam has become the scourge of the modern computer world. It eats bandwidth. Which Spam Filter Is Best For You? With the number of spam filtering solutions increasing each week it's getting tougher for consumers to make informed choices in their purchases.There are 3 basic types of spam filters:IntegratedStandaloneOnlineWe'll look at each type of spam filter and at the end you should be able to decide what spam filter is right for you. Spammer in the Slammer: Jeremy Jaynes Sentenced to Nine Years Will other spammers take heed? Don't count on it.Jeremy Jaynes was on top of the world. Are You A Spam Zombie? Over the past few years you've all become familiar with the terms spam, spam filter, whitelists, blacklists and a whole myriad of other terminology associated with the problem of spam. You now have to add a new and extremely worrying phrase to that list - spam zombie. The Cybermagic of Whitelists Before we start getting deep into the meat of this article it's important to explain some standard terminology to make sure the rest of this article makes sense.An IP address is a number which identifies your location on the Internet.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
