From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: SpamArrest
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 23:44:49 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Kling" <jkling at nasw.org>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2004 10:42 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: SpamArrest

> Ted White wrote:
[...]

> >Those rascally spammers are always a step (or two) ahead.
> >
> True. I find it an odd phenomenon. Seems like a zero-sum game that
> should peter out over time, but so far it hasn't. The spam that I
> receive now seems almost to be parodies of spams of the past, as if it's
> just a big game for the amusement of a few hundred doofuses (I won't
> give them the honor of calling them criminals).

The Washington POST ran a group of articles in the Business Section last
Sunday dealing in part with spam and other ailments common to modern
computer users.

A small percentage of the spam I've received in the past couple of months
has consisted of aphorisms (often mangled) and famous one-line quotes (also
sometimes mangled), with no apparent product for sale.   (But I clicked on
no links.)  The subject headers seemed to consist of four unrelated words.
I shared some of these odd spams with members of another list I'm on, and
several of them quoted similar ones they'd received.  Then we all
figuratively scratched our heads.

But most of the spam I receive is pushing a product ("free" laptops, drugs,
mortgages and loans, porn) and includes a handy clickable link to Somewhere
Else.   Apparently some .5% of those who receive this stuff respond to it
in a positive way.  Spammers *are* in it for the money.  And they can send
out *millions* of emailed spam at, essentially, *no cost at all*.  If they
get *any* return at all on it, they're ahead of the game.   They spend all
their resources on harvesting addresses and evading spam-traps.  And so far
they're winning.   According to the POST, for some businesses *80%* of all
the email they get is spam.

I gather some spammers consider themselves legitimate businessmen.  They
are hired by people with products to move, and they provide the spam for
this purpose.  They see themselves as "internet marketers."  (Like
junk-mailers.)  Some of them are now fighting legal battles to stay in
business.

--Ted White