The Spam-tastic Year 2000

Spam Scams to Track Old Friends

I'm surprised somebody from my past hasn't tracked me down and called me out of the blue, considering the volume of e-mail messages that let you "find out anything about anybody" for $50. One pitch read: "Locate! long lost friends, relatives, a past lover who broke your heart!"

I don't know about you, but the last thing I want to do is admit to any relative or former girlfriend I spent $50 and long hours on the Net tracking them down. And I'd hang up on anyone who called me and was able to rattle off my past five traffic offenses, the name of my dog, or the last two elections I didn't vote in.

"How have you been? I hope you remember me!" read one e-mail. Excuse me--no.

I have a particular sore spot for e-mail that blatantly lies to me in the subject line.

E-mail that casually reads "This is really cool," "Your requested information," or "Take a Look" isn't much better. These pitches that pass themselves off as personal e-mails are simply absurd. Does anyone but me read this crap?

To Surrender or Fight

Who do these spammers think they are? I don't want to play a free lottery through e-mail, pay $7 for a cable TV tuning kit that might "accidentally receive" premium cable channels, or buy energy-enhancing Tibetan mushrooms.

Maybe it's that I've become jaded after long hours working on my computer checking e-mail. Perhaps I should give in and act on some of this spam. Sure, I'll just call this 900 number that will reveal "How to make beautiful women from all around the world become interested in (me) from right here at (my) computer?" Ah, finally a chance to show off my monitor tan.

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to kill spam. Spammers are locked into a cold war with antispam software makers, Internet service providers, and worthy antispam groups such as Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail, a nonprofit group that is working to get legislation enacted to stanch the massive flow of spam over the Internet. But spammers are a dastardly lot and keenly adept at finding ways around such efforts.

But don't give up. You can prevent spam; start by reading PC World's latest story on Internet tips on preventing spam.

Face it, if space aliens judged humans by the spam we got, they'd assume we all minted fortunes working from home two hours a week, retired at age 30, and spent the rest of the time surfing for smut.

Hardly seems fair to wreck the carefully crafted image we've created out of the daytime TV shows we beam out to the galaxy. What would they think?