Another Spam rant…
As I was deleting my spam today — well yesterday and the day before too. I got to thinking about the spammer that finally got arrested and went to trial in Virginia. They let him go because the judge didn’t think it was fair, the law was too broad, and so on and so on. Well, as I’ve been clearing out the spam not caught by my filters — usually around 1,000 per day — and remember, that’s not counting the spam caught by my filters on my PC or the ones that the ISP catches before it even gets to me. I have to wondered about this double standard.
Well, we all know that the security at airports is just security theater. It causes people discomfort and inconvenience so they think it must be keeping them safe — when in fact it doesn’t make anyone a bit safer than they were before. It’s all just for show. If they keep telling us we’re safer and we’re all in long lines and it looks like they’re actually doing something somehow we’ll believe it.
Congress talking about protecting children from pornography on the internet is the same. They talk and the pass laws and they make things inconvenient for everyone — yet they don’t do anything to protect anyone from pornography, let alone the children. How do I know? They won’t pass any legislation to protect us from spam. We need a Can Spam law with teeth but when it’s proposed then they start saying we can’t have that because it will restrain trade and yadda yadda…
I’ve been using computers for years, and the internet before it had webpages — I know hard to believe but back in the early years you had to put in these really long addresses to route your email to the places and people you wanted to reach. In comparison to today, we carved our messages on rocks and threw them in the direction we wished them to go and crossed our fingered that they’d get to the one we wanted to communicate with.
In all the years I’ve been on the internet, I’ve never come “accidentally” on pornography. It is out there, I know that it is, I’m just saying I’ve never accidentally stumbled upon it unaware. The closest I came was when I offered to look to see if I could find a prosthetic breast for my mother after her mastectomy for breast cancer. Seems a good place to buy a breast is at sites for transvestites, cross-dressers, costumers, and sex sites. Who knew? So while it wasn’t pornography, it’s as close as I’ve come in close to 40 years of active internet/computer use.
Now back to spam — that’s where I’ve been subjected to pornography. Blatant, disgusting images of body parts. Before you ask, I’ve got my machine set to not display photos unless I tell it to, but the spammers get around that — as you well know. I get propositions, offers of videos of the act and all its variations, and some that just aren’t right….ick…all with coming into my inbox without my permission or consent, and with no way to stop it.
So, I say to Congress if you really want to protect children from pornography on the internet — do something about spam — you know, unwanted, unsolicited email. My experience of 40 years of internet use with lots of searches and miscellaneous website browsing has resulted in no porno. But everyday on my PC without my permission, I get spam with lots of porno. So, lets not have “protect the children” theater. Let’s get rid of the spam.
PS: I happen to like the canned stuff and hope that the unwanted, unsolicited junk that fills our inboxes each day doesn’t put you off. As a student, spam was a food staple — you either acquired a taste for it or your food budget didn’t last very long. Today it’s gotten a bit pricey but it’s the same hearty meal stretcher.