Schachter’s Ramblings

SPAM, SPAM, SPAM…

Posted on September 4th, 2006 by Eban.
Categories: Internet.

There was a time when Spam was a good thing. Well, good if you liked that sort of thing. But, it was strictly the name of a meat product that was good for feeding our troops — good for providing nutrition to families on a budget. Not to mention the “national dish” of Hawaii.

Then, along came the Internet and email. As with many things, the Internet adopted the word, “Spam” to its own venacular. Suddenly, “Spam” was a word to identify “the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited, undesired bulk messages” (Wikipedia).

It used to be that Spam came from signing up from things on the Internet. Sending an eCard, signing up for a newsletter, etc. were sure-fire ways to get your name on unwanted mailing lists. However, Spammers have stepped up their game. Auto-generating email listed — based on domain — or harvesting addresses from Web pages are just a few of the tactics they use.

I’m finally fed up. I no longer want to keep changing my main email address, just to clear out my mail box. Forwarding messages to ISP’s and the Government doesn’t seem to help at all. The folks at SpamItBack.com seem to have a good shot at making a difference in the war on Spam.

Their software allows you to join other users in bombarding known Spammers with messages letting them know you do not appreciate their activities. It creates extra traffic to their Web sites. It fills their mail boxes. The more people that install and use the software, the more effective it will be.

It kind of reminds me of the SETI@Home project, and other distributed computing projects. Using many computers for the benefit of mankind….

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