I was cleaning out my e-mail junk filter today, a thankless task, but like taking out the garbage and flossing behind the bathroom faucet, it’s a necessary one.
Most of the junk e-mail I get is naturally from the true smut peddlers of the Internet – promising all sorts of lurid and horribly misspelled perversities. I wonder how many people actually open up these e-mails looking for their jollies. Ewww.
Then there’s the slightly more insidious ones telling me I’ve won the lottery in Budapest, or claiming that my PayPal or eBay account has been compromised. Sadly, I think more people fall for this crap. The first time you see it, it looks official and if you actually have a PayPal or eBay account you start to wonder a little bit.
The rest of them are just fishing lures for idiots. Who would ever think someone is going to open up some of these e-mails? Come on. Here’s a sampling of the subject lines I dumped today:
Marsha Brewer sends: Your cash, office building
What about my cash? Does she think I want to buy an office building with my cash?
Hatty Wilson offers: chateaux folk music
I guess since it’s such a popular thing right now, she assumes everyone would want some?
George Cochran wants to talk about: Clump
I’m afraid to ask what this might mean, but let’s be honest, a clump of what? If it comes in a clump, I really don’t want it.
FeroXx WareZ is offering: revealed selling Inca
That makes a lot of sense. Is the Inca selling something or is revealed selling an Inca? Who knows.
Carol Prater wants me to: forward this to Mark
I’ve got news, Mark doesn’t want it either, whatever it is.
Aurelio Covington offers: your future, night lamp
I’m happy with my present, night lamp, thank you.
I know these aren’t real people, but whoever sends them wants us to think they’re pals of ours who have important things to share with us, like selling Incas and night lamps.
Give me a break. Do these things really garner ‘business’ or are they just gateways to computer viruses so that remote controlled hackers can get their rocks off knowing someone’s computer files have been corrupted by their worms?
Either way, I wish there was a way to really combat them, but I guess like chain letters and campaign fliers, we’re stuck with them forever.
2 comments:
I was tempted to open one of the 6 e-mails with the subject -- CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE WON
I'm always tempted to open them up and send back a pithy and scathing reply, but my husband would have a hissy fit. He inists on DELETE, DELETE, DELETE. I'd never hear the end of it if I got a virus.
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