DisSuggs4u

Amazing.

The “spam” folder on my e-mail client of choice has acquired 5481 messages since October 15th. That is a lot of junk mail.

Surprisingly, it seems to be getting worse. My e-mail client automatically deletes spam messages older than 30-days, and that folder normally hovers around the 2500 mark. So, in the past month, it appears to have gotten twice as bad as normal. Crazy.

How is it that people who send this junk are still around? I suppose there are enough AOL users out there who blindly click on this stuff and get unknowingly sucked into a spyware infested viral hole in order to keep these jerks in business. Still, you would think that by now someone would have come up with a better way for the masses to communicate via e-mail and not have to deal with all this junk.

Sure, there are tools out there which automatically watch for these type of messages, and will allow you to create “black lists” and “white lists” allowing (in theory) only certain people to get through your personal Maginot Line. That does not work, though, for new people who want to e-mail you. How do you handle those situations then?

Some of these tools, such as the one gMail uses, are supposed to have enough intelligence to “learn” what is spam and what is not. Frankly, from my experience, gMail’s tool is good but it is anything from great. Every day, I have at least thirty messages that I need to manually mark as spam. Granted, when I am receiving hundreds a day, thirty is not that bad… relatively.

I suppose part of the reason these messages slip through my e-mail’s defenses is because the spam authors are getting more crafty in their ways, and writing the e-mails using words commonly found in the dictionary. Perhaps gMail should add a grammar check to their tool so that the likes of “The remnant of The archers other left all the Lord” will get flagged immediately.

Maybe that will also help make actual people better writers. Less spam and better writing skills. Everyone wins! (Well, except the spammers… may they drown in red hot liquid magma.)

Until then, I guess we will have to deal with what we have.

[Oh, look. I have four new e-mail messages. Wonder who they are from…]

PostScript:
The title of this post was most definitely inspired by a yearly festival held here in Austin, TX. Personally, I am not a fan of the meat-like substance, but I do find the festival fun (and funny). It is definitely part of the “weird” Austin vibe.

[UPDATE 2006.1205 :: My spam folder is now up to 7184. This is crazy.]