Junk Mail: Or is it? Yes, it is.
By BLAKE COOPER
Okay, so everyone hates junk mail, that's just a
proven fact. That's why they call it junk mail. But most people don't have a
reason. But I do. The reason i hate junk mail is because, lately, the people who
send the junk mail have been making an extra effort to let me know that they
think they're smarter than me. They do this by disguising their junk mail to
make it look more like real mail. By doing this, they expect me to open it up,
thinking it's important but only finding advertisements for penis cream and
whatnot.
This is my hotmail inbox. Now i'm willing to give credit where credit is due, and i will say that hotmail does catch the majority of junk mail (notice the junk mail box: 131, as opposed to the inbox: 30). And the ones that slip by, who could blame them? Just looking at these emails here, i can see several quick schemes.
1) Using my email address as the sender's. Through some miracle of computer science, they can mirror my email address when they send SPAM, making me think that I sent myself some junk mail. Very clever, but it's not that often i send myself crap, and when i do, i don't do it from an account that would end in @djawiohegalkj.
2) Real name + vague question = sneaky crap. When i get something called 'did you hear?' from Ainsley Brower, sometimes this could look real. this unbeatable combo of real name and vague question makes for the trickiest and most clever scheme yet. One problem: I DON'T KNOW A F*CKING AINSLEY BROWER!!!! and believe me, i've seen enough episodes of forensic files to know not to talk to strangers.
3) Inklings of sex. The online porn industry is responsible for roughly 99% of all SPAM (okay, i made this up, but it's probably accurate), but they can't just come out and say 'naked women' or 'bad touch! bad touch!' like i've grown so fond... i mean accustomed to. Now they say some vague thing that hints sex but doesn't blurt it. Example: 'Please don't tell my wife.' I get these all the time, and yes, occasionally i click, but never once have i been satisfied with the clicking, so word to the wise: somebody tell this guy's wife before he keeps emailing me!
So there's the breakdown. I ask you: what's more selfish than people trying to trick other people so they can earn a buck? Well, for one, someone willing to waste people's time by having them go through every trite boring piece of SPAM in his inbox!