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Spam Diaries - A series of articles about Spam arriving at the PGTS Domain.

By Gerry Patterson

The Spam Diaries started in July 2002, when I wrote a rather opinionated essay on the topic of spam. I have since been forced to reconsider some of those opinions. In order to do research on the topic, I deliberately exposed myself to spam. Slowly a trickle of spam began dribbling into my inbox. A trickle which could easily have become a flood, had I not started taking counter-measures.

At the time, I thought the prevalence of spam was puzzling. In the original essay on the topic I opined that spam would eventually die out due to lack of interest. This was based on the assumption that spamming is essentially a misguided attempt at marketing. And as a such it has limited value for the client (i.e. the retailer who wishes to sell the product). I asserted spamming would not add value to legitimate products and/or services. And that if the only goods and services associated with spam were illegal or of questionable legitimacy, eventually people would cease purchasing these products.

In this regard, it seems that my initial assumptions were over-simplistic and I also seriously under-estimated the almost limitless human capacity for gullibity and ignorance when it comes to new technology.

For the time being it seems that there are still are a sufficient number of stupid people in the world to enable spammers and scammers to turn a profit.

And at the same time it seems that spam is evolving as it is adopted by organised cyber-crime.

  1. Reducing Spam Rage. This was the original essay, in which I propose a simplistic model of spam and I foolishly predict that spam will fade away due to lack of interest.
  2. Spam Sauce. Where I eat my words. And if I am eating my words, I might as well add some sauce.
  3. Spam Turkey Bastards. Care for a little turkey with that sauce?
  4. How To Avoid Being Labelled A Spammer. For the socially-inept, who genuinely believe that they are doing a public service by bulk e-mailing their sales pitch to the world.
  5. A Few Inches More ... Please? A look at one of the genuine "growth industries" associated with spam.
  6. How Will Laws Against Spam Work? A straight forward answer -- They won't! Having done two year's research, I predict that spam laws will fail.
  7. The Spam Tide Rises! And it seems that the laws didn't work! This time it seems my predictions are more accurate.