MMMmmmm.... Canned Meat.......

[Walker]

{Begin Rant}
Sources:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1609427,00.asp
http://global-reach.biz/globstats/index.php3

OK, so I was board and am getting nicely pissed off at my email inbox, although things such as “Geneiun Ruoleiux Watchsss,” and “Mysticle Hurbol Mega-girth patches” are interesting I am becoming more and more irate at the level of spam that I keep receiving; SO I decided to do some quit and dirty research; my sources and my logic may be flawed, but I am in an irate mood so I feel that I can disregard things such as facts, and just stick with hearsay…

According to the first sources source, Spam costs $1,934 per worker per year in 2004. That number was generated god knows how, BUT was based off of an average wage of $30 an hr. So that equates to approximately 64.5 hrs a year per worker spent on spam.

SO According to the SECOND source, in 2004 there was a total of 801.4 million people online.

So I will infer that the global population has fairly equal exposure to spam, so I am going to multiply 801.4 million by 64.5 hrs to figure out how many man hrs are spent PER year (in 2004 mind you) dealing with spam. Which equates to 51,690,300,000 hrs per year divided by 24 for days: 2,153,762,500 divided by 364 for years: 5,916,929.
I will then divide this by a life expectancy of 80 years, which is WAY more generous than the real global life expectancy, but hey Im trying to be conservative with my numbers here…. SO that is 73,961.62 Peoples life times that were taken during 2004 dealing with spam…
Now here is a way to look at it, Spammers have COST the cumulative lives of 73,961 people PER year (I would hedge a bet this number has gone up as internet population continues to rise…) so with almost 74 thousand people being “killed” each year; and taking an American slant on shoot first and don’t ever ask any questions; I propose that a war be started against spammers, not a legal war, not an electronic war; simply walk across borders to track down each and everyone of these individuals and slaughter their families in front of them… I have a hard time imagining there are THAT many people out there doing this; and from the point of view of wars and the benefit that they derive, I would put forth that the cost to society (IE mobilize the army, intelligence, social cost to people being killed) would be FAR out weighed by the global benefit of no longer having spam… IE 5,916,929 man years of increased productivity

{End Rant}

NOTE: I don not condone violence etc... etc... etc… But hey if YOU do……

[Dust Devil]

sounds like a plan

[altiplano]

I like corned beef hash.

[Brewguy]

If you are receiving any significant amount of spam - I'd hazard a bet that you are using Microsoft products on your computer. (i.e. Outlook or Outlook Express for email, Internet Explorer for a browser). You probably also surf a lot of useless sites on the internet. Basically, the point is that you haven't adequately protected yourself from spam, because you make questionable decisions when it comes to using technology.

Give this a try. Ditch your M$ crap software. Switch to Firefox or Opera for a web browser, switch to Thunderbird for your email, don't surf porn sites and don't ever enter your email address to "sign-up" for things. You will find that if you do all of these, your address will show up on fewer spam lists, and that 98% of the spam that is sent will be effectively filtered, and you won't ever see it.

I agree, spammers should be shot to rid the world of their evil. However those who suffer from it, do so only because they are ill informed on the options available to protect themselves.

One company I worked for was horrible for spam. The main email address (for sales/booking enquiries) would get on average 500+ spam messages when you first started the computer in the morning, and probably an additional 200+ during the day. The company had spamassassin on the mail server, but it wasn't turned on. I activated spamassassin and our spam rates dropped in half. I then switched the company from Outlook to Thunderbird, and set-up message filtering. The spam rate dropped to approz 5 - 10 per day, almost immediately.

That's from over 700 per day to 10 or less!!! Try Thunderbird for your email. It's free.

[Walker]

I use Fire fox, I NEVER use my real email for websites and the only MS product on my computer is the word/excell.... And im on a G5.
No matter what you use to protect your self there are STILL messages that get through.....