My personal e-mail account has been receiving a significantly increased amount of spam recently. I’m not sure why: I haven’t signed up for anything, and I don’t give out my e-mail address willy, as they say, nilly. And yet, there it is, festering in my Inbox like a moldy vegetable. A moldy vegetable that thinks you’re an idiot, and wants to steal your wallet. Much like Brussels sprouts, in fact.
My ISP manages to screen quite a bit of it, but more and more is slipping through into my Inbox. Fortunately, the subjects are stupid enough to obviously be spam. And the ones that do get screened are worse.
Take this subject: “Need reliable virus protection? We have it. maybe”
Not that I’d be buying antivirus software because someone sent me e-mail about it, of course, but that “maybe” is great. Maybe it’s the insouciance that’s supposed to grab my attention. Or maybe it’s just a random word appended to their subject. That one landed in the Screened Mail box.
But how about the ones that are getting through? There aren’t many, fortunately, usually 4-6 a day. But I’m used to getting a couple over the course of a month. Now more seem to be getting through the filter.
So I’ll have five real messages, two spam, and eleven sitting in Screened Mail. Something along those lines.
Like this one: “For close so repentance ungodly”. Well, that’s downright philosophical. Am I close to repentance, but just a wee bit ungodly? Or am I really close to ungodly repentance? Which would be what, exactly?
But, alas, it’s just spam trying to sell fake Rolex watches. So, yes, it’s the e-mail equivalent of the shifty guy in the alley with a jacket full of crappy, knock off watches. Boy, how can I ever resist?
Now, so far
Damn, I got distracted by something else for a while, there. What was I talking about? “So far” what? Ah well.
Ok, so, what’s my plan to deal with this deluge? Nothing. Nothing so far, anyway. I’m just hoping that my ISP’s filter picks up on and starts blocking this new crap. Yes, sure, I can go ahead and do my own spam filtering, but that involves work, doesn’t it? For me. The cost involved in deleting spam is not nearly so great, at least not yet, to induce me to even look into the options available. Plus, I’m running Thunderbird at home, and it does a pretty decent job of marking spam appropriately.
So, what, then, is the problem? Well, I guess it’s not really a big problem. Annoying, and sometimes amusing, but not enough to make me stand on my desk and proclaim that This. Must. End. Now!
But this particular curve is, well, curving. Upwards. As in more. Greater than previously. Tending towards a level of Genuine Annoyance, such a level as to force my hand, which will result in some sort of wall building-type task. Which, again, is awfully close to work. Dangerous stuff, work. Not something to be undertaken lightly, or without as much procrastination as possible.