[extropy-chat] Spam

[Spike]

> Harvey Newstrom
> 
> ...You will also see a bunch of these
> whenever a new version of a spam engine is released, as thousands of
> spammers start testing the new software... Harvey Newstrom...

Spam engines.  Oh, evolution help us.  Next it will be
spam guns, then spam bazookas, and inevitably, spam
nukes.  We can be confident such things are coming,
for there are plenty of people who would be delighted
to see the internet come crashing down.  How many of you
did most or all of your holiday shopping on the internet?
I did.  The on-line stores are eating the lunch of the 
local merchants, who must pay ruinous sales tax to the
state.  The internet's biggest threat is not spammers 
trying to sell things, but spammers trying to get the
proletariat off-line and back into the tax-generating
local stores, churches, sporting events, commercial 
television, facing Mecca, etc.

Here's one to watch for: one day you get a spam which
shows a shocking image of child pornography or abuse,
which pops up without your doing anything.  Then a
message comes up a little later which claims to be from
a government agency of some sort, saying that it has
detected an illegal downloaded image of child pornography
on the hard disk, making the owner of that computer 
punishable by 10 yrs in the slammer, etc.

It would not surprise me if as many as 10% of the proles
were to fall for that trick, toss the whole infernal device
into the trash.  Actually Im surprised something like that 
hasn't already happened.

spike