The grossest behavior on the internet includes bundling scumware and scamware in with programs and files we download from the net, and spamming.  And you are not alone in dreaming of the ideal anti-spam email system. 

I have a pretty good anti-spam component, included in my ISP’s package.  But still, the crap slips past the sentries and into my legitimate email box.  Last week, my best friend (we’ll call her Vivica) of 29 years emailed me that she has cancer.  I immediately researched (after breaking down like a fool) by googling the stage of cancer she has, to understand what was in store for her.  Within twenty minutes, another email appeared with the subject line reading “About Vivica”.   

As paranoid (or hyper-vigilant) as I am about not opening emails from strange sources, I was comatose enough from the overwhelming emotions, and so opened the email as I thought this was not a game…which was from a skanky Florida company selling Viagra. 

My anti-spam email didn’t catch it, and my anti-spam mentality didn’t either.  I was so pissed that I replied with a pejorative and a threat to report them for preying on our weaknesses or vulnerabilities.  I did report the offender(s) to ftc.gov/spam, though I imagine this division is trying to catch worse offenders than those hawking Viagra. 

I have no proof that scumbags have a way of spying on your searching habits and using key words that will trigger you to open the mail, but the coincidences are too often and too great to be just coincidences.  My friends have unusual names that have never appeared in the random bulk emails.  And the bulk emails for any given time frame reflect what I am researching in that time frame.  So unless we are a psychic village more so than a global one, how in hell would someone in a state three-thousand miles away know I was writing articles on dog tags and kitty litter or a book on Attention Deficit Disorder for college students? 

Now, besides supporting you with anti-spam email, the major ISPs—such as Mozilla, SBC, and AOL, suggest increasing your protection with advanced firewalls, spyware blasters, and virus protection programs.  It is also strongly suggested that 1) you don’t open any email that is spam, and 2) you mark it as spam and/or forward it to anti-spam email organizations. 

But the problem is that in order to mark it as spam or forward it, you have to open it—for the markers and the forwarding functions are inside the email program.  How’s that for really bad planning and planning that sets every user up for more Vivica, Estee-June, and Robertafina false alarms?