On The Frivilous Side: Spam News Stories

On occasion, I like to post something random and light-hearted. To sort of change the pace once in a while. Here's such a post.

You gotta love spam. What follows are a collection of real live spam e-mail titles I've received in my mailbox, excepting a bunch of obscene ones. Which one of them do you think would be the most unlikely news story?

• "Barack Obama Wins Ku Klux Klan Endorsement"
• "Bush And Putin Agree To Restart Cold War During G8 Summit"
• "Attack Of The Zombie Negro: Dick Cheney"
• "MLB players boycott All-Star game"
• "Mccain Vows TO Replace Secret Service With His Own Bare Fists"
• "Britney Spears And Michael Jackson To Write Parenting Book"
• "Obama Comes Clean: "Im An Elitist, Ultra-Liberal.."
• "Mccaine vows to remain celibate"

If I really had a lot of spare time, I'd probably write fake news reports for each one of these. The stories probably wouldn't be all that more wacky than some of what gets published in tabloids nowadays.

Educated at the Feet of Spammers?

Over the last little while, I've been receiving an increasing amount of spam advertising Liberty University distance education.

I think they may need to update their list of taboos. They've already tabooed things such as dancing, drinking alcohol, unauthorized petitions, flip-flops, capri pants, jeans, and possibly Calvinism :) Perhaps they should stop paying spammers and add spam to its list of ethical no-nos.

Please stop spamming me, Liberty University. Granted, you are not directly doing it. However, I highly doubt someone is voluntarily doing it at their own cost. Sending me spam with an opt out link is not good enough. I do not want e-mail from any Universities unless I specifically ask for it.

Spam Drug King Busted

A drugstore operator in Minnesota, who derived much of his profits from e-mail spam, has recently been indicted.

Apparently, Christopher William Smith conspired to threaten and intimidate a witness in his trial. An indictment alleges that Smith also said he intended to have the witness or the witness's family killed.

Smith built a fortune, consisting of a $1,000,000 house and luxary cars upon a business of illegally dispensing prescription drugs. While Smith himself likely did not send spam himself, it is said that much of his business' profits were derived from spamming.

There are a number of different articles covering this story, and they can be easily found by going to news.google.com and typing "Christopher William Smith".

Spam: The Joke's On You

Since spam appears to be here to stay, some have decided to make the best of it. There are a couple projects dedicated to making use out of mounds of spam, and believe it or not, they are actually quite funny.

The first is Spamradio, a decidedly bizzare project. The folks at Spamradio have developed a system that processes a seemingly never ending pile of spam and uses text to voice technology to turn it into audio files with light background music. The result is a 24/7 stream of spam readings. I can't imagine someone listening to this for more than an hour, but just listening to it for a few minutes sure cracked me up! Perhaps the next project should be to figure out how to convert mass piles of spam into a renewable energy source!

Another project, probably more popular than Spamradio, is thespamletters.com. This is an attempt at replying to spam, with a vengance. The author of the site, Jonathan Land, acknowledges that most FROM addresses that spammers use are invalid, but that doesn't stop him! He takes secret pleasure in talking back. He writes humorous responses to spam he receives and posts it on his site. And sometimes he even gets replies! This is not some small project either, because now the project has become a published book! No Starch Press has published a number of these responses in a book entitled "The Spam Letters".

Sometimes when we can't seem to get rid of something, we need to learn to live with it. And these projects are dedicated to doing just that! Next, Spam Art! :)