EVIL SPAM GOES MAD!
All over the web of late, particularly on the blogs I look at, complaints about an abundance of e-spam are a common cry. Yes, indeed it does seem that the amount of spam has increased in recent days. The delete key is getting overworked!
Perhaps, I mused, it was yet another revolting aspect of the holiday and gift-giving/selling season. An ancillary effect, easily enough blasted by a tap of the delete button. But here we are more than a week since the climax of gift-giving season, already into the new year. But the e-spam just keeps on coming.
Maybe that annoying voice some people have, the one proclaiming, "You've Got Mail," could be customized to recognize this junk. Instead of the "mail" fanfare, it could utter a more appropriate sentence, "You've Got Spam!"
Adding insult to injury --no, reverse that-- adding injury to insult, all of a sudden there are familiar virus and worm e-mails making their way to my inbox.
The I Love You virus showed up. This one should have waited until at least Valentine's Day to recur, right?
Remember that spoof/hoax virus (the one I fell for [1] hook, line and sinker last year) about the SULFNBK file? I got more than a few notices about that one this week. If you got it too, read this [2] before taking any unecessary action.
Of all things, today saw the return of someone attempting to blast out the Snow White virus. Composing this section of the blog, I thought hmm, maybe I'd jazz up the page with a Snow White graphic. You see one of the tamer results of that search right here. But this was a rather interesting surfing experience. A quick search engine peek, and a little blue humor (to some, "bad taste") site [3] shows up. A good laugh, anyway.
Who dreams these things up, and why?
Turns out that aforementioned mini-porn Snow White comes from a home page [4] with various sick, wacky, or just plain funny material. Warning, much of this stuff is not for the faint of heart. At least there were none of those annoying repeated pop-up porn-site come-ons. Or maybe I managed to avoid them by not clicking around after laughing at the Snow White and Wonder Woman links, and being disgusted by a different one too gross to warrant a description.
Speaking of porn and other such things various moralists and holier-than-thou types would censor off the net if given their druthers (what are druthers?).....
Has anyone else noted that Shrub & company refer to the actions taking place in Afghanistan (et al) as "Operation Enduring Freedom," yet Bush appointee Ashcroft seeks to limit and abolish certain freedoms here on the home front? Are we in the land of the free, the home of the irony?
Look what I found! A tatoo parlor [5] in Rhode Island offers artwork that reminds me of that dogged Attorney General apointed by W to protect and limit freedoms as he so chooses. I would link to the artwork, but the tatoo parlor asks that their artwork be left there, not copied or displayed elsewhere. That's an honorable request, so here's a link [6] to the artwork in discussion. The artist is Kevin Borowski, who seems pretty talented!
Of course, if Ashcroft and his sort had their way, all of these links and anything else they might deem unworthy would be censored and declared illegal, immoral, unAmerican. Those last two adjectives sound like my take on Ashcroft.
Speaking of conservative reactionaries to be aware of, isn't it about time for Pat Buchanan to announce he's running for President in 2004?