Richard’s Ramblings

In the final two weeks of 2003 I received 6,910 emails, 18 of which were legitimate emails from people or businesses that I would have expected.

The remaining 6,892 emails were all spam. That’s 492 per day, one spam email received every two minutes and fifty-six seconds.

I still take unsolicited emails very seriously and follow the advice I’ve given others whenever practical (even though some of the information is now a bit out of date), but there comes a time when the sheer volume of spam becomes so ridiculous that none of the usual techniques will do much good — especially not if I have other things that I need to do during the day or night such as sleep, eat, and play Empire Earth. At this point, nothing other than abandoning my email address will work.

Since I had to go through the volumes of spam anyway, I tallied it up into separate categories, stopping after I reached the milestone 5,000th email.

• Mortgage refinancing: 508 emails (10.16%)
• Adult-oriented websites: 463 emails (9.26%), 114 of which were advertising the infamous Paris Hilton sex tapes. Do you have any idea how many ways there are to spell P@r!s H!1t0n, Par15 H1ltOn, P*r!5 hI1t0n, P&ri5 Hi|ton, let alone such classics as p()rn, p0rn, pen|s, fûk, p*rnst*r, and p0.RN0???
• Prescription medications (specifically Viagra): 425 emails (8.50%)
• Prescription medications (everything else): 424 emails (8.48%)
• Weight loss and dietary supplements: 368 emails (7.36%)
• Cable and satellite TV descramblers: 346 emails (6.92%)

Just those categories alone account for more than 50% of all the combined spam! That doesn’t include these interesting gems:

• Purchase a degree or diploma: 58 emails (1.16%)
• Cheap cigarettes: 20 emails (0.40%)
• Irag “Most Wanted” playing cards: 20 emails (0.40%)
• Name your own star: 19 emails (0.38%)
• Stop those annoying spam emails: 15 emails (0.30%)
• Emails that included variations of the KLEZ virus: 4 emails (0.08%)

And who in their right mind would send money to anyone who created such written masterpieces as:

• “l0se wei6ht N0w! 1oo% 6uaranteed t0 w0rk 0r we’ll refund y0ur m0ney! S!mply wear a patch & drop p0unds fast”
• “Fina||y, wei6ht l0ss is possible f0r all! Simp|e s0lution. 1t’s n0t a diet, 1t’s a patch! Check it 0ut.”
• “Ac,hi-ve rockha:rd e^r^e”c*t-io”n in 60 seconds”
• “Independeent Morttgage can reefinancce your hoome moortgage with 80% leess papeer woork. Our clientts are saving thhousandds of doollars in interrest while reeducing thheir currennt tootal montthly paymentts. It’s Simplle, fast and easy with our unique stateed incomme, and stateed assetts proogram.”
• “Help! Aliens Grew My C*ck Overnight!”

Is it no wonder that I don’t bother reading my emails anymore.

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