There's been an uptick in spamming lately. Some believe that it's a result of growth in the number of botnets out there (groups of computers that have been compromised by third-parties to run whatever the third-party wants them to). Personally, I think it's because the penalties for spam aren't stiff enough. After cleaning up my trackback backlog, I'm ready to consider anything. I'm ready to lobby for tar and feathers if that'll help. Judging by the amount of spam for drug suppliers, I'm thinking we can kill two birds with one stone and clear out the FDA's backlog with a population sleazier than an ex-lawyer, used car salesman, turned politician. And if we run out of FDA backlog, I've a few suggestions we might try. I know cyanide is reputed to be harmful, but have we tried it lately? And since we can't seem to decide as a society what constitutes torture, let's get together and try some edge-cases. Maybe not, though; I'm not sure how my reaction might relate to actual people, thus invalidating the exercise.
Also, it occurs to me that spammers are a pretty technical lot--they have to be in order to do the job that they do. So here's the question: what do you do if you meet one? Seriously, chances are that I'll run into a real, live spammer at some point in the not entirely distant future. Since I firmly believe in the efficacy of ostracism as a way of enforcing societal norms, I'm thinking that mocking may be in order. It's not entirely out of the question that I'll spend odd moments in the next week or two thinking of good ways to make clear what I think of a spammer's upbringing, lineage, and personal habits. Anybody who would work for spammers deserves to be banished naked and penniless to a tropical island with natives willing to perform non-stop their brutal rituals of shame. We can't have entirely stamped out those old island head-shrinkers, right?
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