Spam has been a serious issue with regards to email for over 10 years now. Nobody likes spam, especially the really obnoxious spam that just won't stop coming. Yet, despite the CAM-SPAM laws, spammers seem to happily thrive as much as ever.
Until recently, the worst complaint was the amount of spam in most people's in box. But recently, things have taken a turn for the worse. Far worse. In fact, the problems have gotten to the point of making email completely unreliable for any important communications and many marketers and other online professionals are turning to IMs, forum PMs and other means to communicate.
Apart from the spam and the email address harvesting, now -- for reasons unknown, despite investigation -- email is being re-routed on a massive scale and seemingly without reason. Some email from regular correspondents is suddenly being blocked or bounced, even as the rate of Spam increases.
The problems began on or about 1/1/06 when many people found their email inboxes unusually quiet and, when sending email to those with which they had regularly corresponded, finding it suddenly blocked or bounced back. Others report delays in receipt. And still more find that their emails seem to simply disappear. Only when these issues have been followed up, do they discover the truth.
Heck, yesterday I experienced two issues.
1) I discovered that my emails to a colleague have been blocked since at least the beginning of the year when I received an email from him asking, "what's up-- haven't heard from you in ages"-- right after SENDING him an email only the day before!
2) I recieved what was clearly spam (yet another CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE WON AN INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY!, spam), from, of all people MYSELF! One of my very own email addresses was listed as the sender! Great. So, apparently that email address has been pirated and is being used... how long will it be before I am notified by www.org that I am being shut down due to spam issues?
And I hate spam anyway.
The really and truly stupid part of all of this is that, each and every computer that enters cyberspace is identified by an IP address... that is immutable, unchangeable and, most of all, uncloakable. Yet no one seems to use that to identify and apprehend the spammers. Spam and spamming would disappear inside of a week, if only our IP addresses had to be contained in each and every email we all sent.
I have always enjoyed the internet. But privacy vs. security issues must resolve themselves and the sooner the better. Email is being taken over by the spammers and, because of the inept security used to "filter" it, email has become a completely unreliable form of communication. Unless something is done to address these issues, email will go the way of the do-do bird.
That's all well and good, except that email has become a critical method of communication for many businesses. Unreliable, interrupted or broken communication issues could prove to be much more than merely annoying. It threatens to destroy many businesses, both large and small and effect the overall economy--mo
|
