Did You Really Want To Read That Spam?

Henn writes "The BBC is carrying a story about computers that track how much attention you are paying and the "worth" of individual messages. Based on these criterion, it adjusts how intrusive to make the alerts. The story is fairly short, however you can find more depth over here." Interesting ideas, but for me it's becomming less about time- my filters catch 80% of my spam, meaning it only takes me 10-20 minutes to deal with it, and more about bandwidth. At home, on my modem, downloading several megs of spam seriously interferes with my ability to work. Yay spam!

Comments

Please...

[tmark]

At home, on my modem, downloading several megs of spam seriously interferes with my ability to work.

So how do you think operators of websites feel when their sites are brought to their knees and/or they are hit with huge and unexpected ISP bills, because of an article posted on your company's website ? How do you think these operators feel when said effects become little more than a running joke on your company's website ?

If you can't see the parallel between spam and slashdotting, then you're not being fair. What's that old saw about the goose and the gander ?

Re:Please...

[leeward]

Ah, nice troll ;) Of course, you can always find "parallels" between any two things. Parallels by themselves are completely meaningless.

Yes, slashdotting can be a problem for those hit by it. But it is a onetime hit for a few people, and is soon forgotten. Slashdotting is more like a spectacular train wreck than spam.

Spam on the other hand is unrelenting. It effects everyone, and continues day after day forever. Even if someone is filtering, or is having filtering done for them, you are still ultimately paying for the effort of setting up and maintaining the filters.

Re:I don't get it

[Randolpho]

I don't get spam. I just don't get any. I don't let my e-mail get out to stupid places on the net where a spider will get them. I don't sign up for weird things. I avoid anything slightly untrustworthy. And as a result I get no spam. I can't lie, I don't get no spam. I get maybe 1 spam every 2 weeks. That's right, 1. If I have managed to prevent myself from getting more than 2 spams a month so can you. So do it and stop complaining.

Have you ever published your email address online? Many people have to in order to run a website, you know. Or, if they want to limit spam on their personal accounts, still have to have a public "webmaster@mywebsite.com" email that's published and, yes, always ends up with spam. It's unavoidable in many cases.