You've Got Spam

It clogs your computer and wastes your time. But you can protect yourself from e-mail hell.

DEREK CHEZZI

IT'* A THURSDAY EVENING in January, and I'm getting spammed. Unlike most unwanted e-mail that clutters the in-box, I know who'* sending it. His screen name is Rogue, a computer expert and self-described "white pirate" from Columbus, Ohio -- skilled in the tricks of the spam trade but not a spammer himself. He demonstrates how easy it is to bend the Internet to his will and make it send thousands of messages with the click of a mouse. He issues instructions on finding ratware -- software to deliver e-mail in bulk and evade traditional filters -- and the various techniques for capturing e-mail addresses and masking the sender'* origin. And it'* becoming clear that no matter how often you change e-mail addresses or switch Internet service providers (ISPs), it'* impossible to hide from those unsolicited messages. And that, as the e-mail system creaks under the weight of all the junk, something drastic must be done to rid us of this digital pestilence.

Tired of being bludgeoned with offers of discount drugs, cheap mortgages and life insurance, *****-enlargement pills, instant university degrees, hard-core sex sites and get-rich-quick schemes? You're not alone. Millions of people are fed up with digital junk mail, nicknamed spam after the canned lunch meat and its reference in a Monty Python sketch about a restaurant that served nothing but spam. Just ask one of the 17 million Canadians who are regularly on-line. A 2003 survey found the majority of respondents would rather clean toilets than deal with a clogged in-box. "Suppose a whole gang of people started racing go-karts all over the Canadian highways to the point that no traffic could ever get through," says 68-year-old retiree Rod Anderson. "Well that, to me, is what spam is. It'* cluttered up the system and made it almost unusable."

Over the past decade, e-mail has become an indispensible form of global communication. But the volume of unwanted messages has ....