Nigerian scam letters. We've all had them, haven't we? I've got 15 different ones saved in my spam museum, the most recent (yesterday) from Doris Kabila. (Alas, poor Doris, I knew her well....). Now, here's a little insight behind the scenes, courtesy of Wired News, who also point to a very boring FBI site which documents the whole thing. The saddest thing is that it appears to work, and there are still gullible, greedy people who fall for it. The mail version of the scam has been going since 1986 apparently, although email and the spam explosion seems to have given it new legs.
Let's use this topic as a launching pad for some reflections on spam in general. Some people write very seriously about it (IBM's John Patrick), and some humorously (The Miami Herald's Dave Berry). It is insidious, intensely irritating, growing by the day, and there's no getting away from it. I know people who have changed their email addresses to try and avoid it, but I don't know how long this will be a solution. I have two email addresses on two different ISP's in different countries; the one is well and truly tainted, it's been out there since 1995, I may have been careless in giving it out, it has been listed as a contact person on one or two web sites, and it attracts plenty of spam, on most days more spam than genuine email. I used to be embarrassed about it, thinking it was a reflection on my promiscuous surfing habits, until I was directed to this (very detailed) saga of how the spam industry works. Scary stuff. Then there was this behind-the-scenes look at one of the operators. Just a guy trying to make a buck.
My second email address, I have kept very low-key, I haven't used it to subscribe for anything, I haven't given it out anywhere, but, lo and behold, I am now starting to get spam messages, including the abovementioned love letter from Doris Kabila.
For a few months now, I have been using a program called Mailwasher to deal with my spam, and I have no hesitation in recommending it. It doesn't make the spam go away, but handles it in a fairly automated fashion on the ISP's email server, before it taints my inbox. Mailwasher maintains a blacklist of spam originators. The day I installed it I went through a week's worth of deleted email and my spam museum to start building a list, and I already had 71 entries. Today, I have about 350 entries. In addition, Mailkwasher links to external spam databases, so that I only need to do a cursory examination of the email list on the server, before downloading only clean email into my inbox. Stops viruses too. It's free, with an option to buy, if you like.
The cost, not only in individual terms, but to the entire infrastructure of the Internet is mindboggling. Thankfully, the great and good of the Net are planning to do something about it. Good luck guys!
6:38:58 PM 
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