Junk Mail

Tuesday, 11 March 1997

Here's a bit of junk email that I received this morning. Normally, I delete this crap before reading it, but I figured it's been a while since I had anything I felt like nattering about, and exposing these idiots to public ridicule makes me feel good.

>From: freedom@econopromo.com
>Received: from alberta.sallynet.com (root@[208.1.117.130])
>	by york.interport.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA06635
>	for <avram@interport.net>; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 13:20:29 -0500 (EST)
>Received: from -jim (dd38-220.compuserve.com [199.174.155.220]) 
>	by alberta.sallynet.com (8.8.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA16838; 
>	Tue, 11 Mar 1997 13:16:23 -0500 (EST)
>Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 13:16:23 -0500 (EST)
>Message-Id: <199703111816.NAA16838@alberta.sallynet.com>
>To: <avqq49a@prodigy.com>
>Subject:  Information for You .....
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

"Information for You ....." (Nice ellipsis, guys. Are you sure five dots are enough?) Information that I never requested. Information from sallynet.com, who provide about half the UCE (Unsolicited Commerical Email) that hits my mailbox. Well, not anymore they don't. As of today, any email message containing sallynet.com anywhere in the header goes directly to my Trash, do not pass Go, do not waste my time or attention. I don't know why I didn't do it sooner. (This means that if you're going to send me email about sallynet, don't mention it in the Subject: line.)

I like the inclusion of Prodigy and CompuServe addresses in the header, to make me think that I'm being UCEed by a big commercial service. To return the favor, I'm including the UCEer's own addresses from the header intact, so they'll be included the next time sallynet's (or anyone else's) web-spider sees this page. Wonder if they bother to filter out their own addresses before sending out their crap?

> - FREEDOM NEWSLETTER -
> March 8th,  1997

Great title. Tells me right up front that this is probably some neocon propaganda rag. I thought the idea behind Internet advertising was to target it at people who'll be interested in your product.

> *******************************************
>
> We realize that some people prefer not to receive commercial
> E-Mail.  We only want to keep INTERESTED recipients on our list.

No, they don't, or they wouldn't send it out indiscriminately in the first place.

> So... If YOU would rather not receive our mail -  HIT REPLY - and type
> REMOVE     in the message and  subject  area.  This is an automated
> system.  You will be removed from all future mail from us.  Since this
> is an automated system, there is no need to say anything else,  as
> nobody but the computer will see it anyway!  You will be removed
> within 24.  (You must spell   REMOVE   correctly!!!)

"If you would like to receive lots more junk email, hit REPLY and type REMOVE. You will automatically be added to our database of email addresses that are owned by human beings who actually read their mail, as opposed to automated systems or people with spam/UCE filters. This database is even more valuable than the regular database of addresses automatically skimmed from web pages and Usenet posts, and we'll sell it to any junkmailer who coughs up the bucks." (Also note that they don't specify 24 what.)

> *********************************
> <for best viewing max your screen to largest size>
>
> *********************************

I'm not sure what this means. Are they asking me to go out and buy the largest monitor available? They probably mean "expand your mailreading window," and are just assuming that I'm not reading this via a command-line mailreader. Great. I'll wind up with text running down the leftmost quarter of my screen, and empty mailreader window taking up the rest.

> Standing for FREEDOM, LIBERTY, and AMERICA!
> We believe in Freedom of the Press and Speech.
> (These freedoms are essential for the development
> and growth of the Internet.)

The freedom to waste other people's time and money, the liberty to reenact the Tragedy of the Commons, an America devoted to the very crassest commercial values.

Note the heartfelt appeal to our sense of civil liberties. There's been a lot of talk about making unsolicited commercial email like this illegal; some people realize that freedom of speech doesn't protect shouting in your neighbor's ear.

> See our "Patriotic Quotes That Make Sense"
> at the end of this publication.

A half-lie. Yes, there are quotes at the end of the message that some might consider patriotic. As far as the making sense part goes, however...

>DID YOU KNOW ....... The National Debt of the USA is
>now over $5.2 trillion ?   ...  the interest on the National
>Debt is $650 million A DAY ?? ....
>
> Interesting Web Sites of The Week:  Citizens Against
> Government Waste:      http://www.Govt-Waste.org/

Gosh, thanks. It would never have occurred to me to use any of the well-publicized web indexes to find out the current national debt. (And what's that after the "DID YOU KNOW" -- a seven dot ellipsis! They must be feeding them growth hormones; ellipses don't get anywhere near that big in nature.)

> PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS.   They are the
> Entrepreneurs that make the Free Enterprise System
> of America work.   We make it  EASY  to receive
> FREE INFORMATION from our sponsors.

I don't remember the part of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations which discusses the reliance of the free market on junk email.

I've deleted the 190+ lines of ads that made up the bulk of this document. Rest assured, they were for services essential to the freedom that we Americans love so dearly: mostly get rich quick schemes, "earn money while watching television" scams, and other claims to have discovered the economic equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.

> ***********************************************
>
> ATTENTION ON-LINE  ADVERTISERS!
> BE A SPONSOR AND GET YOUR MESSAGE OUT TO MILLIONS!

Make enemies fast! Piss off millions of people who might otherwise never have heard of you!

(Remainder of ad deleted.)

> ***********************************************
> Quotes that make sense:

Remember, I warned you.

> "We tried to provide more for the poor and produced more poor instead.
> We tried to remove the barriers to escape poverty, and inadvertently
> built a trap"
>
> --Charles Murray

Charles Murray? Author of The Bell Curve, that shoddy pseudo-scientific justification for racism? (Anyone who thinks Murray's science is accurate needs to read the recent edition of Stephen J. Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, which does a pretty thorough job of demolishing Murray's claims.)

I especially like the fact that the quote is part of a crticism of the welfare system, which is often characterized by its opponents as a system that gives people money for not working. Most of the ads in the message, however, are claiming to offer people the exact same thing. There's an important difference: The welfare system actually does give people money, while buying into a "make money fast" scheme only loses you money.

> "Character is doing what's right when nobody's watching"
>
> --Congressman J.C. Watts

A reasonable enough sentiment. I wish junk-email spammers felt the same way.

> "The point to remember is that what the government gives,
> it must first take away."
>
> -- John S. Coleman

No, the point to remember is that just because it doesn't cost you money to send email doesn't mean that it doesn't cost the recipient anything to read it.

> "We will always remember.  We will always be proud.  We will
> always be prepared, so we may always be free."
>
> -- President Ronald W. Reagan  June 6, 1984 -  Normandy, France

Ronald Reagan saying "We will always remember." There's nothing I could add that would make that any funnier.

> "Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord"
>
> -- Psalms 33:12

Looks like our little friends haven't bothered to read all of the First Amendment.

Not only that, but they're quoting selectively. The full text of Psalms 33:12 (King James Version) reads:

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD: and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.

Given the context, that letter phrase pretty clearly refers to Jews. Christians, after all, don't believe that their God has chosen them; they have to choose their God. I'm guessing that the authors who chose that quote aren't Jewish -- just a hunch.

Furthermore, the following verse reads:

The LORD looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men.

So much for Congressman Watts's definition of character. If you believe the Bible, that verse indicates that there isn't a time when nobody's watching. (Makes me glad I'm an atheist.)