A Few Words About Email, Spam, Macs, Men’s Health

Thursday, March 26, 2009 | Opinion | Read or Post a Comment

Email Mac360’s co-founder was my best friend for many years. It’s nearly three years since she died. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t think of her. Good memories are not easily dismissed. Neither is spam.

I’ve been monitoring Tera’s email address for a few years. For the first few months after her death there would be an occasional message from a friend or acquaintance. These day’s her email is mostly about men’s health. Let me explain.

Between ISP spam filters and OS.... (excerpted).

1 Reader Comments

Mike B. said:

I’m sorry to hear about your friend. I visited this page after searching for others who have been suffering from the plague of “MensHealth.com” spam. For the past few months my junk folder has been inundated with these malicious, dreadful messages. Some days I receive 10-12. Before the “MensHealth.com” scam it was an iTunes scam, before that it was a Microsoft scam, and before that it was just the plain old Canadian pharmacy nonsense. All had the seal of amateurishness, and many had links to red-flagged URLs with Chinese domain names.

The messages titles to these spam emails are all absurd—stuff like “Regarding your order”, “Customer Invoice #12345”, “Your account may be closed”, “Bust a move”(?). Yesterday the title of one of these “MensHealth.com” spams mentioned something about Justin Timberlake. Where do they get this crap?

I’m sure these invasive spam attacks originate at a few main source(s). After that notorious spammers’ ISP in Colorado was shut down early this year there was a brief respite—the messages were one or two a day. It took little time before it was once again a flood. What I wouldn’t give to be part of some international task force that tracks down spammers and beats them with rubber hoses before throwing them in a remote prison somewhere in Kazakhstan.

By the way, I’m primarily a PC guy, though I’ve an iMac at home too.

Talk Back to the Mac360 writers

Post your own comment to this article. Or, post in the Mac360 Forums. It's mostly anonymous, there's no obligation, and no cost. Posting is free, fun, low in calories, low in carbs, non-fat, and mildly addictive. It's like chocolate and blondes.