A different plan for spam

I have a couple of pretty decent spam filters at work, and they catch about 90-someodd percent of what comes in. The rest is but a moment’s work to remove.

Because the software learns what “spam” is, as spammers try new tacks the software sometimes takes a few days to catch up. That’s when my spam picks up.

Modern spam filters were born soon after Paul Graham’s “A Plan for Spam,” where he outlined the mathematics for creating better spam-catchers. But even great filters can’t catch everything; it’s a constant war between spammer scum and the rest of the world.

So few people like or want spam that the odds would seem against the spammers. And yet it still makes up a huge portion of e-mail.

Technology helps, but there’s a better way.

The path from spam to your inbox has a number of stops — that is, a number of people involved. There’s the product maker, the spammer, the spammer’s ISP (and yes, major telecom companies are well aware of what their customers are doing), and the people who actually buy the stuff being sold, without whom it wouldn’t be worth it.

We need to attack the spam problem at those points. Break any link in the chain and you can stop some spam.

Here’s how: If you know someone who has bought a product through spam, if you know someone at an ISP that supports spamming — or, better, if you know an actual spammer — let this person know the behavior is unacceptable.

Tell them, “If you do this again, I will find you and beat the crap out of you. I will trash your car, I will trash your house, and if it keeps up, I’ll get a few friends and turn your face into a modern-art project. You will never be safe.”

It is time to use violence against spammers and their kin.

Sure, there are those who are inaccessible — out of the country or members of organized crime (i.e., armed and dangerous). But many are not. Many are here.

Economic and legal threats apparently don’t work; they shrug them off. So let’s talk in a language that they aren’t expecting, and one they won’t be able to ignore.

My guess is that after a few well-publicized car fires, window-breakings, or baseball bats to the face, spammers will get the hint that the cost of what they do has gone up.

Imagine hearing. “Johnny Jones down the block bought one of those penis-enlargement things from a spammer. We took care of his car.” Would you take a chance?

Imagine being the guy who makes spamming software, or who sells lists of e-mail addresses and getting a note, “You have a house at 123 Main Street. You drive a silver Jetta. You help spammers. In a week, you’re going to give up one of these. Choose carefully.”

I think some people might make the right choice.