Is someone trying to tell me something?

May 5, 2004

Here at AndrewRaff.com World HQ, we've received thousands of spams in the last couple of days suggesting that um, we are less than adequate with regards to, er, a certain anatomical feature.

I fear that we are rapidly approaching the end of the current internet e-mail system, as spammers are attempt to make up for their small, well, you know, in noise. After all, if you have a friendly SMTP server, the marginal cost of sending additional e-mail is miniscule. Filters and defenses are good, but they make e-mail inherently unreliable.

If people are filtering their e-mail and summarily deleting whatever filters mark as spam, can anyone rely on e-mail to reach its destination? If people are not filtering, but relying on their judgment to find needles in the haystack of messages, can senders rely on e-mail getting noticed in the noise?