The most annoying thing about spam - unsolicited email - is that people feel powerless to do anything about it. They see their inboxes filling with an ever-rising tide of trash and have to wade through it, hitting the 'delete' key . . .
The most annoying thing about spam - unsolicited email - is that people feel powerless to do anything about it. They see their inboxes filling with an ever-rising tide of trash and have to wade through it, hitting the 'delete' key until they reach a real message.

Most email programs have spam filters, but they vary in effectiveness. I've been running one for a year and although it is supposed to be 'learning' as it goes, it still misses 20 per cent of the invitations to enlarge various parts of my anatomy, win incredible prizes, earn $2,000 a month without leaving my armchair and other brain-dead wheezes.

The problem with conventional spam filters is that they attempt to solve a system-wide problem by fixing only one component of the system. As James Gleick argued eloquently in these pages a few weeks ago, spam is no longer just a private nuisance. It has become a systemic threat, choking the communications channels of the internet with pernicious dross. It will have to be dealt with. But the only approach that will eradicate it will have to address the problem at a systemic level.

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