Spam: a scary window on gullibility - Lisp Propulsion Laboratory log

Lisp Propulsion Laboratory log

Paolo Amoroso's weblog. Main interests: Lisp, astronomy (Moon), space exploration (Apollo and early manned programs) Calendar of past entries | Related links xml

Spam: a scary window on gullibility

Thursday, July 6, 2006

There is something about spam that is possibly more disturbing than the annoyance of identifying and blocking junk email messages: it works.

If the volume of spam is so large it means that every single moment, a huge number of people take the trouble of interrupting their activities to painfully read badly written texts heavily garbled to elude spam filters, face all sorts of computer security and legal risks, believe what they read, send their money and personal data to unknown organizations, and hope to receive the advertised crap.

Until now, one could only wonder how easy it is to deceive people. Politicians and con artists knew this especially well. But spam may be the first, wide open, scary window on the abyss of human gullibility, on the thought processes -- or lack thereof -- of gullible people.


Copyright © 2006 by Paolo Amoroso
amoroso@mclink.it

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