Spam

I still have not decided whether computers are marvels or monsters. To be sure, they often accomplish incredible feats incredibly quickly. In a matter of seconds, they send ideas around the globe. They keep track of nearly everything important. If we show them where to go, they can help us be creative and inventive. At the same time, computers sometimes confound us, intimidate us, and often frustrate us like nothing else we know. Indeed, on some days, they appear to have minds and personalities of their own and fail to cooperate with even our most minimal requests.

THEY CLOG your e-mail in-boxes, offer products and services you don't want or need, or they're so vulgar they'd make even a "virginal" pop star blush. They're spam - and we want to hear your complaints and anecdotes about them. Just e-mail us at views@phillynews.com, and put the word "spam" in the memo field.

AND WHILE we're on the subject of the Internet (see editorial on the left) . . . According to a new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, people aren't as annoyed by spam -those unsolicited and frequently X-rated e-mails clogging in-boxes - as they used to be. A survey of 1,421 people found that 67 percent found spam interfered with their use of the Internet, compared to a whopping 77 percent a year ago. Young people between...

What is it about the holidays that makes us long for the past? For the times when cards came through traditional mail. Presents were bought at a store. Turkey was never tofu. And spam . . . well, it was just a Monty Python routine: Man in cafe: "Well, what've you got?" Waitress: "Well, there's egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg, bacon and spam; egg, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, bacon, sausage and spam. . . . " Back then the joke was on a canned meat product.

THOSE endless pieces of e-mail promising a bigger bank account, a bigger libido or a bigger penis are now illegal across the land. Officially. Yesterday President Bush signed into law "Can-Spam" legislation passed by Congress earlier. Out-of-control spammers can now be prosecuted under federal law. The "Can-Spam" law will supersede various state laws, including Pennsylvania's, which sought to regulate the flow of pornographic and con-game e-mails polluting people's e-mail inboxes.

DESPITE DOING all the right things, I get over 100 unsolicited spam e-mail messages a day. Despite its cost to me, service providers and performance, I do not advocate intervention by the government because, in the long term, that will destroy the Internet. The practice of sending unsolicited e-mail will stop when someone snaps as a consequence of e-mail harassment, and their horrific torture of one or more spammers is widely publicized. Bill Holmes, Carlsbad, Calif.

Where else can you see 4-foot sharks and chow down on some wholesome Spam? The New Jersey State Fair, of course. The annual event - a state staple for 250 years - is offering more rides and ribbons, more music and magic acts than you'll probably find under any other roof. Motown oldies groups, such as the Coasters and the Duprees, will hit center stage throughout the week-plus event. Daredevil groups will put on shows, including a BMX bike exposition, a rollerblading bonanza and a high-diving act into a plexiglass water tank.

GOT SPAM? Blame yourself. That's right. Before you complain about how long it takes each day to cull your e-mail messages, or scream about those evil spammers clogging our Internet and keeping more vital messages from getting through, make sure to include yourself in the blame. It's you - and me, and everyone else - who has helped to create and sustain a culture that is driven by the eternal sell. Oh, sure, advertisers are the ones filling billboards, pop-up ads, TV commercials, and e-mail, but we, their targets, let them get away with far too much.

ENOUGH already with the spam! Anyone with a computer has to deal with this scourge of the Internet. They're unwanted - and quite frankly can be crude when they are adult-oriented. The government is going to have regulate these nuisance ads. My solution was Pop-Up Stoppers from two free sites and Spy Blocker, also FREE. I also paid for one that's a pop-up stopper, spy blocker history-killer, which covers your tracks when you leave a site. Other tactics include going through third-party sites to access others.

Readers of this page haven't heard from me lately because I've been too busy to write. My deleting duties have left me little time to turn ideas into actual words. In fact, I wrote this column only because I was awakened at 4 a.m. by my fax machine, alerting me to an incoming piece of spam that somehow transferred itself from my computer. (Could this stuff be contagious?) So I've managed to sneak in this update of a report I originally wrote about in March 2002. In that dispatch, I complained about the inconvenience of finding 80 or more junk e-mail messages each morning on my computer.

What would the Founding Fathers think of Facebook? Great question. We keep referring almost everything back to the Fathers - so it makes sense to wonder what they'd think of social media. You can just see it: (Madison: "Well, there goes the right to privacy. " Jefferson: "This is so cool !") This question - which opens into a bigger one, about the fate of personal privacy in the communications age - is the topic Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the National Constitution Center.

It's a vast, invisible battle, going on all the time - and, unbeknownst to you, your computer may be one of the battlegrounds. The struggle pits thousands of smart, evil folks, who send out trillions of pieces of spam e-mail, against the people in law enforcement and business guarding against them and trying to shut them down. On the front lines against spam and cybercrime, some analyze malicious computer code (malware), and others - in the young science of cyberforensics - examine computers and drives confiscated in investigations.

The messages read like the thousands of spam e-mails many of us have gotten for years on our computers - or would get if we didn't have elaborate spam filters standing in their way. "Get $1500 in Extra Cash Sent Immediately!" said one, directing recipients to a website to follow through on the fabulous offer. "Confirmation," began the other, with that classic spam ruse that suggests you're hearing from a company you've already contacted. "Please Call 877-803-XXXX" - I'm hiding the last four digits to protect the guilty - "For your Walmart and Visa Gift Cards.

A California man admitted in federal court yesterday to sending out millions of illegal spam e-mails. Don Abadie, 39, of Dana Point, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud in connection with electronic mail. U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell set sentencing for Feb. 24. Abadie, who is cooperating with the feds, could get less than the 12 to 18 months behind bars he would face under advisory sentencing guidelines. He was charged with violating a 2003 law that made e-mail fraud a crime.

With the annual tax deadline looming tomorrow night, it might not seem too odd to receive an e-mail from the Internal Revenue Service. The communication, sent to some area residents in the last few days, included attachments that appeared quite official. But the IRS wasn't the sender. If it's tax season, IRS spokesman William Cressman said yesterday, it also is tax-scam season. "We don't send out unsolicited e-mails, and we don't ask for personal account information," he said.

Now is the season of our disconnect, the scenery on the street telling divergent stories - the soup lines at St. John's Hospice growing (sawhorses keeping the lines orderly); steak-house seats multiplying (the new Table 31, Del Frisco's, and Butcher & Singer have added more than 1,000 in the last few months). Any bets where business will be steadier than last year? Or what will be on the plate in the next? Über-chef Thomas Keller issued a lavish new tome ($75) about cooking sous vide, which involves vaccum-sealing food and cooking it in precise, low-heat water baths.

Hey, if you're a Phillie, you never know what can make the difference in the postseason. It might be a clutch home run by a 40-year-old guy with a gut. Or, you know, it might be a little honey on your tuna-fish sandwich. That's what Ryan Howard eats on game day, according to team cook Joe Swanhart. "That's just the way he likes it," Swanhart says. It might be peanut butter and jelly, the sandwich of champions for Chase Utley and So Taguchi. "Smuckers strawberry is actually Chase's favorite," says Swanhart, who explains Utley's pregame preference as a combination of superstition and habit.

They cost only a dime each, but it added up quickly. Over more than two years, as they toiled in the minority, Democrats in the state House allegedly purchased millions of e-mail addresses to send campaign-related propaganda to Pennsylvania voters who were stuck paying the political tab - $1.2 million. And that's not including several hundred thousand more in public funds that went to a tech consultant - the son of a state representative - who allegedly made it all look like a legitimate legislative endeavor.

If you haven't heard of Hoodia yet, you must have a great spam filter on your e-mail. The diet pill has been clogging computer screens across the continent since Lesley Stahl of CBS's 60 Minutes told viewers in 2004 that it worked for her. This year, actor Joseph Gannascoli of HBO's The Sopranos said it helped him drop some of his pasta-fed girth. The fuss is over a traditional remedy made from Hoodia gordonii, a cactus-like plant used for generations by the San people of southern Africa to stave off hunger during long hunting trips.

A South Jersey native and Phillies fan who broke federal laws by jamming the Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News computer systems with thousands of e-mails complaining about his favorite ball club was sentenced to four years in prison yesterday. In January, a federal jury in Philadelphia convicted Allan E. Carlson, 42, of Glendale, Calif., of identity theft, fraud, and computer hacking-related offenses for hijacking the e-mail addresses of area sportswriters. The 26 e-mail attacks against the two Philadelphia newspapers in 2001 and 2002 cost their parent company $25,000 in time spent repairing e-mail servers and sifting through anti-Phillies tirades to locate legitimate e-mail, according to federal prosecutors.