E-Dribble

It seems that I sent out some spam today. A lot. So far, I’ve received over 3,000 bounced messages from various spam protection services and mail servers telling me that my message can’t be delivered. Assuming that around ten percent of the messages are being returned, it seems that over 30,000 messages have gone out with my name attached to them.

Ok, I’m just trying to impress you. I’m actually a (repeat) victim of backscatter spam. Spambots have randomly selected my email from millions of prospective winners. Then, they attached my email address to what will likely total tens of thousands of emails.

Ten percent may seem low, but in actuality, I’m being generous. Only incompetent hosts send bounced messages, since it is common knowledge that the from address is forged. It’s possible that I’m getting a bounced message for less than a percent that has gone out with my good name attached to them. That would bring the total to hundreds of thousands.

I know this shouldn’t bother me. Over 95% of the mail that gets sent every day is spam. They need legitimately shaped email addresses and it’s pretty easy to just grab one from your list of millions. Nonetheless, I can’t help but feel like I woke up to find that someone’s been through my house. I feel anger when I think of the morons that purchase through spam, turning what was once a very small inconvenience into the largest single waste of bandwidth, pc & server resources, time and money that the internet has ever seen. All in an effort to sell you penis enhancement pills, porn, degrees, poker games and watches.

But this is the human condition, isn’t it? Spammers will do whatever it takes to make a quick dollar. So much in fact, that it’s no longer a quick dollar. It’s a huge production, causing grief to everyone but them and the folks buying Viagra from them.

Who could possibly entertain an erection at a time like this?