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罐头肉与垃圾邮件

级别: 管理员
And now, a word of appreciation for spam, wonderful spam

Given we are now only 10 days away from the official start of Spam Appreciation Week, I thought today would be a good time to examine why the pork luncheon meat has become such a cultural phenomenon since its launch in the 1930s, inspiring everything from poetry (type "SPAM-ku" into Google), to songs (check out the soundtrack to "Weird Al" Yankovic's UHF), film characters (Muppet Treasure Island features "Spa'am", the high priest of the wild boars, who worship Miss Piggy as Queen Boom Sha-Ka-La-Ka-La) and, since last year, a musical (Monty Python's Spamalot).


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But just as I began my research it struck me that I may have got the wrong end of the stick. Perhaps Spam Appreciation Week was not about the canned meat, but about the phenomenon that the word "spam" has become most associated with in recent years: unsolicited bulk e-mail?

A call to the Spam press office - sending an e-mail would have been too strange - confirmed I was correct in my initial assumption. But once the thought was in my head, I kept on wondering whether there were any ways in which we should be grateful for the existence of unsolicited e-mails that advertise porn, unlicensed computer software and v/i/a/g/r/a.

Admittedly, to argue so may at first seem perverse. E-mail spam is almost always talked about as if it is intrinsically bad, in the way that war and albums by The Carpenters are. After all, unsolicited e-mails are no longer just about advertising, but sometimes act as the precursor to identity theft and are sometimes infected with viruses.

On reflection, I concede it is probably excessive to attach the word "appreciation" to it. But I would like to suggest that e-mail spam is not half as bad as it is portrayed. Yes, there is now more of it than ever. According to the junk mail filter provider Postini, spam activity has increased by 65 per cent since January 2002 and about three-quarters of all e-mail messages sent out are now spam. But the sheer amount of it means everyone with an e-mail account now has to have a spam filter, and modern spam filters do a rather brilliant job.I get about 400 e-mails in various inboxes every week and no more than five or six messages are ever suggesting that I get my penis enlarged.

Indeed, while Bill Gates has been mocked for predicting, at the 2004 World Economic Forum in Davos, that "two years from now, spam will be solved", I think he has turned out to be right.

Neil Hammerton, co-founder and chief executive of Email Systems, a managed service that blocks spam, almost agrees - remarking to me last week that while his service has been independently verified to block 98 per cent of all spam, within 20 months it hopes to be "able to guarantee that 99.99 per cent of spam is blocked".

And there is another reason why spam is not a problem any more: we have got used to it. I suppose it is a little surreal that the first thing many of us do when we get into work, after getting a cup of coffee and a danish from the canteen, is scan through a folder of quarantined messages suggesting we buy "10 C1alis Pills for just $89.95".

But most of us manage the task without being all that bothered by it, in the way that most of us manage to walk past graffiti in the street without getting horrendously upset. You would have to be a moron to read the content and if you are idiotic enough to respond, you probably deserve to lose your savings to a scammer.

The third reason why I do not think we should worry about spam: unsolicited messages are aninevitable side-effect of all communication. For example, in my post one day this week I received a letter from American Expressoffering a 10 per cent discount at Harrods, a leaflet from a local faith healer suggesting he could improve my finances through voodoo, an invitation to a friend's exhibition of paintings and five leaflets advertising local takeaways. That is 87.5 per cent spam.

On my voicemail there were three messages: one from a PR suggesting I interview someone I interviewed only a few months ago; a message from the Spam press office asking if I wanted further information; and a message from my painter friend saying he was going to break my arms and legs if I did not attend his preview. That is 66.7 per cent - possibly even 100 per cent - spam.

Even the e-mail messages that got through the filters had a distinctly luncheon-meat whiff about them, including, as they did, an e-mail press release from the lingerie chain La Senza saying that this Mother's Day we should try to make our mums feel special by buying them underwear that "flatters the thighs", "hides the tummy" and "enhances the cleavage". I think I speak for most people when I say I don't even want to think about my mother's cleavage, let alone buy a camisole to enhance it.

Which brings me to the reason why I really do appreciate e-mail spam as much as its pig meat namesake. Its existence has led to the invention of spam-blocking services so now, whenever someone sends a message such as this, I can simply add them to the list of banned e-mail addresses in my junk mail software, and I never have to hear from them ever again. In the resulting saved time I can concentrate on more pressing matters, such as scanning the internet trying to find a script for the 1996 classic Muppet Treasure Island.
罐头肉与垃圾邮件




Spam非彼Spam

鉴于距离“斯帕姆午餐肉鉴赏周”(Spam Appreciation Week)正式开始仅有10天时间,我想,现在应该是一个绝好时机,来考察一下为何“Spam”这种午餐肉自20世纪30年代问世以来,竟成为如此一种文化现象,其影响力无处不在,从诗歌(在Google里键入“SPAM-ku”看看)、到歌曲(去听听扬科维奇(Yankovic)的超高频歌曲“Weird Al”)、到电影人物(《布偶金银岛寻宝记》(Muppet Treasure Island)中的野猪部落大法师“Spa’am”,猪小妹就是这个部落的“Boom Sha-Ka-La-Ka-La女王”)。此外,从去年开始,其影响还波及到音乐剧(《火腿骑士》(Monty Python’s Spamalot))。

不过,当我开始进行研究时,我突然发现,自己可能弄错了方向。莫非“Spam鉴赏周”跟罐头肉并不相干,而是指近年来与“spam”这个词关系最为密切的一种现象:未经收信人许可的群发邮件(UBE)?


我向Spam新闻办公室打了个电话,证实了我最初的猜想是正确的。幸亏是打电话,发电子邮件询问会让对方觉得非常诡异。但是,一旦脑子里面有了后来的想法,我就一直在想,是否我们应该在某种程度上对那些为色情、非法电脑软件和“伟*哥”做广告的UBE心存感激?(v/i/a/g/r/a中间的“/”,乃是垃圾邮件应对邮件过滤和监控的通常做法,中文邮件遇到一些敏感词汇时,经常用“*”之类的字符将文字隔开。)

应该承认,乍看之下,讨论这种问题似乎有悖常理。人们谈及垃圾邮件,几乎总是好像其本质就很坏的样子,跟卡朋特乐队(The Carpenters)歌曲中的战争和相册差不多。毕竟,UBE不仅仅是广告,有时候它可能是盗用用户名的前兆,有时候还会携带病毒。

不是问题的问题

经过深思熟虑,我承认,在“spam”这个词后面加上一个“鉴赏”也许是有点过分。不过,我想指出的是,垃圾邮件并不像人们所描述的那样坏。的确,现在的垃圾邮件比以前更多了。根据垃圾邮件过滤服务提供商Postini公司称,自2002年1月以来,滥发邮件的现象增加了65%,而且,目前发出的电子邮件中,约有四分之三是垃圾邮件。不过,这样一个惊人的数字也意味着,每个拥有电子邮件帐户的人现在都得有一个垃圾邮件过滤器,而现在的垃圾邮件过滤器的确相当有用。我每周从各个邮箱中收到约400封电邮,只有不到5、6封邮件建议我壮阳。

在2004年达沃斯世界经济论坛(World Economic Forum)上,比尔?盖茨曾预言:“两年后,垃圾邮件问题将得到解决。”当时,这番言论遭到人们的嘲笑,但我觉得事实证明他是对的。

Email Systems联合创始人兼首席执行官尼尔?哈默顿(Neil Hammerton)对此也基本赞同。Email Systems提供有管理的拦截垃圾邮件服务。他在上周曾对我说,独立检测证实,该公司提供的服务可拦截98%的垃圾邮件,而该公司希望在未来20个月内“能够保证拦截99.99%的垃圾邮件”。

还有另外一个原因可以解释为何垃圾邮件不再成为问题:我们已经习惯了。我们中有很多人在小卖部买了一杯咖啡和一份丹麦点心后,坐到办公桌前的头一件事便是扫描含有下列内容的隔离信息收件夹 :“只需89.95美元就可以买到10片C1alis(译者注:Cialis是一种壮阳药物,此处故意拼写错误,表示垃圾邮件。)”,在我看来,这似乎有点超现实主义色彩。

但是,我们多数人不会对此到感到困扰,就像我们多数人在街上走过时,看到墙上的涂鸭不会感到郁闷心烦一样。白痴才会阅读这些垃圾邮件;如果你傻到要回复这些邮件的话,你可能活该被骗去所有积蓄。

我认为我们不应担心垃圾邮件的第三个理由是:在所有交流方式中,不请自来的信息都是不可避免的。以我的邮政信箱为例:本周某一天,我收到来自美国运通(American Express)的一封信件,里头夹带了一张哈罗德百货商店(Harrods)的9折优惠券;本地一个信仰治疗师的一张传单,宣扬他可以通过伏都教(voodoo)改善我的财务状况;一位朋友发来的一张邀请函,请我参加绘画展;另外还有5张关于本地外卖餐厅的广告。这其中有87.5%是垃圾邮件。

当天,我的语音信箱收到3条信息:一条来自一个公关人员,建议我采访几个月前刚采访过的对象;一条来自“Spam鉴赏周”新闻办公室,询问我是否希望获取更多信息;还有一条来自我的画家朋友,说如果我不出席他的预展会,他会打得我缺胳膊少腿。这其中有66.7%,甚至100%都是垃圾邮件。

甚至连通过过滤器的电子邮件信息也弥漫着一股午餐肉罐头的气味。其中有一封来自女性内衣连锁店娜圣莎(La Senza)的电子邮件新闻稿,称我们应该在今年的母亲节为自己的母亲购买“美腿”、“收腹”、“丰胸”的内衣,让她们感到与众不同。我连想都没想过我母亲的胸部,更不用说买件贴身内衣去帮她“丰胸”了――我想这应该是大多数人的心声。

这使我想到,为什么我会把垃圾电邮与同名的猪肉罐头等量齐观。垃圾电邮的存在使垃圾邮件拦截服务应运而生。无论何时,只要有人发送一条这种信息,我就可以轻轻松松地将它们添加到垃圾邮件防护软件中的电邮拦截地址列表里,从此以后,我再也不会收到他们的邮件。因此而省下的时间,我可以把注意力集中在更为紧迫的事情上,例如搜索互联网,尝试寻找1996年经典电影《布偶金银岛寻宝记》的剧本。
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