On Sun, 1 Sep 2002, Jeremy Blosser wrote: > (BTW, if anyone thinks calling them "the enemy", etc. is overly > melodramatic, remember that spam in recent years has moved more and > more from printer toner to all manner of pr0n, beastiality, etc. > spams, and many of us are stuck trying to keep our bosses and spouses > and parents and kids from being assulted with that trash.)
Spam is a problem. Hiding from it doesn't solve it, though. There's two solutions to protecting the user from the lion. One is putting the lion into the cage, the other is caging the user. One of them is wrong. You probably can tell which one. You've put bosses, spouses, parents and kids in the same cathegory. I'm not sure your kids/spouse knows you're censoring their email, are informed about the risks, and approve of that. Few spouses are, if your kids are young they shouldn't be surfing the net alone. If they're a bit bigger you should educate them, so they can tell shit from shinola on their own. This will help you, and them, especially when you're not there to look over their shoulders. The problem of spam is easily solvable for technically proficient users. Depening on your philosophy, install SpamAssassin/Vipul's Razor or a tagged message delivery system, and set up a few filters on MUA's side. Once in a while check into the Spam folder, looking for misflagged messages. Checking sender and subject is sufficient for that. Problem solved. If you're feeling like it, you can offer this as a commercial service. If your venture flops (as it is to be expected), you will know that people don't consider spam a big enough problem to pay a token amount for having their email screened. </offtopic>
