sent in use the same simple mechanism: monkeying with your message header.
One individual, who requested anonymity, reported success using a method that we admire but cannot and do not advocate. "Netscape lets me type in my e-mail address, and of course it's easy to type in the wrong address, so I did," wrote the covert Whacko commando. "I used a series of addresses, such as [the one for the] U.S. postal
inspection service and the FBI's computer-crime hot line...when posting to a newsgroup, and within a couple of weeks, the spam had almost stopped...."
That approach has obvious drawbacks, which we need not discuss here. Simon Read uses a similar technical trick but applies it in a more wholesome way. He takes advantage of the fact that many e-junkmailers use automated address sniffers to get the addresses of future victims. By putting rubbish in the "from" field of a message header, a robot scanner won't pick it up, because it is not in the correct format, claims Read. "I have used blah@bleah.blurg.retch quite a lot," says Read. "I put my e-mail address in the body of my posting so that humans can read it."
Next month we will describe, to the extent legally permissible, the details of our e-junkmailer assassination bureau.
The End of Many Things
Consider this snippet of a news item: "An editorial in the Iraqi government newspaper
Al-Jumhuriya
says that the Internet -- which is not accessible in Iraq -- is 'the end of civilizations, cultures, interests, and ethics.'" Associated Press, February 17, 1997.
Governments are cautious in their public statements. Surely, the Internet is the end not just of civilizations, cultures, interests, and ethics, but of many other things, too. As a service to mankind, help us compile a list of everything the Internet is the end of. Send your items (10 words or less per item, please) to marca @improb.com.
Music of the Social Spheres
I think we all agree that one of the biggest disappointments in life is that people don't come with background music. When warming up to a new friend, the relationship progresses more quickly and deeply if good background music accompanies the conversation. In movies, this music is the glue that joins strangers' lives together quickly.
In everyday life, the effect is no less impressive. Producing a flow of such music is a snap whe
n you use a product called the SoulMan. It was developed not by Sony but by Teichholtz. The Teichholtz SoulMan couples a multidisc CD player to a rudimentary voice-recognition system. Rudimentary neural-network software chooses and changes the music continuously.
We tried a precommercial version of the system in our office and must report that it's a dangerously powerful thing. So stock up on earplugs. When the SoulMan arrives, we'll discover the sad truth: That try as we might, we can't all live together in perfect harmony.
You Know You're Not Awake When...
The results of our 15-month experiment, Mental Life of the Programmer, #205, are in. It boils down to this: You know you're not awake yet when you can't click the mouse button fast enough to make it a double-click.
Marc Abrahams is the editor of The Annals of Improbable Research. You can contact him at
marca@improb.com
.
Advances and Retreats in Compu
ting
