uised in our reports. Let us call it, somewhat formally, the Department of Public Works, or DPW. The DPW will dispose of trash -- junk e-mailers, to be specific.
The DPW's chief task is to investigate and identi
fy who actually sends junk mail. Junk e-mailers often disguise their work (thus misdirecting their victims' ire against some inno-cent party). Generally this takes the form of forged e-mail addresses and telephone numbers. The most crucial -- and painstaking -- step in stopping a junk e-mailer is to find him or her. This requires superior technological and detective skills.
The DPW is good at this. Only the best hackers have been invited to join the DPW. None of its members will publicly acknowledge a connection with the DPW, but no doubt you can guess who some of the involved individuals are. If you thank one for his or her presumed participation with the DPW, expect exactly a wink and a nod -- but no more -- in reply.
The DPW has been extremely busy. Most of its work must remain, in the tradition of good code everywhere, undocumented. But public confidence in the project must be upheld. Therefore, we will present heavily disguised examples of the agency's work. Below is the first one....
Assassination Bureau Case File #32
DPW received junk message that began as follows:
IMAGINE WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH...
UP TO $800.00 A WEEK EXTRA INCOME!
HERE'S HOW TO GET STARTED
HEADER CONTAINED PHONY AOL ADDRESS.
Instructions for removing self
from list gave .NL address, which DPW agents identified as auto-response
lunch menu for sandwich shop in Amsterdam. Agents visited sandwich shop;
had lunch. Sandwich shop unaware spammer using its address in vain.
AGENTS RETURNED HOME.
"Call this" telephone number in original message led
agents to call-forwarding station in Cupertino. Calls auto-switched to
number in Reno, Nevada. Agents traced Reno phone number to 1952 trailer
owned, according to county records, by "Henry."
AGENTS VISITED TRAILER,
disguised as themselves. "Henry" offered agents jobs
as telephone clerks at $3.75 per hour. Agents entered "Henry's" facility,
observ
ed six telephones, nine cartons overflowing with credit-card statements
and uncashed checks, six crates of Alpo dog food, and set of TV Guide
back issues.
AGENTS TERMINATED "HENRY'S" CONNECTION;
deposited body with local ISP.
Investigation showed ISP owned by brother-in-law of late "Henry." Agents
rendered ISP provider dev/null.
CASE DISPOSITION:
Closed.
Bandwidth Blot
The current telephone infrastructure was designed to handle calls averaging 6 minutes in duration. But the proliferation of fax machines, dial-up computer links, and phone-sex services is straining the system in ways that were undreamed of in the original system-design philosophy. Many engineering teams are working on new designs for the phone system.
One team, which shall be unidentified here other than to say it's in western Pennsylvania, is trying to spur things to a head by staging a TeleComplexity Competition. The "winner" will be the one who most
effectively ties up the largest share of communications resources (including, but not limited to, the phone system and the Internet) with the smallest amount of code.
Marc Abrahams is the editor of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can contact him by sending e-mail to
marca@improb
.com.
Advances and Retreats in Computing
