Spammy Correspondence

A thought has occurred to me, inspired ultimately by a consideration of a really stupid spam scam. A metaphor.

Much spam works like 4GW operations.

1. A repetitive nature may defeat the message.  Most people who bother to check their email accounts become very accustomed to the silliness of spam scams when the same type of spam appears again and again:  it is annoying, but reading about some large sum of cash which needs to be smuggled into the U.S., or about a solicitation for personal info for anyone wanting to apply for a lucrative position with an international company, also becomes tedious.  Do these spam operatives not see how a repetition of the same handful of messages, each from a ‘new’ correspondent with a ‘new’ email account on Yahoo or some other free email service, reveals the scam?


2. Thus, those committed to the effort often change the message. The more experienced spammers, and/or the cleverest spammers, do not stick with repetitive messages, but change them.  Novelty may sell better than the obvious scam.


3. Others join the effort on the lowest rung.  Seeing a method, new spammers may repeat it, or add to the static the same messages but with their own personalized email addresses.


4. Hiding in the static is easy.  A few somewhat-clever newbies may even know how to hide their true addresses; alternatively, they may change them regularly, as well as changing their true location or ISP connection.  The more experienced spammers may have this down to an art.  In either case, the sheer volume of data being transmitted makes avoiding capture relatively easy:  who, precisely, is creating that data?


5. The shotgun approach will sow some seeds that will grow.  Someone, somewhere, will bite.  If 99.9% of emails are not read or their links not followed, .1% may prove successful.  Of millions of spammy emails sent, enough will produce for the sender.  This efficacious nature of spam is not altogether different from the nature of other advertising campaigns.  90.7 million Americans watched some part of the recent Super Bowl, but most advertisers do not design their marketing plans around a need to sell to all of those viewers.  Some will bite.


6. Perceptions of legitimacy shape profits.  The difference between mainstream advertising and spam campaigns, vis-a-vis the importance of legitimacy, is very narrow.  For instance, spam sent from one of the leading political parties to voters aligned with that party will prove more efficacious than spam sent to the same addresses from fringe political groups or the other party; yet given the particular recipient, even messages from fringe groups may prove productive, if sent to the right addresses.   Super Bowl advertising may have an advantage over spam advertising, but it is only because (1) such advertising is finely designed, directed, to inspire a sense of legitimacy, and (2) the milieu itself adds some legitimacy to the message.


7. A cost-benefit analysis usually shapes the message.  Given the cost for advertising during the Super Bowl, the advertisers generally do a lot of market research before designing their messages.  During the Super Bowl, they have only one chance — or, if they’re willing to spend more — a mere handful of chances, to reach their audience; so they are careful to design messages that will produce enough profits to offset costs.  (Even if they err in their judgment.) Compare to spam operatives, who may flood the market without much cost, and the silly, often incoherent or poorly written spam messages filling in-boxes.


8. Reduced cost mitigates the need for high rewards from each effort.  The fertile .1% (or fewer) who bite not only pay for the effort of creating and disseminating the message but also produce profit for the sender.


9. The fertile ground also grows: (1) buffoons, (2) underdogs, and (3) un-fortunates.  While those who do not bite may use their authority and power to hunt down those who have deceived poor unfortunate innocents, others who do not bite may see those victims as incredibly stupid individuals.  Survival of the fittest, after all; let ‘em hang from the noose they have created.  Meanwhile, those who have lost their security (personal info) or fortunes suffer for it.


10. The large majority of experienced recipients can spot a scam.  —even those who have previously suffered through inexperience.


11. “Email use is declining.” This may or may not be true; but alternative electronic methods of staying in contact with one another have emerged.  Even where email is used, in-box dependability has declined: much spam is automatically deleted, whether by the individual without being read or by automated processes.  The legitimacy of the transmission process has suffered due to the prevalence of spam.


12. Spammers have therefore expanded from email circulation.  Want to use RSS readers to stay on-message?  Check.  Want to use trackbacks, comments in blogs?  Check.  Want to stick to dedicated, secure, legitimate domains?  Check.  (Search engines, Google’s blog service Blogger, alternative name-based domains.)


13. Spam has become legitimate.  I.e., it has become a force to be reckoned with, a reality of our lives.  To the degree that we wish to avoid it, we must shape our activities in reaction to its existence.  It will not go away merely because we ignore it.