Forwarded Emails, messages, and whatnots

I do like to hear from you occassionally, but I think it is time I set a couple of things straight. I dont know about you guys, but opening my inbox and seeing it cluttered with forwarded emails is not my ideal way of starting the day. It is bad enough that I get an average of 20-30 work-related emails a day (most of them I really have to respond to), and now I have to clean my mailbox of space-consuming messages with huge attachments in them.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes I do recieve stuff that are worth the read and contain useful info or even the latest sex scandal. But I really have to admit, most of them are garbage. So to make it at least a little manageable, I offer a few things that you should remember:

First, it is very easy to make a "gullible" looking email and send it to someone in the hopes of making it spread. And then you think to yourself, "Why on earth would someone want to do that?" The answer is SPAM.

Have you ever recieved these spam emails advertising about viagra discounts, or some bank executive asking for help liquidating a huge amount of money? Or maybe just the usual advertisement emails from one company to the next? Don't you ever wonder how they got your email address? You dont know? Well let me offer you some insight...

The easiest way to do this, is to spread emails with warnings, fuzzy and chessy messages, or good fortunes. These types of emails usually go around the block 10 times over and by the time it goes back, it now has a rich set of active email addresses from all the headers it passed through.

So if you really MUST forward something, please and have the decency to remove all the trailing email headers. Surely, you dont want to let everyone know what email addresses exist in your address box do you? Great. Neither do I. The best way to forward something is to put their addresses in the BCC list so one recipient doesnt know who the other recipients are. You can put your own email addres in the "TO" textbox. Also, it wouldn't hurt to trim down all the blank ">". Besides, I don't like scrolling 3 miles down before I get to see the actual content, so let's make these rules #1 and #2 ok?

On to #3, do you know how easy it is to fake the email header and make it appear the that message came from a valid or officially looking address like billgates@microsoft.com? It's so easy, my 5 yr old daughter can do it. So don't believe it just because the email looks like it came from whoever is implied. You may also benefit to know that there are NO computer programs that track how many times an email has been forwarded, let alone by whom. So sorry to break it you, but you're not gonna get rich, nor will any money be donated by anyone on the account of you clicking the forward button. Does it threaten to delete your account in Yahoo or friendster? Heck, if I recieve anything like this from you... I will hack into your account and delete it myself.

Point #4. Yes there are a lot of people suffering, but if you're really moved and wanna do something about it, call some social service org or maybe directly donate to PGH Pediatrics department or some other worthy causes. Don't click a button and feel like you've helped someone.

Point #5. If you are one of those insufferable idiots who forwards anything that "promises" something bad will happen if you "don't" - then something bad will happen to you if I ever meet you in a dark alley.

So to sum it up, posting something on the net is as easy as writing something on the wall of a public rest room or in a backseat of a public bus (not that I've ever done that before). So don't be such a gullible schmuck. You are my friend, and I hate to see you like this...

Now forward this to at least 10 people you know in the next 30 minutes. NO! Nothing good will happen to you if you do. But if you don't, I will magically appear in front of your computer screen and beat the living crap out of you, your mother, and your dog. And then I will stand over your bleeding bodies and laugh at your sorry asses. Mwahahahahaha!!!!!