We’re an information economy.  They teach you that in school.  What they don’t tell you is that it’s impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly, meaningless fragments of personal information. Fragments that can be retrieved, amplified….

               William Gibson – Johnny Mnemonic

The virtual combination of the World Wide Web and the Internet, known colloquially as “The Net” has, over the past six to eight years, become more a more pervasive element of our lives.  Of course, many would correct the previous statement and say that it has become more invasive rather than pervasive and in many ways these curmudgeons are quite correct.  The Internet was built, or at the very least has grown on the principle that the free exchange of information is a good thing.  Unfortunately one of the first things that have suffered because of this free exchange of information is the privacy that is one of the foundations of our Constitution.  For those of you who were sleeping in Civics class I refer you to the Fourth Amendment which states in part; “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated….”

Now at this point it would be very easy to launch into an attack on Government monitoring of Net traffic and the legal basis for such tools as Carnivore, the FBI’s e-mail snooping program, but I am not a Lawyer and this one time will leave such lofty discussions to folks like my esteemed colleague John Brewer.  Instead, I would like to take the time to discuss other more subtle losses of privacy that are occurring on the Net.

I can recall a time when one could post to a UseNet discussion, submit a form on a website, or even register a domain name and not expect their in-box to become flooded with a plethora of get rich quick schemes and offers for free porn or hair loss preventatives.   I say ‘expect’ their mailbox to fill up because simply doing any of the three previously mentioned activities will most certainly guarantee that you will become the recipient of more SPAM than you can ever imagine.

SPAM.  Ah yes, that lovely canned meat product brought to you by the good folks at Hormel and much heralded by Monte Python in the now infamous skit that proved to all of us that too much of even a good thing is indeed a bad thing.  While the merits of both the processed meat product and bulk commercial e-mail can both be argued at great length I think that in moderation both could be quite useful.  I suppose that like the meat product, I could tolerate a few product announcements that I wished to receive.  Should Amazon.com send me an update about a new book that fit my profile, provided I first signed up for the service, I would be fine with that.  What really irks me is the gang that sends me loads of junk for things that I would never wish to receive such as online investing or is it gambling?  Actually, I think that they are probably the same.

Let’s face it; Sanford Wallace ruined the Net forever.  To make sure everyone is up-to-speed, Sanford (Spamford) Wallace was the CEO of Cyberpromotions , a company that pioneered the use of e-mail for Unsolicited Bulk E-Mail (UCE or SPAM).  This after his previous scheme of sending unsolicited faxes was outlawed by Congress.  Some folks just never get a clue.

Ready to give up?  Chuck it all and just call it a day?  Well never fear dear readers because Bees will share with you his patented, tried-and-true, never-fail methods for cutting down on some of the SPAM in your in-box. How much would you  pay for this amazing discovery? $99.95?  $59.95?  No!  That’s just too high!  This incredible and life changing information will be yours for free, but it will have to wait until next time as I only have space here for 750 words and I have just about run out of……