SPAM – who needs a machine, just get the humans to do it

This may become a bit of a rant. Apologies for that, I try to keep my posts positive but this one is really starting to get under my skin.

I have often wondered whether people should be made to pass a driving test before being allowed onto the Internet. Most countries, even the less advanced ones, have a driving test for the roads, but we let any idiot onto the Internet.

OK, I accept that the issues are different, get something wrong in a car and you may kill someone, get it wrong on the Internet and death is not a likely outcome but still the outcome isn’t a great one.

I used to only ask myself this question when I got a one of those “forward this email to 10 people and the national charity for sufferers of bad breathe will receive 2p for each recipient” email. These would nearly always be from someone who has enough intelligence to drive a car, but not enough to know that this is complete tosh.

Now I ask myself this question almost everywhere I go online. Facebook is the latest. I’ve recently received one containing these particularly offensive words:

If a chap called bum_tnoo7@hotmail.com adds u don’t accept it because its a hacker!!
Tell everyone on your list because if somebody on your list adds them u get them on your list he’ll figure out Your ID computer address, so copy and paste this message to everyone even if u don’t care for them. Do this quickly because if he hacks their email he hacks your mail too!!!

Now, anyone who knows anything about the Internet knows that this is just another hoax. Not only that but this hoax existed before Facebook was even born. You don’t have to be clever to know it’s a hoax, all you have to do is a really simple search and you’ll soon find a reputable source telling you in very clear and concise terms that it’s a hoax.

The problem with these hoaxes, of course, is how to stamp them out. Once they have been released into the wild they seem to stay forever. It’s not a machine that needs to be turned off, it’s all of the humans who need to be reprogrammed. Unfortunately humans are notoriously difficult to reprogramme. Although I see the wisdom of crowds at work all over the place, I also see the stupidity of crowds as well.

We humans are fabulous replicators, the problem is, we aren’t very intelligent replicators. Perhaps a form of test would help us to become better filters. At the beginning I said that the stakes wee different between driving and using the Internet, considering the impact of IT upon the environment perhaps the stakes are just as high.

Yesterday the news was all about how fast we were evolving – really?