Spam

What a nuisance spam is! The irritating and potentially dangerous junk of the Internet. 

Oddly enough, the spam I get nowadays is all from Brasil, and is in Portuguese. It's therefore easy to disregard, when you can't fully understand what the emails are saying - although I can easily guess what it's all about. It's marketing stuff - typically offers on sunglasses, and other fashion accessories. But I definitely don't want it, and although (thankfully) Gmail has automatically recognised it as spam, and applied a 'block' which sends this stuff straight to my Spam Box, I'd rather not even know that it had ever been directed at me. 

I like to look at my Spam Box regularly, just in case it contains a message that should have rightly been left in my Inbox, but (because of some word or phrase used, or a misspelling) has been blocked by Gmail, and is for the time being languishing with the 'proper' spam. It happens occasionally. 

But I don't only see misdirected emails, and those Brasilian marketing emails. There are, now and then, other kinds of email sent with fraud in mind, such as the kind that greet you as a friend and spin you a yarn about a fortune that needs to be unlocked; or some story about a misfortune that you can alleviate as a loving, caring person (thank goodness I'm not). Emails that you must not respond to, nor click on any links offered, in case you let in malware, or provide a pathway to your bank and credit card accounts. I haven't had many of those lately. I'm on my guard though.

Even the Brasilian marketing emails are dangerous. Responding to them is unwise, because the senders then have confirmation that your email address is 'live', which may result in their selling it on to other online businesses, resulting in yet more spam. Clicking on their 'unsubscribe' option also counts as a response, helping to multiply the number of spammers targeting one's email address.   

At least the danger from these retailers is impersonal. I'd be very worried indeed if I looked in my Spam Box and discovered one or more emails from an individual, a total stranger, seeking to make my acquaintance in the name of some common interest (photography, probably), or claiming to be an admirer (meaning, directly or obliquely, that they are claiming to love me). That would freak me out. I'd never want to see that kind of email at all. 

I can't shield myself from absolutely everything, but it seems that it's possible to stop repeat messages that are unwholesome or scary. You can - with Gmail anyway - set up a filter on a particular email address, so that instead of just 'blocking' any emails from that source (so that they can still be read in your Spam Box), the message is deleted immediately and never goes into the Spam Box at all. The sender won't know, and they might continue to bombard you with emails. But you won't know about it, and won't suffer any mental pressure from this invasion of your private life. I suppose a reasonable sender will at some point decide that further communication is useless, and leave you alone. 

The downside is that if all filtered emails get binned on receipt (so that their contents can never be read), and the sender doesn't know that's happening, he or she might get angry at the total lack of response, and flip. They could then perpetrate a physical crime - out of the blue with no forewarning - if they manage to locate their victim in the real world. It's the scenario of a stalker striking at an innocent victim who doesn't know anything about the entreaties they had made, and the threats and warnings that followed, and how all this maddened the stalker, putting the victim in terrible danger. 

It's a risk. On the whole, though, I'd rather have an empty Spam Box, and be stress-free because there's nothing there to worry me or grind me down. What a lot of trust I place in my guardian angel!

Spam is never going away. The wonder of it in my case is that I get so little. And why only from Brasil? I suppose that at some point since I set up my Gmail account a dozen years ago I clicked on something with a Brasilian link, and that was that. 

Anyway, I have now 'filtered' all the current spam, and will do the same for any new stuff until it's all gone.