No, this isn't a
recipe for a
tasty oriental dish made from
assorted bits of pig. It's about the other sort of
spam, the kind that keeps turning up in my
mailbox every day. And I'm not talking about
mail order groceries.
It was
alright when I was getting the expected
junk mail, the ones telling me about the
miracle breakthrough in
haircare or the exciting
porn I could have access to if I only
sold my soul to satan. I wasn't happy about being
swamped with
junk, but there wasn't much I could do. Besides, it sort of amused me.
Then, one day, a new
surprise awaited me,
one that would terrify me to the very depths of my soul. I opened my
inbox to find the following
text staring out:
¹ÌÆà : À̺¸´Ù ¹°ÀÌ ÁÁÀ» ¼ø ¾ø´Ù.!! ºÎÅ· 100 % !!
äÆà : ½Ç½Ã°£À¸·Î ÁøÇàµÇ´Â äÆÃ& ¿¬ÀΰúÀÇ 1:1 µ¥ÀÌÆ®¸¦
Áñ±â¼¼¿ä~
°ÔÀÓ : °íµµ¸®, Æ÷Ä¿, Å×Æ®¸®½ºµîÃÖ°í Àα⠰ÔÀÓÀÌÇÑÀÚ¸®¿¡ !!
¸¸È : ¹«Çù¸¸È, ¼øÁ¤¸¸È, ¼ºÀθ¸È, µå¶ó¸¶µî ÀÇ ÃÖ½ÅÀÛÀ» ¸¸³ªº¸¼¼¿ä~
¿µÈ : Çѱ¹¿µÈ°ü, ¿Ü±¹°ü, ¼ºÀΰü ÃëÇâ´ë·Î °ñ¶óº¸¼¼¿ä ~
¿î¼¼ : ¿¬ÀΰúÀÇ ±ÃÇÕ, »çÁÖ, ¶ìº°¿î¼¼ µîÀÇ ¿îÀ» Á¡Ãĺ¸¼¼¿ä~
Right. Well, a little
pop-up told me that I had to
download a
Chinese script to display the
actual text. I
opted not to -- my Chinese is a little
rusty. Perhaps it was a
one-off?
No such luck. Three months later and I'm still getting
spam in a
language that I don't
understand. I'm pretty sure that some of them are still telling me about
miracle breakthroughs and my
universal porn-o-meter suggests that I'm still being
invited to sell my soul for some
barely legal eye candy. I've replied
several times (in
English) to no
avail, leaving me with two decisions. Either I'll have to get a new
email address or I'll start learning Chinese. After all, what better
reason is there to become
bilingual?
stupot has just informed me of this, so I thought I'd quote him: "Several ISPs are blocking all incoming e-mail from China and lots of Chinese companies are complaining about it...and the ISPs are telling China to get a grip on spam, or they'll carry on blocking it."
Interesting fact; I wish my ISP did something about it too. :)