Wired to the World: Get a Handle on Spam

Abstract

Those of us of World War II vintage and even later will recall Hormel’s Spam, a processed meat product that was for decades a staple of the American diet, served morning, noon, and night. A recent phenomenon, junk e-mail (a.k.a. another type of Spam), has becomethe bane of our collective existence. When I returned from vacation this summer, I found some 493 e-mail messages waiting to be read — timeshare offers, yet more low-priced toner cartridges, and offers of millions of dollars from Nigeria if I would only contact Mr. So-and-So with my bank account numbers.