Final installment:
Stob: You have opted in
By Verity Stob
Posted: 16/01/2004 at 09:55 GMT
Stob (Previously: Notorious spamillionaire Sam "The Spam" Osborne has been giving poor Verity Stob the run-around.)
Louis Theroux would never put up with this. It was time to get tough. I asked Osborne about the recent EU spam legislation.
"Terrible. Terrible. A truly wretched thing."
It was forcing him to close down his operation?
"Oh no. Quite the reverse. I?ve actually saved money and doubled throughput since the spam laws came in."
"Thing is, I?ve had to outsource my email servers to India and, sad though I am to say it, they give me a much better service. Those boys can sniff out an open relay like a pig after a truffle.
"I am a patriot, Ms Stob, and as you have seen I like to plough the money I earn back into the local community. As usual, I have been prevented from doing the right thing by an interfering government that kowtows to Europe and simply doesn?t understand business needs. It really makes me angry."
Astonished by this brazen attempt to claim the moral high ground, I furiously and unprofessionally asked Osborne why I had to get 400KB of spam every day?
"Do you? That?s terrible. I can assure you that you get nothing from me. What do you use for spam filter software?"
I told him.
"Well, there?s your problem. That?s a load of old junk. If you used our SpamItOff for Windows, you could wave goodbye to spam forever."
I said, "That?s outrageous! The only reason people need spam filters is because you send them spam. You are driving the need for your own product."
"Ms Stob, you keep getting emotional. This is a technical matter, not an ethical matter. Who knows the most about spam? Me. Therefore who is best placed to block it? If you think about it, I?m sure you?ll see it makes sense."
"Tell you what. I really haven?t got any more time to spend on this interview right now, but as a gesture of good faith, I?ll let you have a free copy of SpamItOff. I?m afraid we are all out of CDs at the moment, so I?ll have to email it to you. What was your address again?"
I sat across the desk, looking at this calm, professional man with his kind face. For all my doubts, surely he couldn?t be responsible for all the frustration, anger and disgust that spam caused?
Surely he hadn?t flooded the mail servers of the world with filth, turning an elegant piece of trusted software engineering into a crippled, suspicious, clumsy mess? Surely it wasn?t him?
"Well, Ms Stob?"
"It?s drew_cullen_17820@aol.com."
----
Tell England. Tell the world. Discover the truth. Start reading your Bible. Stop suffering in silence. Make her scream. Be a sex machine. Be young again. Make a fortune with Ebay. Get the cheapest Home Loan possible. Pay no cable bills. Pay less when you pump. Block all spam. Eat yourself thin. Don?t forget the family. Make it a Ray Charles Christmas.
Eat up your spam? or click here to unsubscribe.
VS, with apologies to DLS. ®
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/34932.html
