Spam

Can someone explain spam to me?

No, but really?

What is the point of it?  Why?  I understand computer fraud, and get quite excited now whenever I receive an email inviting me to change my security details by putting in my username and password, or asking me if I’ve considered the benefits of CASH CASH CASH to be won.  I enjoy the spelling mistakes, appreciate the occasionally florid language, and get a tingle of satisfaction in seeing the ways in which website names have been so cunning adapted to make you believe that HSBC genuinely does want your data, or the Nat West is looking for a way to verify your account.

I can also appreciate some of the sheer brilliance that goes into modern day computer hacking, and am fascinated by the technology of it and the skills involved.  The notion that, even as I write this, a computer program might be recording my every keystroke, or using my computer as a server for someone else, engages that part of my brain which enjoys an intellectual challenge, even if it rouses to fury that part which has two novels to finish up and an anti-virus system which keeps on asking if I’m sure.

But then there’s spam.  It attaches itself to my blog on a regular basis, and on a regular basis I clear it out thanks to wordpress’ filter.  It ranges from the vaguely entertaining – a bombardment, for example, of comments from random addresses reading ‘I say, how wonderful!’ or ‘You certainly pinned that one down’ or ‘Couldn’t agree more, if only I could think like that’ designed to play to the ego of the reader, through to the more traditional rxtlyepp@nnzwtiiaslst.com blasting my system with gobbledegook.  And here then, is my question…

… why?