E-mail in an Instant

38Sort Through Spam

Just in case you have been in a cave (without a wi-fi connection) for the past decade, spam is the unwanted, unsolicited e-mail everyone receives in their inbox—day in and day out. Spammers (those who spam) send bulk mailings indiscriminately to millions of e-mail users, the result being that inappropriate and unwanted messages (Jim Johnson would you like a bigger …) show up in your mailbox at work or at home. Only after sorting through seedy listings for pornography, gambling, organ enlargement, and an array of pharmaceuticals can you get to your legitimate messages.

Spam seems to be a necessary evil of having an e-mail account, and conservative estimates suggest that it makes up about 85 percent of the messages sent throughout ...