Peter the Great gets even with the Spammers--episode 8
by Jack Corbett

Too busy to get online for a week, Peter the Great finally took time out to check the World's major newspapers out on his computer to see how other countries were taking his crusade against the lawyers.

Reports from Paris's "Match Magazine" and the "London Times" were unfavorable, calling Peter the greatest menace to society and threat to world peace since Hitler.

It took fifteen minutes to filter and read his e-mail, however.

"Lucinda, I want Robert Maximus here and I want him here now," Peter spoke urgently to his receptionist on the intercom.

Ten minutes later, Robert Maximus, was sitting at his desk, sharing a pot of coffee with him.

"1,500 emails in six days. It took me fifteen minutes to get Spam Killer to sort through all those messages. Everything from lower insurance rates, nude pictures of every wanna bee out there, to college degrees for $499.95. Enough is enough. We are putting a stop to these pricks once and for all!" bellowed Peter.

"What do you think we ought to do?" asked Robert Maximus, whose real identity was God.

"These people have no scruples whatsoever. Most people don't want the products they are trying to sell in the first place. An insurance company puts "Cost breakthrough for health insurance" on the subject line of its mass e-mailings, but after enough people like me put a filter in their email programs that screens out all e-mails from getting into our inboxes that contain the word "insurance", they change the wording in their subject header that reads "Revolutionary lowering of your health care costs."

Peter continued..."It's gotten to be like a game of Castles and Robbers. Here's all these people on the Internet who just want to do their thing, so they build up a castle around their computers to keep from getting viruses, to keep hackers out, and to keep all their junk e-mail down to tolerable levels. Meanwhile the Robbers are trying to figure out ways to still give internet users viruses by creating or distributing viruses that can defeat anti virus programs or by ramming their junk e-mails down the throats of computer users who clearly don't want to receive them. As in my example—"I'm going to force my insurance advertisements down everybody's throats by e-mails I'm cleverly disguising to get through their defenses. Such assholes are great time wasters. These robbers are not wanted in the castles of the people they are sending their mass emails too who clearly don't want to hear anything about the products they are offering.

"There's no respect for anybody's privacy anymore," said God.

"And what really pisses me off is all those pricks advertising Penis enlargement. First I get these emails using these words in their subjects: "Get a bigger penis today." So I adjust my spamkiller to reject any e-mails that include the word penis". So I"ve close my castle door to anyone advertising penis enlargement. But do they give up? Nooooooo. My next e-mails from these bastards read "You don't have to continue using that old fashioned little "p-e-n-i-s"." So I put a filter on my spamkiller to filter out all emails containing the word p-e-n-i-s in their subject lines. So what do you think they did next?"

"They started spelling penis P.e.n.i.s, this time with dots between the letters instead of dashes," God replied.

"See. They know people are setting their email programs to reject anything with the word penis in the subject line. So they know their products are unwanted. Is that good enough for these scum bags? No....they are bound and determined to sell their shit no matter how many people don't want them."

"So what do you think we should do about it?" asked God.

"We should execute them. That'll stop this shit and it will teach everyone pay more attention to Peter's 11th Commandment—"Thou shalt not waste people's time unnecessarily."

"We can do that. I am your attorney general. With my extraordinary powers I can determine who's guilty of these crimes and who isn't. I can round all the spammers up by next week. How shall we execute them?"

"I say we hang them," said Peter. Except for the spammers advertising penis enlargements. We should castrate them, then hang them."

"But is that really equitable?" asked God. "Is it just?"

"I'll bet 30 percent of my spammers want me to get a bigger penis."

"That is unfortunate, but is it just to punish these spammers more than we punish other spammers just because they are trying to sell penis jobs?"

"Of course it is just. It's these particular kinds of assholes who give men inferiority complexes and cause them not to measure up in bed."

"Now Peter, just because you only have a six inch penis is no reason to get down on these guys who only want to help you."

"Help me? They aren't helping me. They are only making me wish for a bigger cock when I know that a bigger cock is not want these women really want."

"Well Peter, you've gotta start thinking about justice and not about just your penis," said God. "You need to be fair and equitable. In this case, you have to punish all spammers equally."

"I'm going to need your help here. Say we've got a spammer and all he's done is to blast a half a million e-mails out. Say he's selling concrete and he wants everyone to know about his readi-mix company. That's a type A spammer. Then we've got another spammer. Say he's selling college degrees for $549.00 to be earned in just six months. So he finds out that fewer and fewer of his emails are getting through because too many recipients are putting filters in their email subject headers that will reject all emails containing the phrase "college degree". Now he puts "College-degree" in the subject header knowing the filters won't catch it since he's now capitalized the C in college and put a hypen between college and degree. Now I'd say that this spammer is much worse than the first."

"I agree with you. So what do you propose doing about that, Peter? Give the second type of spammer the death sentence while sparing the lives of the first type?

"I think that would be fair. We could have the first kind of spammer perform community service and execute the second."

"You are definitely going to need my help on this. Being God, I can tell in an instant who's guilty and who's not and to what degree a person is guilty. Tell you what, as your Attorney General I'll just perform like a high speed computerized data base and give you a list of spammers. Those whose names and addresses are in red are going to end up dead and those written in green will wind up performing community service."

"Let's get started on this right away."

"One thing we've not settled. Are you going to castrate then hang all the type II spammers or just hang them? God asked.

"Castrate them, then hang them all. I want the country to take us seriously," said Peter.