A lesson on spam artists: noble efforts to curb spamming likely ineffective. (On the Net).

In the beginning, I loved e-mail and my dependence on the service grew as friends and business colleagues came on line. It was not long before I began to wonder how we ever got along without computers and e-mail.

That was then.

Today, I have an approach/avoidance conflict, which grows every time I see my e-mail inbox counter go past 100 messages in less than a day. My address might have been one of the collection of 25 million others recently offered for sale ($149 US) to a legion of Web-scam artists who batter the system with weird, lewd and, sometimes, offers bordering on illegal.

Spammers are making me crazy. They are also creating enough havoc to have many U.S. states, the European Economic Union and other jurisdictions enacting laws, or studying the matter. The state of California, for example, recently passed a bill which, although it came up short of outlawing the 'practice of spamming, requires that spammers include the letters "ADV" in the message header (or ADV/ADLT for adult content) and a valid fax, phone or e-mail address to allow recipients to ask to be removed from future mailings.

Though it is a noble effort, there are several reasons why the California initiative is not going to be effective.

It only applies to spammers working in the state and sending their junk to Californians. Spammers from Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and even Canada are therefore exempt from the statute.

Experts on the subject agree the worst thing you can do is reply to a spammer to ask that your address be removed from his list. That reply, they say, only confirms your address and pretty much guarantees you will be included on "varified" lists to be sold to other spammers.

So it was not very welcome news to learn that one Zoltan Kovacs, founder of DirectAdvertiser.com, is now selling software that allows spammers to send pop-up messages directly to computer users' desktops bypassing e-mail altogether. Pop-ups are those annoying little ads which appear out of nowhere when you are surfing Internet sites. Often, there are several left on the screen after an Internet session is finished and the Web browser has been closed and put away.

Direct Advertiser, though, does not need a user to be active in either browser or e-mail mode. Instead, it uses Microsoft's Messenger Windows service included in NT, 2000 and XP systems to deliver commercial (or other) messages, which are completely anonymous and completely untraceable.

Messenger was originally intended as a means for system administrators to send information to their users on a network.

DirectAdvertiser was barely on the market ($699 US) before the anti-spamming fraternity got wind of the new development and began making serious noise and threats.

Zoltan is on record as saying he condemns spamming, himself, but when pressed he admits that some people may use it for that purpose. He has even put a notice on his Web site to wit: "Please do not use this software for spamming. If you do so, you will take full responsibility for your actions. This software was made to send advertising or system messages to your own network." As part of its terms of service, the company states, "DirectAdvertiser.com will not assist you in sending unsolicited advertising and it is not liable for any damages caused by such actions."

If you believe that...

Company president Kovaks has been recently quoted as saying DirectAdvertiser has already sold more than 200 copies of the program which, on most computers, is reported to be capable of sending about 5,000 pop-up messages an hour targeted to a range of Internet addresses. The current users alone, then, have the potential capability to send a million outgoing messages per hour and that is only the beginning.

There is a little good news in this story.

First, they have not yet figured out how to make DirectAdvertiser carry pictures, sound or "click-thru" hot links. For the moment, the pop-ups are limited to text messages which, depending on their content, could put new meaning into a serious business proposal if they pop into view during a PowerPoint presentation. Think about that.

Second, Messenger can be turned off through its control panel, and strangely, Zoltan gives detailed instructions on how this is done right on the DirectAdvertiser Web site. Do this and the pop-ups will not get through, but neither will any information from your system administrator who may have to resort to e-mail to let users know what is happening with the system.

Not satisfied with using the e-mail and Messenger systems, spammers are also sending text solicitations to cell phones and faxes, neither of which utilities, I am happy to say, I use. But people who do rely on them are having fits, especially when they have to pay their cell phone carriers for every incoming text message. If such a charge were instituted for incoming e-mails I figure I'd owe my service provider about a hundred and eighty-six kajillion dollars.

It is too bad such a valuable service has been seized and corrupted by junk mail distributors. The global nature of the World Wide Web assures most of the perpetrators won't be put out of business by local, regional or even international legislation. Their technology seems to stay one step ahead of even the latest developments in anti-spam warfare as

DirectAdvertiser effectively shows. There's only one way to defeat spammers and it's a simple solution. Simply stop buying into their offers. Nuke their e-mail without opening them, shut off their revenue stream and they'll go away. Anybody who generates nothing in sales after sending thousands of messages will be forced to find some other nefarious means of support. Then maybe we can send the Zoltan Kovaks of the world a bye-bye e-card of condolence.

John Milne is the owner/proprietor of All Outdoors Productions in North Bay and can be reached at [e-mail]