Friends, I am here today to talk about spam—not the capital-S spam that comes in a can but that pesky critter that clutters our in boxes with ignoble litter. Is it just me, or does there seem to be a lot more of it lately? And it’s not just the increased amount that’s aggravating, it’s the clever ways spam makers have learned to get around the spam-filtering software I use (which, admittedly, is simply the one built into Apple Mail). It worked well for a long time, but more and more junk e-mails are getting through it these days. So, since I’m getting a chance to see spam again (at the rate of about 100 unwanted messages a day), I thought I’d actually examine some of it.

First off, it seems like the bulk of junk mail arrives during the week, with very little coming through on the weekend. Why is that? Are spam kings strictly white-collar nine-to-fivers who need their weekends to mow the lawn and clean the house? And don’t most spammers use automated software bots to begin with? Why would machines need time off? I’m not asking for more spam—I’m just curious about why it isn’t more evenly distributed throughout the week.

Next, the content. Well, there are the usual enticements to buy discount medications from far-off pharmacies. Ho hum. Sprinkled among these are ads targeted at weight loss (“One chin is enough, get rid of the rest!”, “Anatrim will change your life”) and boosting the size of one’s package. However, I don’t think using “YO, Smallest sausage of the year, how are you? ;)” or “Take your Award—Mr Smallest ramrod 2006” as a subject line is the way to make friends or draw customers. For some reason, replica watches are a big part of my spam intake—are people really buying these? Perhaps, which is why you have to admire the bold vision inherent in the mail from the Replica&Viagra Company—presumably the first spam-industry conglomerate.

Naturally, there are also amazing insider stock-market tips, which tend to come in waves, all devoted to one pick, each from a different sender (probably part of the spam-filter-evasion process). People with names like Foster Minor, Prince Kessler, and Reed Pace send me completely identical letters respectively titled “It’s me Foster/Prince/Reed.” Sometimes the sender is an authoritative-sounding organization like OTC Financial Network. I’m not sure of the business logic here—is there anyone who could receive a bunch of these and somehow think there’s a real market price move about to occur, and 40 strangers just happen to abruptly let you in on it?

I prefer the subtler touts, the ones who write a “confidential” letter addressed to someone else and “accidentally” send it to your account. I respect it when somebody’s obviously put some effort into their pitch, which is why I’ve enjoyed, over the years, reading the evolving variations of the Net’s oldest shell game—the Nigerian potentate suffering temporary cash-flow problems and the chain letter that begins “My name is Dave Rhodes” and goes on to tell a tale of his escape from poverty, all because he mailed $5 to someone on a list. Back in the olden days, people actually worked hard to spin a scam on you. I just don’t see the same degree of care and thoughtfulness in modern spam—just vast quantities of simple messages.

Weirdest of all, sometimes there isn’t a message at all. Sure, I understand that subject lines are often oddball concoctions (“I methionine on carolingian”, “Re: profilingmachin yardma”) in order to fool the spam filters, but now I’m getting a lot of what’s known as empty spam. I mean, it’s not actually empty. On the contrary, it’s usually jammed with cut-and-pasted blocks of text from old novels and current news stories. Clearly, that’s how they evade the filters, but reading them, I wonder, “Why the hell aren’t you trying to sell me something?” There’s nothing but pasted text. No links, no picture-based ads, just some Jules Verne and chunks of a news story on terrorism.

Here’s the thing. I’m pretty good at spotting and clearing out spam (and the Apple Mail filter automatically catches most of the older generation of junk), so I maybe read five or so spam e-mails out of every thousand I’m sent. If you favour biological metaphors, it’s almost as if spam has evolved into two separate species. There are the simple but frequent messages that antispam software eventually learns to recognize, and the lofty spam, a mishmash of content with the power to evade filters, near-perfect mimicry of real mail but with a fatal flaw—no advertising message. I almost prefer sleazy missives like “This is most modern and safe way not to cover with shame.” Please. Tell me more.