Internet Christmas Carol

By: William A. Levinson

Ebenezer Scrooge ran the biggest spam haven on the Internet. Everyone complained: "What about Netiquette, sir?" Scrooge replied, "Netiquette? Bah, humbug!" Reputable ISPs complained, "You're overloading our servers!" "You'd better get more bandwidth, then," Scrooge replied. "Advertising is free speech, it's here to stay."

"But we'll have to raise our fees, and that will drive some people off the 'Net!"

"If they're going to drop off the Net, they had better do so and decrease the surplus population!" snarled Scrooge as his customers pumped out another load.

After a prosperous day, Scrooge returned home. "Spammers' money is as good as anyone else's," he said with satisfaction. That's when he heard the chains rattle.

"Who are you?" Scrooge asked the apparition.

"I was the Spam King--SANFORD WALLACE!"

"But, you're not really gone, are you? CyberPromo always came back before. I mean, you're going to get connectivity again, from somewhere..."

"No one will peer with me," moaned the apparition. "Beware, Scrooge, lest you suffer my awful fate." He pointed out the window, and Scrooge thought he recognized other worthies, including a pickle jar. "Tonight, you will be visited by three spirits!"

"Three spirits...no, I'd really rather not..."

"Three spirits--when the clock strikes twelve!"

Scrooge thought it was indigestion, but the first ghost showed up promptly at midnight. The ghost carried a can of Spam (TM)--the Hormel kind. "I am the ghost of Christmas Past. Rise and walk with me. I will show you the Internet as it once was. That was when the only Spam came in a can."

"That's my 386-25 machine," Scrooge said. "It had a text-only browser, though."

"But all the E-mails were from friends or business associates. They were all addressed to YOU, not friend@public.com."

"That's right, I remember those days. A lot of spam gets past even my filters."

"Some of your own customers harvested your address, Ebenezer."

"All right, I get the idea. But the new Pentium systems are faster, they can deal with the spam. My modem was only 9600 baud back then, too."

The ghost departed, and another apparition appeared. This one had a golden mallet. "I am the ghost of Christmas Present," said the spirit. "Come with me, and I'll show you the Internet today."

"That's my new 300 MHz system, with the 56K baud modem!" exulted Scrooge. "I love that machine."

"No, it's Bob Cratchet's machine. Let's look at his E-mail."

"But aren't we invading his privacy?"

"Not really, he won't care if we see this."

The E-mail subject lines screamed, "Make Money Fast!" "Come See the Naked Coeds!" "Work at Home!" "Once in a Lifetime Opportunity!" "Porno Online!" "New Laundry Detergent!"

"That's from one of my customers," Scrooge said.

"Junk, isn't it?" said the ghost.

"Hey, he's a paying customer."

"No, Cratchet is paying," said the ghost. "And Tiny Tim sent the twenty dollars he earned from his after-school job to the multilevel marketing scam--the poor kid thought he could earn more money by following the directions."

"Well, Cratchet should buy Net Nanny or Safe Surf."

"Those block pornographic sites, not scams," said the ghost. "And they didn't keep this spammer from sending this X-rated .jpg image."

The ghost left, and a hooded apparition appeared with a LART. "You are the spirit of Christmas Yet to Come," said Scrooge. The figure nodded, but said nothing. It pointed a skeletal hand at a computer.

Scrooge walked over to the machine and turned it on. "Wow! A gigahertz processor, and the equivalent of a T3 hookup! Look at the sound system! The future isn't so bad, after all." He logged on to his Internet account.

200 E-mails appeared on the screen. One was from a friend, one was from a potential client, and the other 198 were ads. Not just text ads. The animations flashed and glared, and loud noises came from the sound system. "Send your credit card number to..." "Our operators are waiting to take your call!"

"Multimedia advertising. Clever," said Scrooge.

The skeletal hand pointed again, this time to a N.A.N.A. posting. "Scrooge & Co. IDP'd. No other service provider will accept transmissions from Scrooge's address block."

"No!" pleaded Scrooge. "Please, tell me this is only the shadow of what might be, not what will be!" He grabbed the spirit, which turned into his blanket.

"What? I'm in my own bed- and it's Christmas Day! It's not too late!" He immediately called his network operations center. "Post an acceptable use policy! Tell the spammers they'll have to go elsewhere! Pull their plugs if they violate the AUP!"

The operations personnel thought that Scrooge had gone crazy, but they were happy. A couple crumpled the resumes they had prepared. "If he means it, I'm staying."

And it came to pass that Scrooge & Co. got rid of all its spammer customers. And Scrooge became one of the Net's most popular citizens. In fact, his company became MORE prosperous despite losing the spammer accounts, because many reputable customers rushed to take their places. The messages on N.A.N.A. said, "White hat for Scrooge & Co!" Scrooge received the Golden Mallet award later that year. Soon, other service providers began coming to Scrooge to benchmark their antispam policies. When that gigahertz machine finally showed up, Scrooge's company was the premier service provider on the Net.

Wishing everyone a healthy, successful, and spam-free 1998.

Last update: 25 July 2003
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