Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

29 Jan 2005, 16:27 p.m.

The Spam King's Gambit

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2005 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

Last night I couldn't sleep and I read Spam Kings by Brian McWilliams, a frequent Salon contributor. For a reader at my level of net savviness, McWilliams spins a great tale of the intimate battles among spammers, antispammers, and side-switchers. They taunt each other via instant message! A failed anti-Semite writes great ad copy for pills and plays under assumed names in chess tournaments! I wish I knew how it ended, but nonfiction doesn't wrap itself up in time for a book deadline.