No, not that kind.Early last week, when I was in the middle of traffic driving to work, my phone started making the Law and Order "DUHN DUHN" sound that it makes when I get an email. I thought it was work-related, but when I got to a light I snuck a peek at the emails. My personal email inbox had all these "Undeliverable Email" notices -- emails that apparently bounced, that I never actually sent. Soon I realized that my email account had been hacked, and everyone on my contact list (probably 600 people) got weird emails from me with text like "This might be useful." or "Check this out!" or (the weirdest) "Report #1-463" and a .pdf attachment that wouldn't actually open.
So for the thirty more minutes I was stuck in traffic, I cringed as I got to listen to more and more of these emails being sent, some of them rejected, and then plenty of them returned with "Did you mean to send me this" emails. All I wanted was to be at my desk and be able to send that shameful Don't open the email I just sent you; it's spam message so people would stop responding to it.
Most people recognized that it was spam; some even emailed or called me to let me know, just in case I hadn't figured it out. Unfortunately, though, my "Don't open that email" memo didn't quite reach the masses. For the next two or three days I got replies saying, "I can't open this, what is it?"
One good thing about spam (still not the meat product), though: Sending email spam is a great way to get in touch with people you haven't spoken to in a while. As my loyal blog followers know ever so well, I've had a whirlwind of a year or two, and I've lost track of more college and work friends than I care to admit. Well, email spam is a fast and effective way to contact all those people at once. It took me about an hour to change all my passwords and do a bit of damage control, but I also got a good four or five hours of brief catching-up with old coworkers, college and even high school friends, and some people I didn't even remember emailing or meeting ever (okay, I wouldn't call those "catch up sessions" exactly, but it was amusing).
Next time I get out of touch with you all, someone please hack into my email account and spam everyone in my contact list?
What I really enjoyed about the spam message I received from you was that the subject was actually "check this," like you was gangsta er somethin'.
ReplyDeleteApparently my emails are smarter than everyone else's emails, because I didn't get it. Or my email knows based on the content of our previous e-correspondences that the real you would never send me an email as generic as those.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess my email is also smarter than some humans, apparently, which leads me to believe that it's not going to be long before technology rules us all. Gonna go dunk my iPhone in a bowl of water now...