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Which Spam Filter Are You?

By Paul Boutin
Updated Tuesday, March 11, 2003, at 12:50 PM ET

The war on junk e-mail is winnable, but you'll have to go it alone. Recent survey results showing that 9 of 10 American office workers support a federal ban on spam won't stop Congress from spinning its wheels for the third year in a row. Meanwhile, your company or ISP could install a filtering system on its mail server, but chances are they already did. Like U.N. inspectors, the filters always seem to be one step behind the bad guys. That leaves it to you to mop up your inbox with a personal spam filter.

But which one? Spam filters use different approaches to handle incoming messages. Some stretch a velvet rope across your inbox, letting only preapproved senders reach you. Others use statistical analysis to decide what is and isn't junk. Still others tie their human users together to vote unpopular messages off the island. The program will serve as your personal assistant to friends and strangers trying to e-mail you, and it will require significant time and effort on your part to fine-tune it.

To pick the right solution, you don't need a product review—you need a personality test.

1. Your evening meal is interrupted by a telemarketer who calls to offer a special deal on printer-toner cartridges. Do you …
Tell the caller this is the deal you’ve been looking for, and ask him to hold while you get your credit card to order 1,200 units. Then put the phone down and return to dinner.
Politely decline the offer and hang up.
Avoid the whole episode in the first place via an unlisted phone number.
Do a Google search to prove to the caller that much better deals are available online.

2. You and your date are strolling through Greenwich Village on a perfect Manhattan spring evening. A restaurant owner steps forward from his doorway, shoves a menu into your hand, and asks, “A nice French dinner for two tonight?” You …
Flip out your Tungsten Palm to see what Zagat has to say about the place.
Accept the menu and say you’ll be back later, then discreetly slip it into a trash can on the next block.
Tear the menu in two, then launch into a tirade about how this inexcusable rudeness wastes your valuable time. You should bill him for it!
Decline politely—Maurice is holding your table at Gotham.

3. A Girl Scout arrives at your door, saying she found your name and address on a list of people interested in Thin Mints. You hate Thin Mints. It’s obvious she got your name and address from the mailbox at the curb.
You tell her you buy all your Girl Scout cookies from your niece, but wish her luck.
You relax in the drawing room while Smithers shoos the little beggar away.
You grill the kid about this nonexistent list of hers until she bursts out crying.
You ask her to wait while you shoot an instant message to Dave next door: “wtf is with the girl scout their site sez cookies ended 1/26”

4. Your favorite news source?
Nob Hill Gazette
CNN
Fucked Company
Blogdex

5. TV commercials are
The most creative medium of our generation.
Easily skipped with a TiVo.
An evil curse on our culture that must be stamped out by any means necessary. That’s why you watch them so closely.
Risible, for the most part.

6. God grant me …
The Serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
The Courage to change the things I can.
The Wisdom to know the difference.
A dollar for every time I have to read this crap.

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Paul Boutin is a writer living in San Francisco.
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