Mikeaber said:
Could someone explain to me the motivation behind these obscene or otherwise offensive spam attempts. I simply cannot imagine that they actually result in "customers" or in any other way produce anything beneficial.
Now, if that motivation is for its potential to aggravate, I might could understand. Same way with SPAM eMail. If anything, I make it a point to never buy from a commercial enterprise that sends me unsolicited eMail or SNAILMAIL for that matter.
It's a nuclear bomb approach to advertising. You can't target your advertising, so you drop the biggest thing you can and hope that your intended target gets swept up in the mushroom cloud. There's a sucker born every minute, so if you send out 1,000,000 spams, you'll probably find him.
Keep in mind there's usually two parties involved: the spammer, and the person selling the "merchandise", whatever it may or may not be. The spammer just gets paid to send out X number of advertisements. They don't actually care if the product sells, because the sucker law applies in reverse too. For every million people out there who want to hock some jar-of-crap, there will be at least one willing to pay for a less-than-reputable advertiser.
Personally, I think the only way to break the chain is a twofold attack. Since the majority of spam is for illicit medication:
1) Track down the suppliers. Drag them down to the river and beat them mercilessly. This is just for fun, since there's a million people in line waiting to sell to the hordes of suckers out there. Therefore:
2) After beating the suppliers and snogging them with a porcupine, seize their customer list. Send out a free bottle to ever person who has ordered in the past. On the outside, the bottle should say FR3E S @mpl \/I@gr/-\ (since that's what they're stupid enough to fall for). The inside of the bottle should be a dozen highly concentrated cyanide pills.
Voila! You've (literally) eliminated the customer base for the suppliers. If they can't sell anything, it isn't economical to spam. And as a law of happy unintended consequences, we've cleaned up the gene pool a bit.
