In Through the Out Box

Is it just me or is the in-box becoming a scary place these days? I used to get up in a morning (half an hour before I went to bed), eagerly log on to my trusty ISP and open every single e-mail as if were from a trusted friend.

Spam was just sommat my Gran used to fry up on Saturdays, and the quaintly named "unsolicited mail" used to be read indulgently before being bobbed into the wastebasket.

Not now though - I have to go in there with rubbergloves and a Ghostbusters Plazma Pack. That inbox is INFECTED, man! I don't even think about going in there without some Brillo and a bottle of Izal...

And there's another new virus doing the rounds, called Bugbear. And like the last virus it's damn good at pretending to be your ex-girlfriend passing on a few old nudie pics, or your mum sending an e-card. It can even pretend to be one of those undeliverable message alerts from mad uncle Bill Microsoft. I've seen em all, and even then I'll get fooled by a long lost friendly name in the in-from field. "Elaine? Party pics? Now that was a cool do...lessavalook...HEEELLLOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Ever seen a fully zapped computer? One that's been Love Bugged and Klez Wormed up to the max? Hilarious. One I saw had all its desktop files run away from the mouse as you tried to click. Another has the words "You Are Shit" popping up all over the place.

The poor owner of this computer was running around weeping and wailing and going on about how much they depended on this piece of junk...

Well he was asking for it.

He was the kind of guy who specialized in crap jokes, or worse, pathetic unfunny cartoons scanned from old copies of Penthouse. Anybody sends him something vaguely non-serious he zaps it out to his entire address book. Cheers mate - The Queen Mum Nude? Lovely. Kournikova's (fake) beaver? Marvelous. The Naked Spice Girls? Terrific. Photo of the tourist on the Trade Center roof with the plane behind him? "Bittovalaff, innit..."

And of course he's the kind of dickhead who,if you send him something vaguely amusing, he zaps it to all four corners of the net. Of course he's never heard of Blind CC so everyone gets to see everyone else's e-mail addresses, and all their mate's e-mail addresses, and THEIR friends e-mail addresses...

He's also big on those moron chain e-mails - the ones where AOL and Microsoft are tracking your every move and you get sent £1000 for every sucker you pass it on to. And went on about the Nigerian dude who wants to use your bank account to get a couple of hundred grand out of the country sharpish and only you can help. He's clearly not a regular at Urban Legends. How he got as far as he did without his computer up and attacking him I've no idea.

And finally he opened one last can of worms. Justice, you might think? Well no - because his outbox is now like Saddam's weapons programme. Every e-mail address in his out box gets a personal scud missile from Script Kiddie Central. And that includes you.

Its tempting to get promiscuous online - naked in the chatrooms, giving good e-mail to anyone with livechat. You can get into the wild and crazee world of newsgroups where you can download pictures of anything from cross-dressing donkeys to men who like to put their wanger in a car exhaust pipe. You can log on to chat sites and pretend you're a vicar from Inverness.

Yet it turns out that there are trails left on the web, and they lead right back to your phone socket. The cops paid a kindly visit to every saddo who downloaded fake Jill Dando nudes not so long back, and they reckon that every e-mail with a word like bomb or terrorist gets logged by some droid in a bunker somewhere (evening fellers - nice of you to drop in...)

So the freedom of the net is an illusion and the mystery e-mail you just got is going to screw up your mail box, and open up your computer to being sucked dry by some geek in North Korea, just for kicks.

Now its safe sex all over again. You just can't be an email-slapper anymore. You have to protect that inbox from violation, and your nettiquette has to be squeaky clean. No more staying up late with a bottle of JD and your finger on the download button. The days of letting it all hang out online are over, baby! It's zip up time.

Blogga.