wither in the light

The bright assholes at AT&T have just been granted a patent for circumventing spam filters. The patent covers "A system and method for circumventing schemes that use duplication detection to detect and block unsolicited e-mail (spam.)" Just what we need... more offers for Viagra and the secrets of 'length extension'. Of course, I don't think the problem lies entirely with the spammers; after all, they are merely exercising good-old-fashioned American rape-and-pillage capitalism like they have been taught. The real problem lies with the fucktards that actually buy the products/services or even respond to the fucking email at all. If it wasn't for these dim and confused (but apparently very optimistic) idiots, the spammers would have dwindled away by now. The economics of large-scale mass-mailings dictate that it only takes 1/1000 or even 1/10000 responses to a mailing to turn a profit... so if we can't take out the spammers, I think we should take out the people responding to them. Personally I suggest a plague, though I realize that others might find that a bit extreme. Education would be a useful exterminator of this particular kind of vermin, but they've been breeding education-resistant strains of Americans for a long time now.