By Tom Deisboeck
First off, I want to extend a warm “Ni Hao” to the supremely talented PLA hacker assigned to scour lines like these for hidden intel about quantum computing & AI – sorry, Dude, nothin’ here but thin air – ‘see’ you on Twitter. Now to the essay.
Unless you have been living under a right-leaning rock, you will concede that global warming and ecosystem decline urgently mandate a reduction of waste production. There’s one notable exception: Your email ‘Trash’ folder. It seems to keep growing exponentially.
Except if you’re bumping against your Gmail storage limit, as I habitually do, you let that digital trash simmer, am I right? – an ever-growing toxic pile of expired coupon codes, hibernating computer viruses and the odd, unsolicited conference announcements (never Maui). Yes, I agree, it’s super tempting to defuse the malware-ridden attachment by hitting ‘open’ – but don’t do it. After a rather brief yet exhilarating moment of IT emancipation, you will surely find you didn’t update your piece of shit ‘free’ anti-virus-software and henceforth are the virtual b**** of some Russian programmer whose ransomware is now running your outdated Apple machine – in rather broken English. “Spasibo!”
To start with, in the visual representation of our increasingly obsolete email clients, ‘Trash’ comes right before ‘Spam’, a travesty for those of us who cling to the alphabet. Its valuation is therefore one fortunate stop above straight-up phishing and any porn that still makes it through the filters; the flip side is that it’s at least two devastating steps below pharmacy coupons for (non-animal tested) shampoo and the latest mass mailing that your airline miles will soon evaporate but thankfully still qualify you for a credit card that is secretly programmed to destroy what’s left of your credit – just to keep things interesting.
But let’s get back to emailed trash, shall we? There’s some mystique surrounding it – when you hit “flush” or it’s digital equivalent, “empty”, on your keyboard, where does it go? Well, we know that all human organic waste, including the occasional body, eventually ends up as landfill in New Jersey while plastic bottles are only used by assholes and clog wale airholes in the Indian Ocean, or the other way around, I forgot. However, forensically, where do we really send the columns of Ones and Zeroes that represent the outcast dribble of our sorry online footprints?
… Northern California, it turns out. After some research, I am now convinced there is a gigantic black hole in Mountain View, right behind the Google cafeteria, that sucks up all the crap that we deem unworthy for our myriad inboxes. It seems ironic that the hole’s strong gravity helps get rid of stuff that so thoroughly lacks gravitas. But, I wonder, when we blow all this into someone else’ galaxy, wouldn’t this cause some level of embarrassment if read by extraterrestrials before they get their hands on the highly curated materials in the NASA time capsules (i.e., usually a selection of quotes from The Beatles, Yoko Ono and Al Einstein)? It just seems unfair to me to dump our garbage folders onto some dark asteroid just because its shape loosely resembles that of Staten Island. Computer clouds don’t discharge lightening, rather they need power to operate so, how about recycling our email rubbish? – solid progressive thought but sadly, a complete ‘No Go’ – good luck trying to claim an expired discount offer a few months later in your (formerly) favorite store or signing on for that conference (again, not Maui) after it happened. And so, much like for the smelly organic waste kind, the goal here has to be to stop producing more trash in the first place, get to the source so to speak. To assist you in this worthwhile quest, here is some advice on maintaining email hygiene without losing the top layer of your skin to Purell (or whatever cheap knockoff you’re using):
- Don’t EVER hit “unsubscribe” — it only signals to the very able spam coder in Mumbai or Kiev that he (or she) has found a “live-one” and therefore you just picked up speed on the doomsday clock countdown which will surely end in total obliteration of your operating system. Instead, stay calm, remain stealth(y) – klick to erase until you’re done or have Carpal tunnel, whatever comes first.
- Don’t be fooled by emoticons in the subject lines — yes, they are super cute and look engaging in a sea of tiring black & white Arial 12 font. No – you idiot – you didn’t win anything and confirming an incoming deposit doesn’t make the promised 100+ million-dollar transaction more real (sent curiously from your long-lost family member in Burkina Faso) – other than the one that’s surely outgoing from your bank account as soon as you reveal details to the under-aged crook on the other side of the World (or in your next-door neighbor’s basement). If it’s ‘go big or go home’ – I suggest, ‘Go home’.
- Thirdly, when you do a lot of online shopping — use your glasses (the ones you just bought from Amazon when you went back for more dog food). Somewhere next to your order is a very, very tiny box that you need to un-check to make sure you don’t agree being inundated with online offers, alerts, and updates. The heartfelt assurance that they n-e-v-e-r give out your credentials to another aggregator is usually followed by the disquieting mass announcement of an unfortunate data breach and, in due time, chased by a class-action lawsuit that you could join – if you type in your social security number, HERE. Time to check with your phone if you have a QR code tattooed on your forehead which reads ‘Moron’, in reverse.
- And here’s something for you to chew on, before you hit reflexively “Report Spam”: Have you ever noticed that to get to your Trash and Spam folders, you must hit ‘More’ on the Gmail tab? Counterintuitive, right? – or, nefariously, a hint that perhaps deep down a vicious cycle is at work here. Be aware.
Finally, to stay in the season, my recommendation: Forget “Love Actually”. The real love story in your inbox is “When ‘No-reply’ met ‘Spam Risk’ …” – enjoy it unfolding, while munching on a few website-cookies of questionable provenance. Afterwards, make sure you clear your recent ‘History’ and then wash your hands, thoroughly.