Frontier justice

With no law and order on the Internet, some people are taking the battle against spam into their own hands | Gene Edward Veith

Checking e-mail used to be one of the pleasures of the information age. The technology made it easy to keep up with family and friends and to launch into discourses with kindred spirits in discussion groups. Now, before opening wanted messages, the drill for most users is to first delete all of the ads for viagra, anatomy enhancers, money schemes, and pornography.

As much as 45 percent of all e-mail is "spam," mass mailings trying to sell unsavory products. The volume is up 16 percent from last year. Companies like America Online filter out as much of this traffic as they can, but a good percentage still makes it through.

Since spam goes out automatically to electronically generated lists, it is no respecter of persons. Children with online accounts are just as likely as adults—through no fault of their own—to have their inboxes clogged with ads for pornographic sites, complete with samples.