This week’s Loose Wire column is about spam and love:
FOR 10 YEARS NOW, our in-boxes have been bombarded with spam. Sadly there’s no sign that the situation is improving, but perhaps we’re looking at it all wrong. After receiving some very dubious e-mails containing links to very long and suspicious-looking Web sites, I wondered whether there wasn’t a deeper message in spam that we were missing. So I took a closer look at all the Web sites registered by one spammer, the possibly fictitious Carnegie Sun Ltd., allegedly registered in Barbados. My conclusion: If properly deciphered, the company’s registered Web sites reveal a manual to dating and love that is timeless in its simplicity and elegance. I reproduce it here in the hope that your love lives may benefit as much as mine.
Full text at the Far Eastern Economic Review (subscription required, trial available) or at WSJ.com (subscription required). Old columns at feer.com here.