I need help!

Is there a professional psychologist among our readers? Or even an amateur armchair variety? I need help.

You see, I want to find out what goes on in the head of spammers?

Since I got used to having, first Hotmail, then Yahoo and Gmail, I have become somewhat accustomed to spam.

Thankfully, email providers have given us the heavenly junk mail folder where most of the irritating and sometimes offensive emails from person or persons unknown gets directed to and automatically trashed if ignored for long enough.

The junk folder facility has been available in office email networks, but do not work with equal efficiency as from major search engines.

That means I get spammed and have little or no control over it.

"Spam is a fact of life. Live with it," was the succinct advice of our top Web honcho.

Recently, someone has found the latest major offering on the UAE media scene - Emirates 24|7.

And so enthused by its content, have decided that it is the best source for distribution of their message.

Oh, I used to get the odd unsolicited offers for flats, credit cards, finance, potency pills and sometimes even invites from unknown but supposedly beautiful young women over the office email.

I also used to get garbled messages, which if I clicked on, would take me to suspicious sites judging by the etisalat block.

But recently, someone has got into the habit of sending up to 60 messages every few seconds with the same subject line but with clearly spelt out words in inane sentences - I suspect to pass whatever filter our IT supremos have set up.

So I get sentences like: Response new fossil, evaporation risk human significantly or primary source allows partially.

What I cannot understand is what does this person or persons get out of such activity.

I can understand if I get a message that promotes a product.

I can understand if some Mr Jones from an African nation preys on my gullibility or naivety to eke some hard-earned dollars out of me.

I can understand the lure of easy money or beautiful girls and enhanced virility or organs, even on seemingly sane, logical professional persons.

I can - not totally, but somewhat - understand emails with malicious software on the grounds that someone with a twisted evil mind is getting a sense of power by commandeering host computers to send out worms, trojans and other harmful things.

What I cannot understand is why send me tons of meaningless emails? What is the benefit? The person spamming me does not even know me - or does he?

It is only irritating and frustrating to click and delete as automation. It clutters up my limited email storage capacity and, more annoyingly, also carries with it the risk of me accidently deleting some important email.

What is it that drives such people? Do they think they are playing a joke on me by sending out "harmless" spam? Is it not a criminal offence along the lines of harassment?

One thing that my office junk mail filter is actually good at is keeping my eldest's emails out of my inbox - they are generally demands for more money.

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