I figured it out!

I’ve figured it out.
Stupid people are ruining the ‘net for the rest of us.
Now, hear me out before you decide that I’m an elitist snob who deserves to die a flaming death.

There are two main things which make email a hassle: spam and viruses. Both would go away if they were properly handled.
As has been pointed out (in a wonderful NYTimes article), it takes affirmative action to get infected with a virus. If nobody ever opened virus-laden attachments, nobody would get infected, and there wouldn’t be any computers spewing virus-laden email messages out into the world. If nobody got infected, servers wouldn’t be clogged with automatically-generated virus emails, my inbox wouldn’t be flooded with virus email.
It requires active foolishness (I almost typed “stupidity”) to get infected. EVERYONE knows, or damn well should, that attachments are often virus-laden. If you don’t have virus software (and that is a stupidity in and of itself), then you shouldn’t be opening attachments unless they are attached to messages which are clearly really, truly from that person. Virus-generated email all looks the same.
Come on, people, grow a brain.
Spam has the same problem – if spam didn’t generate sales, companies wouldn’t pay millions upon millions of dollars to get it sent out. If nobody anywhere ever clicked on a spam link, spammers would go out of business.
I read recently that something like 90 million people have clicked to get more info about penis enlargement. Come on, people!
The morons who let their computers get infected and who click on spam links are the reason we have these problems. Now, I think that the people who think computers should be licensed like cars are a bit out there, but I”m starting to lean toward their way of thinking. I know plenty of people who are very comptuer savvy, but it only takes one or two unsavvy people out of a hundred to mess things up for everyone else.
Think I’m being too harsh?
www.ealasaid.com is a commonly-surfed domain. Many viruses spoof email addys using the infected computer’s cache. I have been getting literally hundreds of messages a day from the latest virus, all because some moron somewhere (maybe a couple morons) surfed my site, then got infected.
And don’t get me started on how much spam my friends and family get.
Seriously, folks. If you’re not smart enough to deal with this, you damn well shouldn’t be using a computer.

1. Don’t click on pop-up ad links.
2. Don’t click on spam links.
3. Don’t email spammers asking to be taken off their lists, either. It doesn’t work, and indeed only tells them that your email addy is a live one.
4. Don’t click on an attachment unless it’s with a good-sized email talking about it. Don’t be embarassed to hit “reply” and ask your friend what’s up with the attachment if you’re not sure. And if you don’t know the person it’s from, definitely don’t open it.

Come on, folks, if we all work together we can make the internet a better place.