I just read the news that Robert Solway, a top spammer was sentenced to nearly four years. In a land where patriotism is measured according to how many dollars you can make, spamming may be considered one helluva way of making a fast buck. But then we see in the present days the conventional wisdom of so many institutions, has completely lost its sense and meaning. Business of course isn’t as it was before.
Take the institution of war. In the time of Alexander of Macedonia a soldier wouldn’t think twice from hurling himself into the thick of battle. He put his life on the line just as Alexander. From the greatest to the lowly foot soldier the war was something that you entered into for the country and for personal reasons. His thereby held up the honor of his country and he, in a personal sense, also purged his own goblins of fear. Now we see the war is outsourced, and technology for all its high-tech arsenal does not sanctify patriotism of a nation. It merely creates a smokescreen, for cowardice and the real motive for which nations go to war.
What is the motive? War profits of course. It is the real business these days and it has become anonymous.
If you look closely into the reason of economic crunch we can see this anonymity at work as we see in the sub-prime mortgage crisis of today. In that murky world of the sub-prime mortgage, interest rates were kept low at first and then rose to compensate lenders for the low credit ratings of the borrowers. Why did the Banks outsource their responsibilities to institutions that were questionable to say the least? All for a quick buck, mind you.
We have online criminals for the same reason a nation outsources its vitality, pride and honor to others: it is safer and anonymous. These are no more monsters than those who squander all that a nation holds dear for some quick profits for a few. The spammers are bred from the same cesspool as others.
(ack: Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service Tue Jul 22, yahoo news)
benny
