97% of all email traffic is spam?

Jacqui Cheng reports on Ars Technica that spam now accounts for 97% of all email traffic.

You may have a different perception. If you're like most people, you probably think that around half of your inbox is taken up by jokes and chain letters from friends, relatives and work colleagues. According to the Microsoft security report analyzed in Ms. Cheng's article, this is because "most [of the spam traffic] never made it to their destinations thanks to server-side filtering."

The only thing I know for certain about spam filters is that they don't always work: The pleas from widows of Third World generals and solicitations for pharmaceutical products too often get through and -- sometimes -- actual work stuff does not. Like the time my opponent needed extra time to file a reply brief. She'd insisted I email my response because there was a tight briefing schedule, and I did -- but it got stuck in her spam filter.

And, besides.... Here's a cartoon I posted in October 2007:

Stumbled on at this site
(from a very strange site called Married to the Sea).

Sure, at the time, when the markets were booming, the cartoon was funny because these nice-looking people were sooooooooooo out of it.

Why didn't they invest in stocks? Mortgage-backed securities? Bernie Madoff's fund?

Looking back... would the nice imaginary couple really have been any worse off going with the 'gentleman from Africa'?

I suppose that's not an argument to let more of the 97% through.

But every day I'm less and less sure.

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Programming Note: I don't know if I'll be able to close my office tomorrow, but this blog will be closed for Good Friday. Happy Easter.