We’re all pretty used to spam by now. Every day, my inbox is cluttered with solicitations for a new mortgage, male enhancement products, discounted software, and the interminable 419 scam emails. But today, I fired up my email to find something quite different–a matter, literally, of life and death.
Here’s the email:
FROM: Tsunami Track SUBJECT: Danger Tsunami
THIS IS AN OFFICIAL WARNING!
A huge 300 ft. high ocean wave is moving towards your continent.
Your and many other cities are in a real danger.
Approximate wave moving speed is 700 km/h.Please read more about this catastrophe here: [web address deleted–I’m sure no good can come of clicking through to this]
We are strongly urging you to evacuate yourself and your family as soon as possible,
even though you may live far away from your city.
The tsunami will reach the continent in approximately FOUR hours.YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
I was immediately intrigued by the idea that an organization whose sole purpose was to track tsunamis existed, and that they had a database that let them email residents of cities threatened by imminent tsunamis. Actually, I think that “Danger Tsunami” would be a great name for a band, or at least something neat to print on a t-shirt.
My intrigue turned to alarm as I realized the full import of this email. A tsunami large enough to endanger Las Vegas, 300 miles inland, was a sure portent of disastrous climactic change. This was about more than rushing to Home Depot for sandbags and plywood–it probably meant the end of civilization as we know it.
My alarm turned to despair as I realized that my pitiful efforts would doubtless fail–before coming into work, the local tv statations had not spoken a word about our imminent death. ESPN was all about Jason Giambi’s grand jury testimony. The Weather Channel just told me it was 34 degrees out. How could the impending doom of the west coast of the United States be such a minor news story?
After googling “tsunami,” I headed over to the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, where I found the following breaking news:
EARTHQUAKE DATA
PRELIMINARY MAGNITUDE – 4.4
LOCATION – 50.8N 173.2W – 105 MILES SE OF ATKA VILLAGE-AK.
170 MILES SE OF ADAK-AK.
25 MILES DEEP
TIME – 1917 AST 12/01/2004
2017 PST 12/01/2004
0417 UTC 12/02/2004EVALUATION
THE MAGNITUDE IS SUCH THAT A TSUNAMI WILL NOT BE GENERATED.
THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED.
With my near future seeming much drier, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I don’t know what would have happened if I had gone to the website the email contained–maybe I’ll try on one of the computers that is reimaged with each restart and see. I doubt it’s anything good. I’m just amazed at the ingenuity of spammers who think that the general public is incredulous enough to believe that, in the event of global meterological catastrophe, they will be notified by bulk email.
UPDATE: I checked the website on a re-imaged student computer and I was right–it launches a virus. On one hand, people who use scare tactics to get people to open virus-laden emails are reprehensible. On the other, the thought of a 300-foot wave somehow endangering the Las Vegas Valley (approximate elevation: 2500 ft.) is funny, so maybe people taken in by this deserve their fate.