The Elder Statesman

By BILL DUNCAN
The View From Here

I have long suspected the computer would become our tower of babble. What happened this week convinced me. The company that provides me computer service has informed me the problem I have had for months of getting my column through a maze of cyberspace to Capital Press and other publishers is caused by the server’s algorithm that considers my column spam, refuses it, then trashes it.

Here is the message I received from my server:

"It is clear that the current spam filters on our webmail/mail server have been and will likely continue to block your very important messages to your publisher. This is due to the strength of the anti-spam algorithms on the mail server."

As dumb as I am about all things computer, I had to look up algorithms. Here’s what I found:

The word algorithm comes from the name given it by the ninth-century Persian mathematician Abu Abdullah Mohammed bin Musa al-Khwarizmi, whose works introduced numerals and algebraic concepts. He worked in Baghdad at the time when it was the center of scientific studies and trade. The word "algorism" originally referred only to the rules of performing arithmetic using Arabic numerals, but by the 18th century it had evolved – via European Latin translation of al-Khwarizmi’s name – into algorithm. The word expanded to include all definite procedures for solving problems or performing tasks.

That said, how in the world does this inanimate object decide that my column is spam. I consider such an accusation insulting. Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages.

What surprises me with the company’s explanation is, if this anti-spam algorithm is so strong, how come I keep getting bombarded with unsolicited specials for Viagra and hot tips on stocks from Thailand? The super-strong anti-spam algorithm surely must recognize these messages as pure spam.

I have always been a poor math student, so I should excuse al-Khwarizmi, since he wrote his treatise in Arabic in A.D. 825. It is said that he wanted to bring logic out of the chaos of numbers, and it is said that an algorithm may be viewed as controlled logical deduction. That still leaves me a poor math student.

It is said that al-Khwarizmi believed that "no human being can write fast enough, or long enough, or small enough" to list all of the numbers to infinity.

It seems to me that from my house to the Capital Press in Salem is not an infinity of space, and I write fast enough and long enough and small enough that my few words would not cause such a problem.

If those Viagra folks can find a way to worm their message into my computer and around that great computer company’s anti-spam algorithm, rest assured this old veteran reporter will find a way to bypass the spam patrol and deliver my column on deadline to the Capital Press.

You don’t believe those computers are a modern day tower of babble just like the biblical Tower of Babel in Genesis? Then ask yourself why those computer folks speak in foreign tongues when trying to explain what appears to be a simple solution.

(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470. To answer Capital Press reader Barbara Coon of Junction City, Ore., why I don’t print my e-mail address in my column. I did years back, but I got so much spam slipping past that super-defensive anti-spam algorithm I stopped publishing it.)