It was close to dawn and LaCroix was sitting at his computer, making the rounds of his favorite network sites and servers. It had been a fruitful night, as such things go: a delightful conversation with an axe murderer. A charming philosophical exchange with a man who claimed to be the reincarnation of the Marquis de Sade. The marvelous discovery that a Spanish library had scanned and posted to the net the recently rediscovered notebooks of Torquemada. And he had just thought of such an *intriguing* way to further torment his errant son Nicolas.
Now, however, dawn approached. The Raven was quiet at last, the last caller to the Night Crawler show had hung up, and it was almost time for Uncle to retire for the day. However, his attention was diverted by a Usenet posting with a cryptic, yet interesting, title:
<<<<<$$$>>>>> - $$$.txt (1/1)
With that remarkable sense for evil that vampires possess, LaCroix knew that this post bore investigation. He downloaded it, and discovered that it was UUE encoded. Uncle logged off the net for a moment, and in mounting excitement decoded the strange post. To his dismay he saw that it was merely a chain letter.
"A pox on thee, wretched spammer!" he thought. He knew the curse was trivial, unimaginative and unworthy of his nature, but it was late and he was tired . . . too tired, really, to deal with the verminous spammer as it deserved. So he forwarded the message, first to his postmaster, and then to the spammer's postmaster.
As he did so, he noticed that the Spammer, who styled himself by the charming title of "Slash," had launched his spam from Singapore--and, indeed, the chain letter bore the name of
Singapore Sting
1313 Spammingbird Lane
Singapore
which most assuredly seemed like the name and address of an inhabitant of Singapore. Although perhaps this was a coincidence, LaCroix's nineteen centuries of life as a vampire, his unending exposure to the greed and selfishness of so many mortals, inclined him to believe otherwise.
He recalled the recent case of a foolish foreign youth who had dwelled in that island nation, and who had been rather firmly punished for his wanton, selfish acts of vandalism. The Singaporean courts had stoutly resisted foreign attempts to interfere with the sentence given to that wrongdoer, whose acts had been similar to spamming, and which had been made in violation of a well-known law in a land that did not coddle criminals. Justice in that case had been swift and sure, and delivered to that place where spammers, certainly, keep such brains as they have.
Uncle smiled at the thought of how Singapore might deal with a spammer; there are times when justice can be more effective than a vampire's revenge.
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Last modified: April 10, 2006