So sung The Vikings in Monty Python’s infamous Spam skit, but for the majority of us with office, home and small business email accounts across the county, we’re seeing a whole heap more spam on the virtual menu.

“Kyle our specially designed replics [sic] look exactly like their highly expensive brand prototypes” proudly announces one email (addressed to sam@...). “Bright light, big titties and with your new enlarged tool, you will be the talk of the town” promises another. The offers are endless, the irritation more so!

And according to researchers from security firm Sophos, spam “now accounts for more than 96 percent of emails” and worse still, “hackers are now using social networking sites and mobile phones to spread junk mail”. A problem MySpace has encountered for many months – and one to which Facebook is beginning to succumb too. Sophos again: “Corporations are now facing the fact that only one in 28 emails is legitimate”. Ouch!

The more I think about it though, looking back at the wide-eyed youngster who baulked at his first offer of ‘FREE XXX’ filtering through to ones first hotmail account, right through to the first time you were contacted by the ‘President of Burundi’s daughter’ offering you $489,000,000 – spam has always been a problem – and I can only see it continuing, despite all of our best attempts.

So is the answer to develop a sense of humour as we spend the first 20 minutes of every day deleting “No Pumps! No Surgery! No Exercises!” Or have you found a truly infallible method or service for entirely eradicating junk emails. Pray tell all….

Via The Metro