Spam sighted, 6 o'clock high!

Chances are you've already heard of several large companies planning to offer "certified e-mail"; this New York Times story captures part of the problem:

Danny O’Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation also argued that the new system would give Internet companies a financial incentive to let their standard e-mail service deteriorate.
"The only way you can sell a value-added service like this is by degrading the service you have now," O’Brien said

Regardless of the instant problem, you, too, can get some quality, free spam and anti-virus protection for your computer.
A great, free spam filter for Windows computers called K9 is available through keir.net. It may take you a few minutes to get it working with your e-mail program and your anti-virus software, but it'll be worth it. I'd recommend you go to the configuratin tab to turn on minimize to system tray icon and minimize on startup. Under advanced, turn on the blackhole list.What's that, you say? No anti-virus software to configure? Grisoft's AVG Free Edition is easy to use, frequently updated, and, of course, free.