Sadly, I think the criminal spammers are smarter than the political spammers

Today is November 4, 2024 and I could not be happier because tomorrow is election day.? Am I excited because I get the opportunity to exercise my right to vote in the US for our most important elected official – the president – not at all! I’m happy because the political machinery in the USA that seems to find no issue with bothering me relentlessly will come to an end for a few years. ?Its been out-of-control the past few months, especially since I live in Pennsylvania, a swing state.? As a scientist, I must admit that I have no ability to rationalize the approach used by the political establishment to try to influence my vote works works at scale – its puzzling.

Lets consider some of the classic spam scams. The one that always gets a laugh from me is the “Nigerian Prince” scam where the scammer claims to be from Nigeria with millions of dollars of locked up assets, and asks you for your bank information so that they can deposit that money into your account.? Since you are willing to “help” they agree that they will transfer millions of dollars to your account, and for your help, you will get a cut of the money.? There is also the classic “Microsoft Technical Support” scam where they call you claiming that you have a virus on your machine, ask for access, then install ransomware. They of course tell you that your machine has been infected, and for a “fee” they can help you recover your data.? After you pay, they are your hero’s because they deactivate the ransomeware they installed.? In these, as well as similar attempts by bad-actors to prey on individuals, ?if you aggressively have fun with them and make it clear that you know they are a scammer, somehow you get on a list that you know what you are doing.? At least for me, I get almost zero of these scams, because the scammers are smart.? If they know you are not an easy victim, they don’t waste their time. ?Cudo’s to the scammers, they have solid business skills, people in the know will not fall prey, so attempting to scam them is a waste of their time.? When you are in business, a smart person will not waste their time trying to influence somebody that cannot be influenced, they will move onto somebody else.? At this point I get little to zero calls, SMS texts, or phishing emails attempting to scam me.? So to the scammers – “Great job”!

All that said, the political model in the USA, especially the people who fuel the unsolicited calls, the unsolicited texts, and develop the political commercial must be idiots.? Actually, I would better categorize them as morons. ??I don’t care which side of the political isle you align with, but the fact that somebody thinks they can call you, knock on your door, message you, or show you a one-sided commercial during a football game that would make an intelligent person think – “Boy I was siding with candidate X, but based on this new information you are providing I got to vote for candidate Y” is absurd.? It actually scares me that an intelligent person – no matter what their beliefs are – can be switched to an alternative based on the relentless campaigns that political candidates use in modern times.? The money that fuels this nonsensical and relentless misinformation can be put to FAR BETTER USE!

At the end of the day, I consider both the republicans and democrat approach to “educating me” on who I should vote for worse than the scammers who try to steal my personal information, finances, or other material goods.? At least the professional scammers are business minded seem to learn that I am not going to fall victim to their scheme and leave me alone.? However the political machinery is much stupider and relentlessly bothers me on my phone via calls and texts.? I am super careful about telling somebody my cell phone number and have no clue how my number became exposed.? Today I was teaching a class and told my students when my phone started vibrating that – “Wow Donald Trump is calling me” based on the caller ID – that got a laugh. Then a few min later, I told them that I must be popular because now “Kamala Harris is now calling me”.? Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.? the technology does exist for me to elect my rights to not be bothered by these calls – please get on board and fix this problem.? If I pay for your services, there should be an easy, fast and free option for me to “opt out” from unwanted distractions like unsolicited political calls.

The fact that I live in the USA and can be victimized this way makes me very sad.? It’s an easy fix, and should be against the law for me not to be able to “opt in” to an option that I don’t want to be bothered via unsolicited political campaigns.? Modern AI should be able to flag this stuff, and the awesome technical engineers at the telecommunication companies and smart phone manufactures should be able to provide me with one swipe for them to block all this crap at the source.?

I really hope all my US-based connections exercise their right and go out and vote tomorrow.? As to who to vote for, that is your choice, and that is what makes this country great.? Somehow, we have lost our way a with this nonsense that seems to get materially worse every election season. ?