Despite all my talk, and after three days of no creepy system message ads, one showed up again today. THIS MAKES ME ANGRY. This calls for the big guns.

Follow-Up: I tried to call the number listed on the spam, and (GET THIS!) I get a message saying “This number is not available.” Could this be any more frustrating? Can anyone else get through to 888-221-8978? If you can, tell me what you hear. I’d like to expose the company that uses such nasty advertising methods.

Second Follow-Up: I’ve now configured my copy of Norton Internet Security (which I bought last year, but stopped using on September 11th because it was severely fucking with IE’s ability to read images) to act as a supersonic personal firewall. After testing my IP address at Shields UP!, I got the most solid security ratings around. If Matt’s theory is correct (see comments), then this should do the trick.

Third Follow-Up: ah-HA!!! How did a net-savvy woman like myself just now learn about this? Oh, the shame. Thanks, Joost! I’d searched the internet for “System Message Spam,” but didn’t find anything. Little did I know that this sort of spam is just called messenger spam. Regardless, I’m still glad that I got NIS back up and running. Even if Joost hadn’t let me know about messenger spam, the firewall would have stopped it.