Interesting thoughts from the Sophos blog

Niall from SophosLabs UK asks: why does spam work? and gives an interesting answer:

In his opinion, although we think that claims made by spam is very "out there" and wonder why people keep falling for it, in fact it is no worse that what we see in other media (like TV commercials). On some level I agree, although there certainly seems to be more regulation on TV commercials. For one, almost all of them display a disclaimer of some sorts (the fact that it is unreadable is an other question :-)). Also, in my personal experience, they are more of a "don't talk about the negative aspects" than an outright lie type (for example omitting the fact that the super-duper vacuum cleaner makes such an infernal noise that you can't use it).

In the end, people need to learn to keep their expectations in check. If it is too good to be true, it probably isn't. Technology and legislation can only do so much...