Two minutes per spam Email?
What the heck does he do, listen to them phonetically?
This is a situation where the journalist is making the story bigger than
the problem.
I find it very easy to flag Spam and can detect it under oh 5 seconds.
As for email readers launching attachments automatically, you can turn
that off.  However, if you are so inclined to open unknown attachments,
you shouldn't be using email on your computer.  Take my dad for example.

He's sighted, but will always click on attachments regardless if it says
"viagra" or "check me out, i'm naked".  Some people just don't pay
attention.
Okay, I'm done with my rant.
martin


-----Original Message-----
From: VICUG-L: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kelly Pierce
Sent: June 12, 2003 7:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: E-mail spam dulls PC tool used by blind


Here's an article with a level of insight that is rarely found in the
mainstream press.

Kelly

    E-mail spam dulls PC tool used by blind

The Oregonian
    05/28/03

by JEFFREY KOSSEFF


    Clinton Lindgren laughs off the e-mail admonitions he receives to
buy CHEAPER CAR INSURANCE.

    The 36-year-old Portlander doesn't drive.

    He's blind.

    But he and other blind people are not laughing about the onslaught
of e-mail advertising, or spam, impeding their use of Internet
communications.

    "It's really bad. I get tons and tons of it at home," said Lindgren,
a business employment specialist with the Oregon Employment Department.
He receives about 25 spam messages a day, and it takes him about 10
minutes to sort through the mess.

    Many blind people use screen-reader software that reads aloud the
text of e-mail messages -- a communications breakthrough for them. While
increasingly prevalent junk e-mail annoys most e-mail users, it's a
bigger problem for many of the nation's 1.1 million blind people, who
must listen to the ads before deciding whether to delete them.

    In the next week, the Oregon Senate Business and Labor Committee
plans to stage a hearing on an antispam bill that passed the House this
month. Advocates for the blind said they welcome action on the problem,
but they wonder whether the bill would accomplish much.

    The Legislature's proposal, House Bill 2737, doesn't specifically
address blind e-mail users, but it would require spammers to flag their
e-mail for spam filters, and it would prohibit them from using deceptive
subject lines.

    Such provisions would ease e-mail browsing, but only if they are
enforceable, said Frank Synoground, the Oregon Commission for the
Blind's assistant director of rehabilitation services. Synoground said
he doubts they are.

    "These people who create the spam can send them in such a fashion
that they are beyond arm's reach of law enforcement," said Synoground,
who is blind.

    In the past decade, screen-reader technology, combined with the
Internet, has revolutionized communications for many blind people,
enabling them to communicate quickly without having to rely on others to
read correspondence for them.

    The spread of spam has threatened to reverse some of the progress.
Spam forces blind people to be more defensive in the way they approach
their computer setups and to take more time checking their e-mail.

    "Because we have to wade through everything, we can't just quickly
glance through it," said Winslow Parker, who trains blind people such as
him to use computers for the Oregon commission.

    "Hi, how are you?" One student, Parker said, almost gave up using
e-mail because spam was overwhelming her.

    Parker has managed to limit the amount of spam he receives by using
spam-filtering software and distributing his e-mail address as little as
possible.

    Screen readers read the name of the sender and subject, then give
users the option of opening or deleting the message.

    It's easy for Synoground, who receives about 20 spam messages a day,
to catch spam with subject lines that contain words such as "Viagra" and
"insurance." More difficult to flag are messages with deceiving subject
lines, such as "Hi, how are you?" Some spammers include no subject line.

    "If they're clever, then I do have to go in and open them up,"
Synoground said.

    Reading spam may not be laborious for people who can see it, but
those who can't must listen to their screen readers attempt to pronounce
the jumbled advertising. Opening some spam launches attachments, further
bogging down screen readers.

    Synoground said it takes up to two minutes for him to delete each
spam message he opens, and he resents the speed bumps in his
communications.

    Before he used a screen reader, an assistant spent about five hours
a week reading correspondence to him. E-mail has cut that to less than
an hour, but spam has eroded the time savings, he said.

    "It's such a helpful tool for a blind person," Synoground said.
"It's a blessing and it's a challenge at the same time."

    On high alert Spam is especially frustrating for screen-reader
novices, said Curtis Chong, president of the National Federation of the
Blind in Computer Science. Experienced users can set their readers to
fast speeds -- as many as 500 words a minute -- and quickly delete spam.

    "Anything that makes it more complicated is going to create a
problem," said Chong, who is blind.

    Once blind people master the software, Chong said, spam is not much
more vexing to them than to sighted people. Blind people simply have to
be on higher alert, he said.

    "A perfect stranger wanting to write to me better be real careful
how they word their subject line," Chong said. "My index finger is
poised on that delete key."

    Like many others, some blind people are fighting to reclaim
unfettered e-mail usage.

    Kelly Ford, an information technology consultant in the Seattle area
who is blind, said his Internet service provider, EarthLink, provides
spam filtering. But still, about 10 percent of his e-mail is spam.

    To cover the gap, he installed his own filters to flag potential
spam, placing the messages in a garbage folder but not deleting them.
About one in 100 of the flagged e-mail messages is legitimate, said
Ford, who had taught at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham before
moving north.

    "You just have to pay attention," Ford said.

    Blind people should turn off the function in their e-mail programs
that automatically display HTML, the code used to create Web pages, said
Joe Clark, a Toronto-based consultant who specializes in making media
more accessible for disabled people. HTML-based e-mail messages often
are more time-consuming for screen readers.

    "It's true, things are slower and more complicated for the blind
person," Clark said. "But they need to take control of their destiny."

    Jeffrey Kosseff: 503-294-7605; [log in to unmask]

    Copyright 2003 Oregon Live. All Rights Reserved.


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