Editorial: Ninety-Nine Percent Fat-Free

Abstract

Filtering spam is now a major industry, and most email in-boxes are in danger of collecting as much unloved and unwanted rubbish as valuable information. One estimate gives 60 billion spam messages sent around the world every day. The latest variation of so-called "image spam" which embeds an email message as a picture, making it difficult for spam filters to detect, is cunning indeed. Spam images are now being subtly altered by scattering small random dots around them, insufficient to alter the image to the human eye, but sufficient to change the file and send the devisers of spam filters back to the drawing board to seek for yet another solution. This highlights nicely the difference between data and information. The dots may be data, but they provide no information. Indeed they generate disinformation. Some modern advertising does rather much the same. What do such advertising slogans as "100 percent natural", or "ninety-nine percent fat-free" really mean? What information is conveyed by the term "natural"? What sort of fats make up the remaining one percent - high density lipids (good for you) or low density ones (bad for you)? What about "trans-fats"? And how much sugar is in the products, and what does this do for your health?