In the absolute, yes, I would have considered taking the job. I have mortgage payments to meet on my home, and my children to feed. If there was nothing else going (becasuse driving a taxi just wouldn't make ends meet) then yes, I would take the job.

That said, I'd lie about it afterwards on my résumé. I'd probably say I worked for a multimedia agency or something like that.

Putting it in a different context, if the choice was between a porn operation and a spamhaus, I'd take the porn operation any day.

I once watched a TV interview of a French porn star, Estelle Desanges. She entered the business knowing full well what the realities were. She enjoys the work and gets to decide what she does and what she chooses not to do.

There's porn and there's porn. Photographs of nude women can be very erotic and the body-as-sculpture school of thought leads to some very stunning images. Then there's porn where the women are obviously unhappy junkies and they're only doing it to earn enough money to pay for herion or whatever. That's just ugly, ugly, ugly (not the women, the situation). If I was forced to work for a porn operation, I would hope it was the former type. If it was the latter, I'd get out of there fast, try and negotiate with my bank about the mortgage.

But there's no good spam. I think spammers hold a far greater responsability for the rise of malware and trojans. They are the main reason that at work I now firewall off all residential IP blocks that I learn of on my mail server. Spammers are ruining the Internet, I don't think the pornographers are.

In any event, touch wood, I sincerely wish I never have to make the choice.