Last week, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman could be heard on National Public Radio talking about his new book “The World Is Flat.” As he spun his theories about social change, he noted that we have come to a time when small groups and even individuals can go global at virtually no expense.

Thanks to the Internet, one person can send opinions around the world in an instant, and this is destined to affect us all — for the better and for the worse. It gives new power to those who deserve to be heard, and equal power to those who have nothing worthwhile, or even something harmful and hateful, to say.

Even as the tape of Friedman’s speech played, our e-mail in-boxes were filling with messages written in German. The week also brought brief messages asking us to send money to an account number; we were assured that it would be used to help the children of “Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots.”

It’s hard to understand what the sender expected to get out of sending German-language messages to people in an English-speaking nation. And a plea for money wrapped up in a modest three or four lines made you think that the laziest people among us have drifted into e-mail scamming. But it’s so easy and cheap to send e-mails, they don’t have to worry about how many people will get the message and not understand, or get it and scoff. Somewhere out there, somebody will be hooked.

The average e-mail user faces a future in which anti-spam measures will assume the role long played by an unlisted phone number or an intimidating dog posted at the front door.

Chances are, we’ll never be able to filter out everything that deserves to have the door slammed in its face. The Internet is the most fantastic communication development in history, and it’s also the perfect forum for hoaxes and scams.

It’s been this way with every breakthrough in communications. The telephone not only brought us closer to others; it also punched a hole in our house for people who wanted to sell us things without coming to see us. Movies were almost immediately seen as a good venue for product placement and a terrific way to distribute pornography.

All we can do is be careful – and try to learn as much as we can from the IT experts.