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Spam

Spam Is 30 Years Old 148

Posted by kdawson from the happy-birthday-now-die-already dept.
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist commemorates spam's 30th anniversary, a week from today. The first spam message — archived here — was sent to 393 users of ARPANET on May 2, 1978 by someone from computing pioneers DEC. They had to type in all the addresses by hand first."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Spam Is 30 Years Old More

Spam Is 30 Years Old

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  • One Thing That's Changed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohn@gm a i l . com> on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:33AM (#23199250) Journal

    As you see below, the mail program would only accept 320 addresses. The rest overflowed into the body of the message. When they found some recipients had not gotten it, they re-sent the message to the rest of the recipients. According to Thuerk, they were unaware of the "address file" function in the mail program that would have enabled a mailing list.
    Unfortunately, one thing that's changed is that spammers have become far more sophisticated and clever. Sometimes I analyze a piece of spam that gets caught and when it's at my office's Exchange Inbox, funny things happen. Like I show up as the sender, receiver and subject of the message! Only when I inspect the e-mail do I find that they are using some sort of Exchange exploit to make it appear this way while the actual subject is--you guessed it--viagra (and no, my name is not Viagra)!

    In the spirit of the history of Spam, I think it also bears mentioning something I didn't see in the article: a Usenet phrase "Eternal September [wikipedia.org]" which was September of 1993. An exponential growth of spam and gullible users ensured constant income for spammers and provided the initial hit of income for people like The Spam King (I won't even dignify him with printing his name). They've been chasing the dragon ever since at the expense of the hardware and software of the internet. And to think that if the spammers had missed that initial exposure of thousands of people willing to "increase what she prefers your size XXL no one will know you use works 100%" then we might not be in the situation we are today.

    Judges today should force spammers to work with law enforcement and security companies to figure out how to stop others before they even start. If not for an initial hit of funding, I doubt any spammer would continue.

    • Re:One Thing That's Changed (Score:4, Informative)

      by Gotung ( 571984 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @12:58PM (#23200410)
      The "reply-to:" field is used by most email clients as the "Sender". You can fill out the reply-to with anything you want. No exploits needed.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by cjb658 ( 1235986 )
        telnet your-smtp-server 25
        MAIL FROM: you@yourisp.com
        RCPT TO: you@yourisp.com
        DATA
        Buy V1AGRA!
        .
      • I don't think I've ever seen one that does that, and it shouldn't. However it's just as trivial to change the "From:" field. There's no provision in the SMTP protocol to validate this, or anything else for that matter.
    • I realized spam was overkill when I received a letter (real, dead tree letter) from some USA company wanting to sell me penis enlargement products at my home address... ... in a forsaken city in Mexico. Really, how much did it cost for them to send me such letters?

  • Stallman --- (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mingot ( 665080 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:36AM (#23199282)
    Heh, nice pro spam message by RMS there.
    • He knee-jerked for free speech (hard to believe, I know, coming from RMS), but he followed up with:

      Well, Geoff forwarded me a copy of the DEC message, and I eat my words. I sure would have minded it! Nobody should be allowed to send a message with a header that long, no matter what it is about.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by eln ( 21727 )
        Yes, but he still has the same issue with it that countless Usenet posters have had about spam for years: stop making me page through 10 pages of headers just to read your garbage.

        It's interesting to note that he was in favor of advertising (dating sites especially!) so long as he didn't have to page through a bunch of headers to read the ad.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by gowen ( 141411 )
      I prefer the bit where he tries to get himself subscribed into the first internet dating service. MMMMMM classy.

    • Re:Stallman --- (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jherek Carnelian ( 831679 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @02:34PM (#23201780)

      Heh, nice pro spam message by RMS there.
      Of course the context was a little bit different in 1978 than it was more than a decade later when the Green Card Lawyers really kicked off the phenomenon.

      Kind of the like a neighborhood where just about everybody knows everybody and thus everyone is accountable for any antisocial behaviour on their part.

    • If you scrolled down like *one message* in that archive, you'd see that he took it back after he saw the message:

      Well, Geoff forwarded me a copy of the DEC message, and I eat my words. I sure would have minded it! Nobody should be allowed to send a message with a header that long, no matter what it is about. Forward this if you feel like it.

      Thus, he wasn't defending the spam, since having not seen the context, he didn't see in the way it was spammy. Once he saw the actual spamminess of the message, he

  • And in 30 years... (Score:5, Funny)

    by kevman42 ( 681617 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:40AM (#23199332)
    This is the first time I've purposely clicked a link to view spam.
    • They should have redesigned email back then to be more secure..! Instead of just reprimanding the perpitrator. Imagine all the time, bandwidth, electrical power and computing power that has been wasted (well, not really the computing power part, it's not like the plebs who own the zombies would do anything useful with them anyways..) from spam mail and viruses.. *sniff*

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by SuiteSisterMary ( 123932 )

        Sounds like the plot for a decent little time travel story. Guy travels thirty years back, and writes an innocuous reply to an advertisement for a DEC server. "Hey, everybody, it suddenly occurs to me that there are absolutely NO mechanisms in SMTP to authenticate sender, recipient, blah blah blah. Sure, it's not a problem now, but hey, who knows where this ARPANET thing's going to go...."

    • Re:And in 30 years... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ducatier ( 669395 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @12:02PM (#23199656)
      "on 2 may 78 digital equipment corporation (dec) sent out an arpanet message advertising their new computer systems. this was a flagrant violation of the use of arpanet as the network is to be used for official u.s. government business only. appropriate action is being taken to preclude its occurrence again."

      whew, glad they took action, such mis-uses could have gotten out of hand.

  • Wasted chance (Score:5, Funny)

    by ccguy ( 1116865 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:40AM (#23199336) Homepage

    A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW
    Apparently the original recipients(tm) had a chance to meet the very first spammer and have physical access to him and his product and wasted the chance.
    • They should have gone and shouted a conversation with him until he promised to stop using all caps.

      • They should have cut off his head and stuck it on a pike as a warning to the next 10 generations that some email come with too high a price. We could all look up into his lifeless eyes and wave.. like this..."

    • Re:Wasted chance (Score:4, Interesting)

      by eln ( 21727 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:58AM (#23199608)
      Oh come on, the only people on the ARPAnet back in 1978 were the nerdiest of the nerds. What were they going to do, throw their pocket protectors at the guy?

      For reference, the people complaining about the spam on that page are her [stanford.edu], him [panda.com], and also this guy [fsfeurope.org]

      I'm sure the DEC guy was quaking in his boots.

  • The more things change, the more they stay the sam (Score:3, Insightful)

    by $RANDOMLUSER ( 804576 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:40AM (#23199340)
    I love the fact that the message starts with a buffer overflow.

  • Fail! (Score:5, Funny)

    by aliquis ( 678370 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:40AM (#23199342)
    "APPROPRIATE ACTION IS BEING TAKEN TO PRECLUDE ITS OCCURRENCE AGAIN."

    So, uhm, they failed?

    ok i won't write in caps but it's a quote damnit.
    ok i won't write in caps but it's a quote damnit.
    ok i won't write in caps but it's a quote damnit.
    ok i won't write in caps but it's a quote damnit.
    ok i won't write in caps but it's a quote damnit.

    • Re:Fail! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jheath314 ( 916607 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @02:05PM (#23201408)
      Some other choice quotes from the discussion prompted by that first spam:

      THIS WAS A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE USE OF ARPANET AS THE NETWORK IS TO BE USED FOR OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ONLY. APPROPRIATE ACTION IS BEING TAKEN TO PRECLUDE ITS OCCURRENCE AGAIN.
      Great! Now we'll never have to worry about this issue ever again.

      There are many companies in the U.S. and abroad that would like to have access to the Arpanet. Naturally all of them cannot have this access.
      Naturally... there are still areas of the Sahara without internet access, right? Right?

      I shudder to think about it, but I can envision junk mail being sent to people who implement Dialnet, and no way it could be prevented or stopped. I guess the ultimate solution is the command in your mail reading subsystem which deletes an unwanted message.
      Hey, it works for Strong Bad.

      And now, for the win:

      The amount of harm done by any of the cited "unfair" things the net has been used for is clearly very small. ... By the suggested reasoning, we should always follow the political views that we don't believe in, and especially those of terrorists, in anticipation of their attempts to impose them on us.
      Good to see that spam had its defenders back in the day. Does bringing up terrorism count as a Godwin nowadays?

  • That was vaguely disappointing... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bluemonq ( 812827 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:41AM (#23199344)
    I half-expected to see a message more along the lines of, "Xp4nd y0ur R4m, d3creeese ur l4tency".
    • Sorry dude, I for one want to increase my latency!

      Interesting business plan, though. I don't think that niche has ever been exploited before. Do you want some venture capital?
  • Thanks for making people focus less on sending me physical junk mail. The development of a spam filter which automatically rubs it in feces and sends it back to the originator wasn't going so well. The robots were the hard part. Stupid robots.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by aliquis ( 678370 )
      Actually I do have a note on my door saying I don't want any advertisement, which work for most stuff.

      But it seems like the pizza and kebab restaurant owners kids can't read, or those notes are only valid for the regular mail, in any case I get their ads anyway.

      So I've typed "no ads and no kebab flyers either" but I still get them.

      Each time I get them I actually think for myself: I should drag it in poo and go back and return it telling them that if they are going to give me that shit I'll return mine.

      But s

  • It's a shame (Score:4, Funny)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:41AM (#23199354) Journal
    that we can't get today's spammers to manually type in every address too. That might cut down on spam a bit.

  • usenet spam - greencard lawyers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:42AM (#23199366)
    It was sometime in the early 1990s when some lawyers posted a message to every usenet newsgroup advertising a greencard service. I dont think they did it by hand, but automated script.

    Usenet hasnt fared too well lately. Soem Chinese guy piosts tens of thousands of messages a day trying to sell direct factory output. Changes the posting address in every messsage so normal filters have problems.

    I think the younger crowd has long moved over to special interest groups on social netowrking sites.

  • Mr. Watson, come here, I want to sell you a DEC (Score:3, Funny)

    by CopaceticOpus ( 965603 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:43AM (#23199388)
    This is spam's "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." It's so special, it brings a tear to my eye.

    They forgot to include a remove link though. WTF?
  • And RMS is STILL a whinging windbag.... Some things never change!

  • RMS: If we outlaw spam the terrorists have won! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Brownstar ( 139242 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:46AM (#23199452)
    RMS truly is a visionary.

    • Re:RMS: If we outlaw spam the terrorists have won! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @01:05PM (#23200516) Homepage

      3) It has just been suggested that we impose someone's standards on us because otherwise he MIGHT do so. Well, if you feel that those standards are right and necessary, go right ahead and support them. But if you disagree with them, as I do, why hand your opponents the victory on a silver platter? By the suggested reasoning, we should always follow the political views that we don't believe in, and especially those of terrorists, in anticipation of their attempts to impose them on us. If those who think that the job offers are bad are going to try to prevent them, then those of us who think they are unrepugnant should uphold our views. Besides, I doubt that anyone can successfully force a site from outside to impose censorship, if the people there don't fundamentally agree with the desirability of it.


      This was written in 1978.

      For some reason, I really can't get that to settle in, and as much as I hate to call RMS a "visionary", that comment might as well have been written last week...

      The fact that RMS and his supporters "won" this side of the debate may very well have played a significant role in shaping the events of the past 15 years.

  • Look who's 70 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:49AM (#23199508)
    For those wondering, the original spam (nee Hormel spiced ham) turned 70 last year.

  • I love this bit... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:50AM (#23199518) Homepage Journal

    ON 2 MAY 78 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION (DEC) SENT OUT AN ARPANET MESSAGE ADVERTISING THEIR NEW COMPUTER SYSTEMS. THIS WAS A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE USE OF ARPANET AS THE NETWORK IS TO BE USED FOR OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ONLY. APPROPRIATE ACTION IS BEING TAKEN TO PRECLUDE ITS OCCURRENCE AGAIN.

    IN ENFORCEMENT OF THIS POLICY DCA IS DEPENDENT ON THE ARPANET SPONSORS, AND HOST AND TIP LIAISONS. IT IS IMPERATIVE YOU INFORM YOUR USERS AND CONTRACTORS WHO ARE PROVIDED ARPANET ACCESS THE MEANING OF THIS POLICY.

    THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

    MAJOR RAYMOND CZAHOR

    CHIEF, ARPANET MANAGEMENT BRANCH, DCA
    Did Major Czahor have a 6-bit terminal, or was he just indulging in the traditional military fondness for capital letters? But what's really funny is that he doesn't care about the spamming as such, he just wants to remind everybody that the network was for "U.S. Government Business Only". Which is laughable, since unofficial use of ARPANET was rampant, especially in 1978. That's how Zork [wikipedia.org] got developed, with its authors writing it in pieces and using feedback from the ARPANET community to improve the game. There was also an excellent database of limericks; a friend with ARPANET access was good enough to print it out for me, but I've long since lost it. Anybody seen it online? For that matter, is there a PDP-10 emulator somewhere running the original Zork? Not the Fortran port (which never had the complete game) the original MDL version.

    • It's entirely possible that he really did have only a 6 bit character set. It was 1978, after all.

      ...laura

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )
        Actually, by 1978 6-bit terminals were pretty rare, at least in the computer labs I frequented. There were no longer any significant 6-bit networks, so the only reason to have a six-bit terminal was if your terminal was a electromechanical teleprinter, because mechanisms that could print the entire 7-bit ASCII character set were more expensive than those that couldn't. And by 1978, electronic terminals were beginning to replace teleprinters. This was the period in which Bill Joy used an ADM3a [franken.de] to write vi [wikipedia.org]
    • Teach me how to get around lame lameness filter complaining about "YELLING".

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )
        A certain percentage of your message has to be mixed case. I think it's about 50%.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aliquis ( 678370 )
        Yeah, Slashdot have a human moderation system and somehow the developer(s) of the forum think that they can do a better job in code when humans do to decide what is right or wrong? I hate all kind of filters on what I type, stuff like warning/banning on "bad words" and similair aswell.

        I showed how I feelt at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=534516&cid=23199342 [slashdot.org] ;D

        Yeah, that kind of manner are way better than occasional caps! Or not.
    • Guess you never used VMS apparently...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )

        Guess you never used VMS apparently...

        Well, no, I haven't. But you made me curious, so I went and looked it up. VMS, like many OSs from that period, assumed that the user might not have access to lower case, and ignored case in things like the command line and file names. But that's also true of DOS/Windows command line and file systems.

        It's true that the docs gave commands in all caps, but that's just a doc convention — one still followed by Windows documentation. Open a command line window and type "help".

        And of course none of this pre

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by BluBrick ( 1924 )

          Well, no, I haven't. But you made me curious, so I went and looked it up. VMS, like many OSs from that period, assumed that the user might not have access to lower case, and ignored case in things like the command line and file names. But that's also true of DOS/Windows command line and file systems.

          As recently as SunOS 4.2, if capslock was on during login, getty and login assumed no access to lower case. The resulting session would be case-insensitive, and presented in uppercase. ISTR though, that real uppercase was indicated by a preceding backslash.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by fm6 ( 162816 )
            I had completely forgotten about that "feature" (which was common to all Unixes at one time) but you're correct. I guess they had a lot of cheap 6-bit terminals at Bell Labs in 1969.

            In the late 70s, I was working in a university computer lab supporting Unix. Every couple of days, I'd have to explain to somebody why their input was all caps.

            Strange that Sun took so long to disable this feature. Even their workstations were as far away from 6-bit teleprinters as you can get.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hughk ( 248126 )
        The VAX was announced around that year. Other than the DEC-10 and 20, Digital had a number of smaller systems based around the PDP-11. The principle user devices had lower case capability, but unlike Unix most systems were case blind for input commands. This helped a lot for people using ASR-33 teletype machines.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sootman ( 158191 )

      THIS WAS A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE USE OF ARPANET AS THE NETWORK IS TO BE USED FOR OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ONLY. APPROPRIATE ACTION IS BEING TAKEN TO PRECLUDE ITS OCCURRENCE AGAIN.

      Dear Sir,

      Your post advocates a

      ( ) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

      approach to fighting spam...

      OK, now to get around the lameness filter, I need to post some non-caps. Old joke:
      User: How do I view this email attachment?
      Sysadmin: You uudecode it.
      User: I I I decode it?

    • was he just indulging in the traditional military fondness for capital letters?

      The closest thing to programmers and detail-obsessed, white collar tech software workers before computers came along were draftsmen (your heritage) and we used to write in all caps because *everything* we carefully inked-out on treated, bleached mammoth skin was important. I don't mean to boast, but I did one of the first revisions on the drawings for the original trebuchet. Mariano was quite pissed when I erased flaming turds

  • Poor poor lonely RMS... (Score:5, Informative)

    by arkham6 ( 24514 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:59AM (#23199612)
    It looks like RMS was looking for love back then too!

    10-MAY-78 23:20:30-PDT,2250;000000000001
    Mail-from: MIT-AI rcvd at 7-MAY-78 2316-PDT
    Date: 8 MAY 1978 0213-EDT
    From: RMS at MIT-AI (Richard M. Stallman)
    Subject: MSGGROUP# 697 Some Thoughts about advertising
    To: stefferud at USC-ISI
    Redistributed-To: [ISI]<MsgGroup>Mailing.List;154:
    Redistributed-By: STEFFERUD (connected to MSGGROUP)
    Redistributed-Date: 8 MAY 1978

    ---EDIT--

    4) Would a dating service for people on the net be "frowned upon" by DCA? I hope not. But even if it is, don't let that stop you from notifying me via net mail if you start one.

  • SPAM! (Score:5, Funny)

    by prxp ( 1023979 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @11:59AM (#23199616)
    Well... I tried to make a joke here, repeating the word SPAM a lot, but I got cought by slashdot's SPAM filter:

    Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition.
    But I didn't dive up! Thus, I have figured out a way to beat the system, here it goes:

    while echo "SPAM!"; do echo "SPAM!"; done

    So for much for a SPAM filter, slashdot!
  • Ahhh yes, the "DECSYSTEM-2020". Brings back fond memories...

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 )
      I wonder what one of those babies goes for nowadays. It might be a neat addition to my collection...

      ...wait, a 30-year-old spam just WORKED on me. Fucksocks!

  • Named after a Python script (Score:3, Funny)

    by sm62704 ( 957197 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @12:08PM (#23199698) Journal
    Man: You sit here, dear.
    Wife: All right.
    Man: Morning!
    Waitress: Morning!
    Man: Well, what've you got?
    Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam;
    Vikings: Spam spam spam spam...
    Waitress: ...spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam...
    Vikings: Spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam!
    Waitress: ...or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.
    Wife: Have you got anything without spam?
    Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    Wife: I don't want ANY spam!
    Man: Why can't she have egg bacon spam and sausage?
    Wife: THAT'S got spam in it!
    Man: Hasn't got as much spam in it as spam egg sausage and spam, has it?
    Vikings: Spam spam spam spam... (Crescendo through next few lines...)
    Wife: Could you do the egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam then?
    Waitress: Urgghh!
    Wife: What do you mean 'Urgghh'? I don't like spam!
    Vikings: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
    Waitress: Shut up!
    Vikings: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
    Waitress: Shut up! (Vikings stop) Bloody Vikings! You can't have egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam.
    Wife: I don't like spam!
    Man: Sshh, dear, don't cause a fuss. I'll have your spam. I love it. I'm having spam spam spam spam spam spam spam beaked beans spam spam spam and spam!
    Vikings: Spam spam spam spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
    Waitress: Shut up!! Baked beans are off.
    Man: Well could I have her spam instead of the baked beans then?
    Waitress: You mean spam spam spam spam spam spam... (but it is too late and the Vikings drown her words)
    Vikings: (Singing elaborately...) Spam spam spam spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spam! Spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam. Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Spam spam spam spam!
  • .. when spam was fought against by military.

    ON 2 MAY 78 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION (DEC) SENT OUT AN ARPANET MESSAGE ADVERTISING THEIR NEW COMPUTER SYSTEMS. THIS WAS A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE USE OF ARPANET AS THE NETWORK IS TO BE USED FOR OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ONLY. APPROPRIATE ACTION IS BEING TAKEN TO PRECLUDE ITS OCCURRENCE AGAIN.

    IN ENFORCEMENT OF THIS POLICY DCA IS DEPENDENT ON THE ARPANET SPONSORS, AND HOST AND TIP LIAISONS. IT IS IMPERATIVE YOU INFORM YOUR USERS AND CONTRACTORS WHO AR

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by bennomatic ( 691188 )

      .. when spam was fought against by military.

      At least Jimmy Carter didn't have the audacity to make a speech about the war on spam while standing in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner after this bold email was sent.
  • Nov 23, 1987 - 1st documented use of the word "spam" to describe unwanted electronic correspondence.

    See http://tinyurl.com/4jg5w4 [tinyurl.com] (the url is a tinyurl that links to a google groups posting)

    And yes, I'm the one who said that back then, and no, I didn't think I was doing anything big, it just seemed, well, obvious at the time.

    Paul Czarnecki Cezanne

    • ok, here's the full link ahref=http://groups.google.com/group/news.admin/msg/483c12f48d13225e?output=gplrel=url2html-26238 [slashdot.org]http://groups.google.com/group/news.admin/msg/483c12f48d13225e?output=gpl>

  • Not much has changed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Noexit ( 107629 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @12:24PM (#23199910) Homepage
    30 years later one crap message to a list can still generate dozens of messages bitching about the extra traffic and waste of resources.
  • Lowercase letters that we now take for granted.

  • Al Gore? (Score:4, Funny)

    by funk1337 ( 730068 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @12:48PM (#23200242)
    How come Al Gore isn't on this list? Interesting...
  • If the first message were sent out on April 25, 1978, then it would be the birthday now. This story is posted a week early.
    In this form, the story I'm responding to is just advertising the upcoming birthday of spam - thus it is meta-spam.

  • A conversation with my children (Score:4, Funny)

    by FuzzyDaddy ( 584528 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @12:55PM (#23200352) Journal
    Q: Daddy, how old are you?

    A: Older than spam, kiddo.

    Q: ooooooooh

  • It's kind of neat to read TFA - they mentioned many things which ARPAnet wasn't intended for but would eventually become profit centers on the internet: dating services, job finding services, advertising, and general announcements (births in this instance). In this one discussion of what the network should and shouldn't be for they called out some of the major industries to come.

  • Spam Is 30 Years Old (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tarlus ( 1000874 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @01:27PM (#23200866)
    I believe the meat product sold in cans often is, too.
  • "Appropriate action is being taken to preclude its occurrence again"

    If only!

  • From: RMS at MIT-AI (Richard M. Stallman)

    If I had a job to offer, I would offer it to my friends first. Is this "evil"?

    Interesting how someone who is so strongly against giving access to source code only to specific, trusted people has no problem with giving access to employment only to specific, trusted people.

    Rob

  • spam, not Spam (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DynaSoar ( 714234 ) on Friday April 25, 2008 @04:36PM (#23203148) Journal
    TFA is about the first unsolicited commercial email. That became the definition of email that came to be called "spam" well after the first reference to the Monty Python sketch, which was brought up to describe massively multiple posts of advertising to usenet. It says at http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamterm.html [templetons.com] that Joel Furr was first to call it spam, but I seem to remember someone else stating that it reminded them of "a Monty Python sketch -- spam, spam, spam, spam."

    BTW, the Hormel people never had a problem with the use of the term. In part because it was free PR, but also because they were gracious good humored about it. They went as far as to offer their own selected graphic of a spam can that could be used as a link to their pages. The idea as floated to them was to have their permission to produce a 2-link bar that said "This is Spam" [Hormel link] "and this is spam" [link to page with definition of problematic usenet and email traffic]. I can confidently state their being gracious and good natured because I was the one that suggested the links idea to them, requested the graphic of their choice, and talked with them about their reactions to use of the term. In this respect, the second of the "Cultural References" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(Monty_Python) [wikipedia.org] is incorrect, though the History section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic) [wikipedia.org] gets it right.

    They later reacted a little differently when people insisted on using the capitalized name in their own software and anti-spam sites (such as Spam Arrest) and couldn't see their way clear to use the more generic, lower case term. People criticized them for doing so without bothering to consider that they were forced by trademark law to protect their mark (the capitalized word) no matter how much they disliked doing so, lest they lose trademark status. Sadly, few seem to remember that Hormel asked nicely at first that the lower case be used unless referring to their product. The assertion by Spam Arrest that "No company can claim trademark rights on a generic term" is wrong: a term when trademarked before it comes into common use (trademark status being awarded 40 years prior to this "common use") remains a trademark as long as the owner acts to (at least attempt to) prevent its use as a generic term. Such action kept "xerox" and "kleenex" from becoming an accepted generic terms for photocopying and facial tissue, while failure to do so allowed "aspirin" and "heroin" to become generic terms despite starting as brand names, both originally owned by Bayer AG. As a German company it was unable to protect the marks against generic use in the US, particularly during WW II. Although Hormel lost the court cases that resulted, they acted with a "reasonable attempt" to protect the ownership of the mark, and so didn't lose it.

    BTW, TFA is not a novel article. CNET published one on its 25th anniversary in 2003. In that respect, TFA is repeated public posting of commercial (or at least commercially supported) information. TFA fits the original definition of spam. In any case, New Scientist loses points for copying the idea for the article.
  • Everyone knows that Bill gates "solved" spam years ago...

    http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/256579_software23.asp [nwsource.com]
  • ...is being taked to preclude its occurrence again.

    whew. I'm glad they nipped that in the bud.

  • I'm happy to say I've never clicked on the stuff, but one particular message will always have a special place. The subject was for "antitank viagra" I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but I felt maybe the military should be researching it.

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