Slashdot Mirror
Brad Templeton On Spam's Silver Anniversary
Brad Templeton writes "This Saturday marks the 25th anniversary of the first spam I was able to find, and one month ago was the 10th anniversary of the first time a USENET posting was called a spam and the birth of the term (at least beyond mudds)." Templeton was also cited in the American Scientist article featured last Sunday.
Actually, Spam, has been around for over 100 years...just check the spam museum!
Hormel was started in 1891...way more than 25 years...in fact, last year the 6 billionth can of spam was made!
The anti-salmon
Cantor and Siegel, I believe, back in 1994 was the first USENET spam... meaning 9 years ago. or am I mistaken, and there was an even earlier example?
Not so much a dup as a mis-timing. I had been preparing an article about the 25th anniversary for my site and slashdot for a while as we came up to the date. The article was ready and somebody else wrote an article with some of that history, based in part on mine, which was already on the web, and it was put up not knowing my article was getting ready for release. However, there is enough new stuff in my history to have justified putting 'em both up.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Somehow, somewhere along the way, the term was applied to unsolicited commercial email, and the original meaning was more or less forgotten. Besides, the practice of flooding peoples' inboxes doesn't really happen that way very much anymore.
I can see the fnords!
The parents of the original Usenet spam, a lawfirm promoting a "green card lottery" (and I thougt those were a new invention), wrote in their book about online advertising:
"From that day forward, the Internet never stopped discussing us... After lengthy deliberation, it was decided to call the practice 'spamming' in honor of a well-known skit by Monty Python's Flying Circus, the famous British comedy group. We were unfamiliar with the skit, but apparently it involved throwing lunch meat at a wall."
Humourless lawyers.. they'll be the first against the wall when we take the us.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
First, nothing begins if not opening
Heroin (tm)
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Worth a read imho.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
Tha American Scientist article claims that the event that first popularized the term "spam" was the simultaneous posting by the Phoenix law firm of Canter & Siegel to 6,000 Usenet news groups of a message with the subject heading "Green Card Lottery - Final One?" (in April 1994). But Brad Templeton has a VERY different story if he is saying here that spam will be 25 years old next Saturday - not nine. ("The earliest documented junk e-mailing I've uncovered was sent May 3, 1978 -- 25 years ago this Saturday.") This thread confirms, mind you, that the first time a USENET posting got *named* a "spam" happened on March 31, 1993 - so ten years ago last month is maybe right aFTER AL;L
The Green Card Lawyer spam was indeed was caused the term to really take off, but it was in use before their posting. People pay attention to Canter & Siegel (instead of giving them the footnote of obscurity they deserve) because they had such bravado about it. Other early massive posters, including jj@portal.com and the Jesus is coming poster had turned tail and run when they faced criticism. C&S met it head on, and that got people really angry.
And thus the term really grew. But theirs was not the first spam, not the first to be called a spam, not even the first big spam. It was the first for a new level of anger.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
I'm a unix geek like the rest of you.
The mudder's use is not recorded, of course, as far as I have found. Simply reports from mudders say that when people started flooding a mud with text, and later objects, somebody called it spamming. From the Monty Python, because the vikings keep repeating the word over and over and over again.
I have conflicting stories on the first use, but without logs we may never know.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
> You still haven't answered my question. What does verbosity or a full screen have to do with salty canned meat?
Nothing, except that Monty Python's Flying Circus did a skit where a modern, normal-looking guy goes into a restaurant full of 10th C. Viking customers and a lady (played by a guy in drag) behind the counter. He asks for something to eat, I forget what. He's told that he can get "Spam, eggs and spam, or spam, spam, and spam." After some discussion that goes nowhere, the Vikings break out into a chant of "Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam-ity spam!" They repeat this chant over and over until it drowns out everything else going on in the scene.
The idea is that screen flooding becomes like the Vikings chanting "Spam." Nothing else goes on because nobody else can get a word in edgewise over the racket.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
The ISP was indeed shut down, just from the load. This is not something to be proud of, the ISP was entirely innocent in all of this and suffered quite a bit. There was no reason for "them to get the message." They were the victims, not the perps. Especially then, before spam was common. Any ISP could have been victimized in this way. Later, a lot of sympathy came out for the ISP after people felt some guilt over what they had done to the ISP.
Sadly, we continue to blame the ISPs for the actions of their users when it comes to spam, but defend proudly their non-responsiblity when it comes to their users running filesharing tools, or putting up "offensive" websites etc.
The Jesus spam, and several of the earlier ones were also not crossposted. Check the links included in my history. I point to the original sources. What C&S did that was new was the sleaze of it, and the fact that while their ISP got wiped out (they just switched) they were unrecalcitrant, and even published their silly book.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation