Celebrating Spam's Ten-Year Anniversary

"First"? by tverbeek · 2004-03-05 05:44 · Score: 5, Informative

Come on... that Canter & Siegel green-card-lottery spam-scam wasn't the first spam by a long-shot... maybe the first spam to get written up the print media. Usenet was already littered with off-topic commercial posts and crossposted garbage by then, and unsolicited e-mailings (on a much smaller scale than today) were hardly unheard-of.

--
http://alternatives.rzero.com/

Re:"First"? by Rupert · 2004-03-05 05:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

I was pretty heavily into Usenet in 1995. C&S caused a huge increase in the number of posts in the groups I subscribed to. Mostly, those were people complaining about C&S, but it was a pretty significant event, even for netizens.

C&S huge innovation was that it *wasn't* cross-posted. They left a bot running all weekend to post identical messages to every newsgroup. That's why it was such a bitch to cancel them all.

--

--
E_NOSIG
Re:"First"? by no+longer+myself · 2004-03-05 05:52 · Score: 5, Interesting

Heck, I remember when it hit FIDO net during my old BBS days over 10 years ago. I distictly remember objecting to it back then, and was flamed for trying to limit "freedom of speech".
Re:"First"? by Radical+Rad · 2004-03-05 05:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

I never got unsolicited emails back then even (for quite a while) after Canter and Siegel. The commercial cross posts that you refer to were usually just to the few usenet groups that were somewhat relevant to the product or service. Canter and Siegel hit every single newsgroup!
Re:"First"? by Cowboy+Bebop · 2004-03-05 05:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

I have a much earlier spam. And I bet people here could reply with even earlier ones.
Re:"First"? by bugnuts · 2004-03-05 05:59 · Score: 5, Funny

It by no means was the first. Plenty of spams went out, but were on a small scale (like no more than 20 newsgroups).

Nor was it the first extreme newsgroup spamming. It missed that by a few weeks.

The very first, excruciatingly-painful, extreme Usenet spamming was the "The End of the World is Coming!" by some Jesus-freak. Someone generated cancels for it, and then sent out a message "The End of the World has been Cancelled."

C&S, however, were the first couple of dedicated spammers that proclaimed "we will spam, and be happy to sue anyone that disagrees!"
Re:"First"? by drooling-dog · 2004-03-05 06:28 · Score: 2, Informative

It seems so long ago... I remember very well back in the late 80s and early 90s when spam was virtually unheard of. There was very strong community pressure against any commercial/promotional use of the Internet. What's remarkable is that this was so effective for so long.
Re:"First"? by Lord+Apathy · 2004-03-05 06:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

I was very active in usenet when this shit hit. I was running a smail uucp node using Matt Dillons uucp software and was subscribing to 40 or 50 newsgroups on a Amiga 500. I remember seeing that shit in all the newsgroups that I had. Hell, back then I would get unsolicited email all the damn time, but the difference being it was always from somebody and usually worth my time to reply to.
Them was the good old days. Usenet was useful and email was the best communication tool there was. Even if you where piping it out over a 2400 bps modem in a forward and store method.
God damn Fuckers...I hope they die a horrable death and burn in hell forever.

--
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Re:"First"? by AppyPappy · 2004-03-05 06:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

You are CORRECT, sir.

Usenet was a haven for "GET RICH QUICK!!" and "ADD YOUR NAME" scams. Everyone was getting rich in those days. Some usenet groups were nothing but get rich schemes. I was always amazed that people would offer their address so willingly. But then, their cousin always knew someone who got rich doing it.

When the email spam started, people went haywire. But I don't think anyone ever imagined it would explode like today.

--
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
Re:"First"? by bugnuts · 2004-03-05 06:58 · Score: 2, Interesting

That's it... I couldn't remember the name. This is the first non-crossposted mass-spamming I remember.

The funniest MST3K fan-parody I ever saw was of that post. Here's the MST3k parody which also includes the end of the world article, too.
Re:"First"? by chickenwing · 2004-03-05 08:22 · Score: 4, Interesting

The idea of free speech is that people who you do not agree with have the right to express their views.

It is interesting that we have come to a time where corporations (legally equivilant to humans, but with out any of the responsibilities) have more free speech rights than people (remember, money is legally equivalent to speech, but without any of the responsibilies).

So, non-taxpaying legal person entities have the right to use their free speech to help elect our leaders.

Translation...

Corporations are allowed to use money to install a figurehead to help further disempower and enslave regular people.

Remember the great promise of the internet is that any regular person can put their silly ideas up for other regular people to read (like i'm doing now). Just wait until the free-marketers allow one company to own every switch between you and anyone else, then we will see.

I guess this seems a little off topic, but I guess what really bothers me is when corporate entities cry that their free speech is being impeded upon, especially when they use that power to silence real flesh and blood human-beings.

That's Who by mod_critical · 2004-03-05 05:45 · Score: 5, Funny

I'll tell you who buys this stuff:

I had an aquaintence who surfing the web while we were in the library one time and freaked out all of a sudden. She went up to ask the librarian if she wouldn't be able to get her "prize" she just "won" because she was in a library and the "web people" wouldn't know where to find her...

That is who buys this stuff.

Re:That's Who by Em+Emalb · 2004-03-05 05:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

Sounds like this was an opportunity for you to explain to her it was a scam and perhaps educate one more person....ah hell, who am I kidding?

Stupid twit prolly wonders how all those people "found her". Prolly likes to speak with telemarketers too.

Gah.

--
Sent from your iPad.
Re:That's Who by Spetiam · 2004-03-05 05:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

seriously, just out of curiosity, has anyone here actually bought something because of a spam ad or know somebody that did?

but here's the real question: why??
Re:That's Who by Scaba · 2004-03-05 05:59 · Score: 4, Funny

Mmmmm, if only my female acquaintances were so gullible......wait, I don't have any female acquaintances. I've wasted my life with this damn computer!!!
Re:That's Who by void+warranty() · 2004-03-05 06:02 · Score: 5, Funny

And because you didn't kill her, the rest of us continue to get spam. Thanks a lot!
Re:That's Who by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-05 06:08 · Score: 5, Funny

Yes, and my penis is now much larger than yours. Which makes me feel far superior than you and not a fool at all for purchasing from a spam message.
Re:That's Who by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-05 06:12 · Score: 3, Funny

True story:

Remember those annoying 'punch the monkey and win $20' ads?

I had an account exec, mid 30's college educated woman pulling down something in the $30-35k salary range call me (tech, natch) into her office *** specificaly to ask me where her $20 was ***.

Perhaps she's the mom of the dumb bitch you mention?
Re:That's Who by PYves · 2004-03-05 06:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

Obviously the people who buy stuff from unsollicited emails are the same people who answer DMA's surveys.

I'm not a stats major but I -was- a marketing major (I have since killed myself) and I very much doubt that DMA has a field of 1000 unbiased consumers in their survey, and a sample of 1000 to project 11 billion dollars of purchases? colour me sceptical.

I mean, "The Online Newspaper of Record for Online Marketers" sounds almost exactly like "spamdot: News for spammers" to me.

the survey is sketchy
the projections are sketchy
the source is sketchy.

my life remains unaltered.
Re:That's Who by JahToasted · 2004-03-05 07:01 · Score: 2, Funny

yep. I had some coworkers run up to me and ask me to come to their computer quick because they were giving away free vacations. They were only giving away a limited number and it was steadily counting down the number of free vacations left.
Even after I told them it was just a scam they didn't quite believe me. I showed the javascript in the source where it was obviously just a simple countdown timer. Still didn't really believe me.
A friend of mine told me his father was about to go to amsterdam to meet with some guy concerning some money trapped in Nigeria. Fortunately he talked to his lawyer and the lawyer and my friend eventually talked some sense into him. I dunno if he lost any money or not, as my friend was pretty embarassed about it and didn't really want to talk about it much.
Re:That's Who by martin-k · 2004-03-05 07:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

I receive several hundred spam messages _per day_ (thank you, Mr Bayes, to make that bearable), and have never been offered anything I would want to buy. I don't know, maybe spam would be less sucky if they ever offered anything worthwhile...
-Martin

--
SoftMaker Office for Windows|Linux|Android
Re:That's Who by ultranova · 2004-03-05 08:13 · Score: 2, Interesting

If they offered anything worthwile, they would be offering it in a shop or by some other legitimate means. If they offered anything anyone would actually want to buy (based on it's real merits, not the description spammers give), they wouldn't need to resort to spam.

After all, a legitimate insurance salesman won't break down your door and start telling you how everything is so fragile nowadays and how you really need an insurance to protect those fragile kneecaps of yours.

And yes, comparing spam and other kind of organized crime is appropriate. Spammers lead large organizations to circumvent various laws and live under a (very thin) veil of legitimacy. They make their money by selling dubious products; since some of these products are medicanes, I find it highly likely that at least some people have already died because of them (and AFAIK people have disappeared trying to get back money lost to Nigerian scams). Spammers also attack viciously against anyone who trys to stop them (remember the recent stories of DDOS attacs against anti-spam websites ?).

The only difference between the spammers and the Mafia is that no one attachs any amount of glamour to spammers.

--
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

Why can't... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-05 05:45 · Score: 5, Funny

Netcraft confirm that spam is dying?

$11.7 billion... by Walkiry · 2004-03-05 05:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

Ever heard the phrase "follow the money"? Yes? Well, that's what they should be doing with Spam.

--
---- Take the Space Quiz!

Re:$11.7 billion... by void+warranty() · 2004-03-05 05:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

You mean, like, follow the spam? I don't see the point, my problem is that spam follows me.

Is this some Soviet Russia thing?

kinda scary... by TR0GD0RtheBURNiNAT0R · 2004-03-05 05:47 · Score: 5, Funny

...that people actually buy the stuff in spam... What kind of idiot would--HEY! look! Cheap Viagra! woohoo!!! what luck!

--
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Re:kinda scary... by MCZapf · 2004-03-05 05:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

Lots of people, sadly. Pretend you are not so web-savvy. Now pretend you need viagra. You've been thinking about buying some, but are too ashamed to do so. Then a nice offer arrives in your email - with a "discounted" price! You can order it from the privacy of your own home. This might be enough to get you to buy.
Re:kinda scary... by dev11 · 2004-03-05 06:31 · Score: 3, Funny

OK, but if they can't even use proper grammar, or spell it properly (yeah I know "v1agra" or whatever are usually intentional mispellings to try to bypass simple spam filters), why would someone possibly trust them to sell something that is most likely fake, and probably illegal as well? A second grader writes better than most spam emails I get. Maybe that's the point. The written "quality" of the spam is probably indicative of the intelligence level of the average person responding to it. Want to sell to idiots? Write like one.
Re:kinda scary... by Mysticalfruit · 2004-03-05 07:00 · Score: 3, Funny

Funny Story...

One of my wife's friends (IQ=Bag of hammers) decided to buy birth control from some online pharmacy she saw in a piece of spam...

Needless to say, she's due in August. (Yes, this is the same pharmacy that got in trouble for selling birth control pills with no birth control in them...)

--
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Re:kinda scary... by wfbush · 2004-03-05 07:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

Paul Graham has the answer to this, in one of his articles about Bayesian filtering:

That's the whole problem: spammers waste the time of a million people just to reach the 15 stupidest or most perverted.

The people who are responding to spam are stupider than the ones that go for the "It's, like 3 bucks on a hundred! And they're open late!" check-cashing services.

Yah, I'm an insesitve clod.

10 years... by maztuhblastah · 2004-03-05 05:47 · Score: 5, Funny

...of making my mortage three to four inches larger while working at home for a Nigerian with financial problems who gets paid to take surverys online for a company that would like to pre-apporve me for a no-hassle Platinum card that I can use to pay for tuition at "a major university."

Ok, I'm done now...

--
The real litigious bastards...

*sigh*.... by tekiegreg · 2004-03-05 05:48 · Score: 5, Interesting

As long as Spam continues to be profitable (and apparently increasingly so), I fear we may never really see the end of it. Even if SMTP protocols are revised, even if Internet postage is applied to emails, as long as you're doing better revenues over your expenses, which in most cases you are, then there is no hope.

Tho I may sound resigned and defeated to e-mail's evenutal fate, there are alternates. Instant messaging is easier controlled (I never get any Spam, but then I don't allow people on my buddy list to IM me). IRC and other online chats are tough to pollute as well.

In short my prediction is in 10 years I will have completely ditched my email address and I will be giving friends my ICQ UIN/AOL Handle/Yahoo Handle in lieu of it.

Ok I'm through ranting, time for everyone else to.

--
...in bed

Re:*sigh*.... by extremesanity · 2004-03-05 06:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you want to choose every single person that has contact with you you can do that just as easily with email. Its called a whitelist, and whomever is not on it does not get through. Its been around forever.
Re:*sigh*.... by jfengel · 2004-03-05 06:14 · Score: 3, Insightful

I don't think it's as gloomy as all that. The techniques you apply to IM (keeping your "true name" secret except to people you trust) apply equally well to email.

The difference between email and IM is one of modes of communication, and they're both valuable modes. IM has immediacy; email has time-shifting. One does not entirely substitute for the other.

You're right that the spammers will not stop. They will shift to wherever the money is. If they find that they can no longer send email for free, then they will shift to IM, until that route is protected, too.

They're already starting to explore other domains. Spam comments have started showing up in people's web logs, and I'm sure there's a lot of it in Slashdot, too. We don't see much of it because it's mostly moderated down or rejected by the lameness filters, but when attention is turned to it, the war will escalate on that front.

The simplest solution, in all cases, is to accept only messages (whether IMs, slash postings, or emails) from known people. But email has a strong tradition of anonymity, and a valuable one. ACs in Slashdot can be anonymous informants inside a company. Or, far more likely, they're assholes. It's hard to tell without reading.

A friend of mine strongly believes that if it's worth saying, it's worth sticking your name on, and your neck out. She's never lived in China, or Afghanistan, so I can't say if she's right in the general case. But most of the time, she's right, and people afraid to communicate publicly are far more likely to be assholes than hidden geniuses.

Spammers can establish a short-term identity, but such identities can be, uh, identified. When receiving a message from, say, yahoo.com, ask the server how long this person has had the account, and whether its past behavior is spam-like. Does it receive emails? Does it reply to them?

Obviously it's not fully worked out, and even more importantly, it will take a long time for such things to filter through the entire Internet.

But I predict that in ten years, we'll have eliminated most forms of anonymity in email, and spam will be rejected at the server rather than filtered out. (I also predict that a lot of the burden of mass mail will be moved to RSS rather than email, but that's another story.)

Anonymity, sadly, will fall by the wayside. It'll still be there, but the anonymous informants will be ignored. It sucks to be inside the sort of tyrrany that make anonymity necessary, and I hate to pay the price of keeping them down, but I hope mechanisms will evolve (say, a chain of authentication) that will allow a form of anonymity without the downsides.

Meantime, get yourself a bunch of accounts, and give different accounts to different people, based on relationship and level of trust. In the future, your identity (and identities) will be one of the most valuable things you own.

11 Billion? by badboy_tw2002 · 2004-03-05 05:48 · Score: 5, Funny

Show me 11 billion from spam and I'll show you a guy with a 4 foot long penis.

Re:11 Billion? by Em+Emalb · 2004-03-05 05:52 · Score: 3, Funny

You rang?

--
Sent from your iPad.

I'm old... by FatRatBastard · 2004-03-05 05:49 · Score: 3, Interesting

You know you're no longer a snotty nosed geek when you can remember Canter & Siegel. Back in the days when you said "the internet" most people thought "Usenet", not "the Web." I think I still have an old O'Reiley book Using the Internet or some such thing were mention of the "World Wide Web" was relegated to an Appendix.

Re:I'm old... by TastyWords · 2004-03-05 06:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm old enough to have coined the phrase "the world's biggest secret club" many years ago. There are exceptions, but [for the most part] about the only way you knew about the Internet was if you were on it (and if you weren't on it, you likely didn't know about it).

What really helped get the ball rolling was Kroll's book in the fall of '92 (Sep/Oct) Around Jan/Feb '93, it hit the computer best-selling lists (yes, there are separate lists for those things) and the major publishing houses scrambled to catch up, despite being forewarned (before Kroll's book was published[1]) about the topic.

You're also old if you've seen an X-Files episode with the Lone Gunmen and they show the timeline to be 1990 and have a browser/GUI on a PC (and you spot this yourself). Consider that was the WWW in its infancy...

p.s. ([1]those parties also turned down "DOS for Dummies").

Slashdot once again behind the times. by mrshowtime · 2004-03-05 05:49 · Score: 5, Informative

The first spam was sent May 3, 1978 -- 25 years ago . (It was written May 1 but sent on May 3.) The end of the month marks the 11th anniversary of when the first time a USENET posting got named a spam. Once again, Slashdot editors need to start checking the validity of their article before posting.

--
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide

Re:Slashdot once again behind the times. by RaymondInFinland · 2004-03-05 06:08 · Score: 2, Informative

Look here for the exact message and the reaction of the community to the first SPAM message being send by email.

The 23rd SPAM by funny-jack · 2004-03-05 05:49 · Score: 5, Funny

"The 23rd Spam" by Sam the Psalmist,Toronto, Ontario
(real name withheld by request)

The 23rd Spam

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters,
He restoreth my credit and consolidateth my debts,
For as little as $1,750,
If I act now.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me,
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
And can now be 50 Percent Larger in Three Weeks.
Guaranteed.

Thou preparest a table before me
In the presence of mine enemies,
Thou annointest my head with oil,
My cup runneth over.
But as an added bonus,
I will receive $1,000.00 cash,
If I complete thy online registration form today.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me,
All the days of my life,
And I will dwell forever,
In the House of the Lord,
Which I shall refinanceth,
To take advantage,
Of the lowest mortgage rates in years.

--
You probably shouldn't click this.

Celebration? by lake2112 · 2004-03-05 05:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

There is no way that we should ever "celebrate" spam ... Maybe we can celebrate the eradication of spam, but never the anniversary.

here's a good mail filter by juggaleaux · 2004-03-05 05:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

On my Yahoo! mail account I set up a filter that sends anything with "unsubscribe" to the trash automatically. My spam went WAY down. :)

Re:here's a good mail filter by cabingirl · 2004-03-05 05:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

You must not belong to very many mailing lists.

--
I could kill you, sure, but I could only make you cry with these words
Re:here's a good mail filter by MCZapf · 2004-03-05 06:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

The spam I get, if it has a remove link at all, says something like "no more plz". So your filter wouldn't work on this.

$155?? by Mr_Silver · 2004-03-05 05:50 · Score: 4, Funny

The average buy was $155

Crikey, thats a lot of penis enlargement pills.

I feel quite inadequate now.

--
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.

Mail Enhancement Drugs by ackthpt · 2004-03-05 05:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

Other ways of viewing this auspicious occasion:

Mourning Spam's Ten Year Anniversary

Ten Years of Spam Adversity

Ten Years of the most villainous scum (outside of Mos Eisley) crawling out of the woodwork

Ten Years of some putz trying to get $25,000,000 out of a bank account somewhere in the world

Ten Years of geeks valiantly slugging it out on the front lines of the conflict while Washington dithers

Ten Years abusing free speech in another vein

Ten Years watching a valuable resource be clogged by the low rung of the evolutionary ladder

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar

It's True! Spam works. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-05 05:53 · Score: 5, Informative

While irritating as hell to many, the sad truth is that spam works. And I know this from first-hand experience (Don't you love AC's!?).

You know all those viagra ads you get? Well chances are it's not from us (I've never met someone who's gotten one of our spams), but maybe you have. In any case, we have margins 100% - 200% higher for people who buy via bulk mail than via other advertising methods, and sales are pretty darn good. I would imagine this isn't too surprising considering the kind of people who would actually respond to spam aren't that wise. In any case, as much as it is hated, it is effective. If it wasn't effective it wouldn't happen.

We're aiming at the wrong people by $lingBlade · 2004-03-05 05:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

Apparently we've been trying to stop spam by targeting the wrong people. It seems to me that if we want to stop spam, we need to remove, inhibit or embarrass the people who actually BUY their products as a result of the spam they receive...

now go ahead and mod me flaimbait or troll you useless dickweeds!

Happy Birthday, Spam! by bryanthompson · 2004-03-05 05:54 · Score: 4, Funny

[on the tag of a birthday present to spam]:
To: Spam
From: Everyone

[spam opens package] thousands of spring-loaded snakes carrying advertisements for penis enlargers, viagra, and various pointless gidgets flys out.

Bottom of package reads:
To be removed from this list, email: okstopspammingmeseriously@yeahrightlikethisisareal address.com

Re:Yeah, right by HarveyBirdman · 2004-03-05 05:57 · Score: 2, Interesting

Unfortunately, it cannot be viewed as a cost. It's $11.7 billion in more sales, and those sales employed people. The money didn't just evaporate, it changed hands, and that's good for an economy.

--
--- Ban humanity.

Oh, I remember it well by Call+Me+Black+Cloud · 2004-03-05 05:57 · Score: 4, Interesting

Back in the halcyon days of grad school, this...this...ad! shows up in a newsgroup I favored. I dashed off an e-mail them (several, in fact) including many full copies of their post. I encouraged my fellow students to do the same.

We were quite happy to learn later the flood of mail took down their server. Yes, there I was riding the crest of the spam fighting movement without even knowing it. And at the time it was just a break from Netrek and posting via anon.penet.fi...

This message has no point. Just some memories of an old guy. Did I ever tell you about programming the Commodore PETs in the math department in high school? It was like this...

A Grain of Salt... by pangian · 2004-03-05 05:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

Or how about a ton of salt.

What's that? The *Direct Marketing Association* released a report saying that spam sales accounted for $11.7 billion?

But wait, isn't the DMA the very organization that represents the interests of the spam houses?

Gee, I wonder if they would have an interest in convincing people [particularly retailers] that spam is a successful form of advertising?

And what's that you say? The $11.7 billion estimate is based on calls to 1000 consumers? I wonder how they decided which 1000 people to call? I'll give you a hint...I bet they didn't opt in.

Wasn't this the year by Gr8Apes · 2004-03-05 06:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

that AOL connected up to USENET? I personally thought that was the death of decent newsgroups.

--
The cesspool just got a check and balance.

To much admin time on email before spam by chamilto0516 · 2004-03-05 06:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

C&S invented the SPAM concept on Usenet. I remember that it was not only meant to hit each group but that it was not cross-posted correctly (at all) and that you couldn't delete/kill/read(to be marked read) that message in one group and have it gone from all the other groups. This was a double no-no and wrong on more than one level.

Since SPAM has propogated on to email, I am reminded of my favorite lines out of the Unix Haters Handbook.

The thing that gets me is that one of the arguments that landed Robert Morris, author of "the Internet Worm" in jail was all the sysadmins' time his prank cost. Yet the author of sendmail is still walking around free without even a U (for Unixery) branded on his forehead. -- An email from dm at hri dot com dated 12-Oct-93 in Garfinkle, Weise and Strassman; Unix Haters Handbook; May, 1994; IDG Books Worldwide

The interesting thing is that all this was published before the C&S Usenet spamming. How much time are admins spending on email management now?

SPAM has killed Usenet's usefullness for me. At least filters like Popfile and such are keeping SPAM over email bearable; even if they are not fixing the problem.

--
Magic Eight Ball: Outlook not so good., Hmmm, how about Excel and Word?

To the moon ! by AtariAmarok · 2004-03-05 06:07 · Score: 2, Funny

estimates $11.7 billion was spent on goods and services pitched via unsolicited e-mail.

If one person answered all of these penis lengthening ads and purchased the product, the resulting member would stretch to the moon, circle it 3 times, and reach all the way back.

--
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.

Bringing Down AOL by stand · 2004-03-05 06:08 · Score: 3, Informative

This is older than 10 years, but Tim Bray tells a funny story about how he might have brought down AOL back in 1988 in response to getting a spam email from someone with the email address lipstick@aol.com.

He launched a job to send an angry response email every 10 seconds. He forgot about it until he heard a couple of guys talking a few days later about how their aol accounts were down over the weekend.

Check it out, it's pretty hilarious.

--
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge

How many times? by Stonent1 · 2004-03-05 06:08 · Score: 2, Interesting

I submitted a story about a year ago that said SPAM was 20 years old according to the BBC, (going by USENET spam) But I could have swore the anniversary of spam story has been here several times.

Oh Man! by Savatte · 2004-03-05 06:09 · Score: 4, Funny

Everyone on my contact list and in my address book is going to hear about this monumental anniversary! And hopefully they will all forward it to everyone they know!

The only solution to spam by MyFourthAccount · 2004-03-05 06:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Direct Marketing Association estimates $11.7 billion was spent on goods and services pitched via unsolicited e-mail

So how hard can it be to find exactly the companies that sold this stuff?

These are ultimately the companies that are responsible for spam. Why don't we hold them liable? I think I can proof that spam is costing me a significant amount of money (mostly lost time) even though I do have a fairly good working filter.

I hear all the time that we can't really get the spammers because they are in China, or recently because they use zombies/compromised boxes all over the internet. Well, at the end of the day, it's not the spamhouses that are responsible for this. If no-one paid them to spam, it wouldn't be a business.

So someone is paying money to get this spam to you. How come we can't go after them and make them pay?!

when it's 20 by va3atc · 2004-03-05 06:11 · Score: 2, Funny

It will be taking your keys when its twenty!

--
Candle burns its brightest in the dark

spamming for fun and profit by saladpuncher · 2004-03-05 06:12 · Score: 3, Funny

11.7 Billion?!
Oh man, the dark side is calling me. It's whispering in the back of my mind "Go ahead and just send out millions of emails a day and rake in millions of dollars. So what if you are hated by almost every living person on the planet....11.7 billion!"
Then I smack myself and remember the most important lesson my dad ever taught me "never degrade yourself for money, only for personal enjoyment".
They are never going to be able to stop these guys now. With that kind of money they can buy all the influence they need to keep pumping this crap out until the system becomes so overloaded that people stop using email altogether.

revenues by WormholeFiend · 2004-03-05 06:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

The black market revenues for hard drugs is in the billions as well, yet no one praises its economic benefits outside of criminal circles.

Strange and unbelievable by Dr.+Evil · 2004-03-05 06:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

From a survey of 1000 respondants... $32.5 billion on solicited and unsolicited combined.

What's the U.S. population these days?

250,000,000?

$130 for every man, woman and child in the U.S.?

How much per household with a computer and an internet connection?

By email?

Based on a survey?

Of people who responded?

Of people who knew what email was?

Of people who knew what it meant to respond to an email?

Of people who knew the difference between a solicited and an unsolicited email?

Sponsored by the Direct Marketing Association?

I call BS.

Happy spam anniversaries by ultraslacker · 2004-03-05 06:18 · Score: 5, Informative

Oddly enough, hormel's spam first appeared on store shelves on March 5, 1937. Heard on the radio this am...

1978: The first internet E-mail spam, sent by DEC by stuffduff · 2004-03-05 06:21 · Score: 4, Informative

If you do some digging at Brad Templeton's Home Page, his History of Spam has a different version of the history. DEC may have not been the first!

--
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"

I'd never thought of the Correlation... by mykepredko · 2004-03-05 06:22 · Score: 2, Funny

Or could it be that people that are not web-saavy have a small penis that they can't get up because they're worried about their mortgage or that poor guy in Nigeria that can't get his money out?

Maybe there's an obvious correlation here that we just don't see because we are web-saavy.

myke (aka "The Tripod")

--
Mimetics Inc. Twitter

People in Hawaii are collecting spam by Capital_Z · 2004-03-05 06:28 · Score: 2, Funny

Mmmm... nothing tastes better than Hawaii collectors edition Spam

I know, I know. Offtopic. Lighten up though, it's SPAM!!

damn lies and statistics: 11.7b in spam sales? No by Drake42 · 2004-03-05 06:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

I like the quote: "estimates $11.7 billion was spent on goods and services pitched via unsolicited e-mail" coming from people who want you to by their unsolicited e-mail services. Does anyone really trust this number, or does it seem totally made up?

And if you believe that number I have a new marketing technique for you called 'Silent Marketing'. Just pay me a few thousand dollars and your product will be available to millions of potential buyers! Billions of dollars were spent over the web this year, so obviously my marketing idea will generate billions of dollars for you! Never mind what the idea is, other people are making money so if you give me money, you'll be making money too!

This was the SECOND. by Mechanist · 2004-03-05 06:33 · Score: 5, Informative

This report is mistaken. The first large-scale spamming of Usenet preceeded this one by nearly two months. I remember it well, as I used Usenet pretty heavily at the time.

It wasn't lawyers hawking green cards who really got the ball rolling. It was a religious nut warning us all about the end of the world. On January 17, 1994, Clarence L. Thomas IV (not the Supreme Court guy) spammed all known Usenet groups with a message titled Global Alert For All: Jesus is Coming Soon .

You can see the original message in Google's archives. And you can read about some of the after-effects in RISKS 15.49, from February 1994.

Canter & Siegel, the green card spammers, certainly earned their awful reputation. But they were only ripping off someone else's idea.

--
And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

Spam... sorry, "mass advertising" by Vexware · 2004-03-05 06:33 · Score: 2, Funny

I'll only believe it works when you show me a man with a 3 foot penis with diplomas from Harvard and MIT and with several Platinum cards for all the cash that Nigerian billionaires he didn't know left him when they died.

--
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect" -- Linus Torval

Interview wih Siegel by AceCaseOR · 2004-03-05 06:43 · Score: 2, Informative

This story is a little old, but back in 1994, Siegel was interviewed by K. K. Campbell. She's just a little out there. You can read the interview here

--
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.

Celebrate ! by AtariAmarok · 2004-03-05 06:53 · Score: 3, Funny

I'm so happy about this that I'm going to send an e-mail about the event to 43,000,000 of my closest friends.

--
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.

Re:Typo by martin-k · 2004-03-05 07:00 · Score: 3, Interesting

Usenet is as usable today as it has always been. Just get a Usenet provider with _heavy_ spam filtering (for example, individual.de, which is free), and Usenet is a wonderful experience.

-Martin

--
SoftMaker Office for Windows|Linux|Android

Lie, Damned Lies, and ... by kalidasa · 2004-03-05 07:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

The average buy was $155, which exceeds the average of $114 that opt-in e-mail generated.

What matters is not the average amount spent per transaction, but the average amount spent per email.

Re:Uh huh.... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-05 07:46 · Score: 2, Funny

Yes, you're completely right. It's totally absurd to think that spam is profitable. He has a strong incentive to lie, and convince people with dubious ethics that it might be worth a try, therefore increasing his competition.

It makes no sense that someone would continue spamming because they are making money.

Obviously, spammers are spamming because it's fun to annoy system administrators, not because it's possible to make money doing it.

Being clever and having poor ethics are not mutually exclusive. Your rules are dumb.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment by Brandybuck · 2004-03-05 08:05 · Score: 2, Interesting

Direct Marketing Association estimates $11.7 billion was spent on goods and services pitched via unsolicited e-mail.

I say we go back to the days of stocks, pillories and public humiliation in an effort to stop spam. You get caught buying something via spam, you get hauled to the city square, shackeled to a post, and the rest of us get to throw rotten tomatoes at you. For example, buy Cialis and you get to spend your "special weekend" in the stocks.

--
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!

Re:Uh huh.... by Scarblac · 2004-03-05 08:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm not a spammer, but I'm a pretty good liar. You don't lie about things that are totally obvious, and that you have no reason to lie about. Such as saying that spammers spam because they make money that way.

--
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.

This survey by the DMA... by JuggleGeek · 2004-03-05 08:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you trust anything the DMA tells you, then you are a fool.

In other news... by perky · 2004-03-05 10:08 · Score: 2, Funny

Direct Marketing Association estimates $11.7 billion was spent on goods and services pitched via unsolicited e-mail.

In other news, the American Society for the Sales of Alternative Medicine estimated that new age hippies saved $47.3 trillion by forgoing medical insurance and waving crystals around insead.

--
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994

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