Spam Turns 100, By One Reckoning

mkavanagh2 writes "Spam is 100 years old today! But, surprisingly, the first spam wasn't sent via e-mail. In fact, 100 years ago, Cunard sent out telegrams to selected (rich) members of the British social elite, advertising tickets on a new liner, and becoming the first spammer. Let us all take out a moment to consider how to best 'repay' the spammers who followed for the 100 years of 'joy' they have given us. ;)"

Comments

Cheap fun

[erick99]

Spam, if that is what it was (as opposed to junk mail) was a bit more costly to Cunard than to modern day spammers. If he had not the cost of the telegrams he might have sent the sales pitch to the entire assembly rather than the "select" group. Junk mail is cheaper still than telegrams but not nearly as cheap as email spam where you can reach out and touch millions for a pittance. So long as spam is that inexpensive, and a least a few souls click to their way to more hair, a longer penis, $35,000,000 from a besieged politico in Nigeria, then we will continue to have spam. Short of taxing email (would that even work?), spam is here to stay. No need to repay them, they seemingly pay themselves very well, and, possibly , at your expense.

Cheers,

Erick

Re:Cheap fun

[rokzy]

I hate this defeatist attitude.

there is no reason why spam cannot be defeated. in principle it's one of the easiest problems. much easier than hunger or aids. the problem is just that lots of people in charge won't get off their arse and design a new protocol.

maybe because there's no money in it. pharmaceutical companies hate cures, they much prefer treatments. you only sell a cure once, but treatments last a lifetime.

Re:Cheap fun

[back_pages]

Oh yeah, laziness and greed are gonna be SO easy to just stamp out. It's definitely not as hard as, say, using the farking shift key.

Spam is not a technological problem, it's a social problem. Find me a widespread social problem that was easy to fix and I'll show you a magical fantasy land with unicorns and easy living.

Re:Cheap fun

[back_pages]

but make a protocol that doesn't allow anonymous sending of mail and you defeat spam.

Dur, turning off email defeats spam. That doesn't make it a good solution. Forcing people to indentify themselves isn't going to halt spam. It doesn't stop junkmail in your USPS mailbox, does it? It never kept phone solicitors from calling you, did it?

Re:Cheap fun

[znode]

but make a protocol that doesn't allow anonymous sending of mail and you defeat spam.

Show me a non-spoofable (or so difficult to spoof it would not be profitable sending spam through) protocol that doesn't allow anonymous sending of mail, yet still allows normal communications*, and I'll send you a copy of Duke Nukem Forever. On a stick.

*i.e. not a whitelist, because then legitimate but not-yet-on-your-whitelist people can't contact you

Re:Cheap fun

[Anonymous Coward]

in my lifetime I have been called unsolicited once on the phone. I hung up after 5 secs.

there's some mail spam but that takes ~1/1000th the time to deal with as email spam does.

you're right, forcing people to identify themselves won't stop spam, but forcing them to identify themselves AND living in a non-US country with decent data protection laws WILL stop it.

Re:Cheap fun

[FlutterVertigo(gmail]

Rx companies don't hate cures - they don't even hate FDA regulations - particularly when you look at all of the off-the-label[1] uses MDs[2] find for their medications. What they hate is someone tinkering with their income. They claim it's for research of future products but you know they have to keep the stockholders happy. Surprisingly, the incumbent Indiana Governor (short term - his predecessor died ~ a year ago of a stroke) is campaigning to improve upon his current methods of reducing Rx prices, particularly to the elderly, even if it means importing from Canada! [3] Many cities & a few states do this now so it probably seems a bit strange [even to those of you reading this]. That is, until you realize Eli Lilly's[4] headquarters are just down the street from the Governor's office. So far, nothing has been publicly stated by Lilly, but you know there's got to be some maneuvering behind the scenes to provide support for the opposition (who was a Bush Budget Manager).


[1] For those unfamiliar with the term, it means "used for something other than the intended use". There are obviously some limits lest the physician stray too far, but there are some really helpful situations. I was in a car accident a little over nine years ago and have a "permanent headache". I take an anti-seizure medication to help keep the pain at a manageable level although I have never had a seizure. It does have several uses relating to chronic pain. An ideal off-the-label scenario.
[2]The punctuation-challenged can pretend I wrote that as MD's.
[3]Unfortunately, the media seems rather dense on this subject and permit the various drug companies to get away with, "One of the dangers is the fact the medications are likely to be unsafe." Now if they are unsafe, why are the Canadians taking it from the drug companies [directly] and dispensing it to their citizenry? The media needs to grow some cajones and follow up with these types of questions.
[4]Makers of Prozac and now Cialis. I love the ED meds: "Do not use after you've consumed very much alcohol." (what if it took a lot of drinks to get her into the mood?) "If an erection lasts more than four hours, although rare, seek medical attention." How many guys are going to walk away from a four-hour hard-on when they're taking a pill to get one in the first place?

By the way...
______________________________________
My Trunk Monkey can beat up your Trunk Monkey.
http://www.suburbanautogroup.com/ford/trunkmonkey. html

Re:Cheap fun

[rokzy]

d'uh, if it existed we wouldn't have spam, that's kinda the point.

imagine something where you need to set up an account (more like a bank account in a well-regulated country than a simple fill in this web form thing). then every mail is authenticated like a bank transfer.

then imagine spam being more like credit card fraud - sure it happens sometimes, but isn't the norm like spam is now. actually spam is about 10 times* more the norm than legitimate mail at the moment.

*or some other ridiculous number.

Re:Cheap fun

[Anonymous Coward]

"maybe because there's no money in it. pharmaceutical companies hate cures, they much prefer treatments. you only sell a cure once, but treatments last a lifetime."

This really isn't true.
Pharmaceutical compaines have no problem with cures. (remember the last time you took an antibotic?). The problem is that we aren't all that advanced in medician as most people think. Nearly every treatable, but non-cureable thing is due to either a virus, or due to a missing hormone or extra hormone in the body itself. Drugs are basicaly things that help to weaken a viruses (it's very difficult to kill somthing that isn't alive and uses your own cells to reproduce, your body either builds an imunity to them or you sucumb to their effects) control an existing hormone your body is producings (such as propecia), or provide for a hormone your body isn't producing (insulin).
To do any thing further we usualy have to take drastic measures (like in the case of cancer with kemotherapy, radiation, surgery, transplants, etc.).
What we will probably be able to do in the near future, however, is introdce various types of genethearpy in the form of retroviruses that actualy go out and make alterations to our DNA.

Yes, it is expensive to develop such new technology, but the pharmaceuticals are trying to do it anyways, because the payoff is a hell of a lot. And (here's the real greed, if one needs a reason for it) if they don't do it, somone else will first.

Re:Cheap fun

[tylernt]

A whitelist approach can work, even for legit users not yet on your whitelist. They send you an email. Your server holds the mail and autoresponds, asking them to verify that they are a human -- using one of those little letters-on-a-blurry-background deals. That done, they are added to your whitelist and their original email goes through.

It's not profitable for spammers to sit around human-verifying 1,000,000 emails.

So, what kind of stick will Duke Nukem come on?

Re:Cheap fun

[Grakun]

Forcing people to indentify themselves isn't going to halt spam. It doesn't stop junkmail in your USPS mailbox, does it? It never kept phone solicitors from calling you, did it?

It's not supposed to halt it. Although it will throttle it, as well as allow us to identify it. Spammers send out thousands of spam emails per second without paying a dime. I have yet to see any phone solicitors or printers/postal services that can send spam that fast, or that cheap.

Re:Cheap fun

[FlutterVertigo(gmail]

It's not a technical issue, it's a financial issue masking itself as a legislative issue. The US isn't a Democracy or a Republic, at least, not where it counts. We are a Plutocracy [1]. When the "you CAN-SPAM" law was put into play, it was written largely by the DMA (Direct Marketing Assocation). They wanted to ensure there was a feasible business model - then through in opt-out to avoid too much backlash by the users and losing everything. Unfortunately, something equally as distasteful is a "Do Not Email" list - see "Do Not Call List" for phones.
I agree about phishing. If it's used to prime the pump and enough people make enough noise that phishing is dangerous because of anonymous email and legislation which cures it can be used to cure spam, it would only take a couple of people running for office to get vocal about it (and start the momentum), even if they are sitting on the wrong side of a 75%-25% poll going into the election. IOW, if someone's running for office at the Congressional level and they hold some type of town hall meeting (in office) or a rally taking questions during a campaign, that's probably a good time to start pushing this simple agenda.
What should exist is "I'll accept business email" and "I'll accept telemarketing calls." The problem with that is those who believe they have something to lose from that philosophy (or those philosophies) would say, "But no one would sign up!" and the appropriate response is, "Exactly."


[1]Or: "He who has the gold makes the rules." "Life is like a sh%t sandwich: the more bread you have, the less sh%t you have to eat."

Once again...
______________________________________
My Trunk Monkey can beat up your Trunk Monkey.
http://www.suburbanautogroup.com/ford/trunkmonkey. html

Re:Cheap fun

[benna]

But what if I want an anonymous email account and I'm not a spammer? The real problem is idiots that buy things from spammers. If they didn't exist, neither would spam. So I say somebody should fund an ad campaign telling people not to buy things from spammers.

Re:Cheap fun

[jcr]

the problem is just that lots of people in charge won't get off their arse and design a new protocol.

Oh, is that all?

-jcr

Re:Cheap fun

[TheoMurpse]

I'm going to start with an assertion of my beliefs:
Everyone has the right to run their own SMTP server.

Following from this, everyone would be able to send email.

Following this, everyone would be able to send spam.

How do you stop the spam, without removing something you might argue is a right? You stop peoples ability to run SMTP servers, then you stop some people from using the email of their choice. Slashdotters, how many of you HAVE your own SMTP servers? I'm pretty sure a lot of you do.

Also, remember that there are ISPs that don't provide email, so you either turn to some crappy MSNesque online email, or you host your own SMTP.

Now, you might say "well what about that verification thing so we KNOW who is sending the email?"

well, why can't i write a trojan that is a spam-sending trojan? just write a trojan that creates its own SMTP server, and voila!

Please someone correct me if i'm wrong in this.

Re:Cheap fun

[igrp]

Challenge response doesn't really address the problem - it deals with the symptoms. And it doesn't work well if widely deployed.

It adds CPU and bandwidth overhead and if everybody and their mother has a unique identifier system (even with a 'little-letters-on-a-blurry background' system, which would cut peole who go just poll, download and read their email offline off or require HTML email) in place, spammers would just focus on defeating that.

Plus, c/r systems don't really work, unless they're properly implemented. If you shoot me an email and my c/r implementation sends you a challenge because you're not on my white list (provided, the from address is not spoofed) and your c/r system doesn't recognize my address as whitelisted and, in turn, sends me a c/r token we have a basic breakdown of communication (an indefinite mail loop, which hopefully one of our systems would notice).

Re:Cheap fun

[iamacat]

pharmaceutical companies hate cures, they much prefer treatments

Do you also think funeral parlors are happy when people die? I rather suspect every non-nutcase company would gladly disolve if that's the price of curing AIDS. You are talking about ethics of software companies, but humans dying because their body rots out is a bit more important than the format of your word processor files.

Re:Cheap fun

[geminidomino]

While that's true on the surface, it's really not the core of the problem. The main people buying things from spammers are the companies HIRING the spammers. The spammers say "we'll mail out 10M ads" and don't guarantee any sort of return. The companies then consider the .000001% response rate a positive thing and worth the money they paid the spammer. I got spammed by Target about 1.5 months ago. Cancelled my target card and haven't shopped there since, when they asked why, I told them I don't do business with spammers. I doubt they care, since I'm probably the only one. If more people did that, though, it might have an effect. So when I think about it, you're right. By hiring a spammer, Target BECAME spammers and the only place they can be hit is in the bottom line.

Re:Cheap fun

[geminidomino]

Everyone has the right to run their own SMTP server.

I agree with this. However, before someone tries to use this to attack dialup/dynamic blocklists, allow me to correct one small error: "Everyone has the right to run their own SMTP server provided they PAY for it." Most ISPs have business accounts that allow you to run a server, whereas home accounts generally (not always; Sprint DSL is an exception I'm familiar with) forbid running servers. Yes, you generally have to pay more for a business account, but thems the breaks.

The second you accept an AUP that forbids servers, you no longer have a right to run a mail server on that IP. Every widely-blocked dynamic IP range that people tend to complain about (Roadrunner, Comscat, SBC, etc...) has the server prohibition in their AUP.

Re:Cheap fun

[way-kun]

Are the feds going to bust in on Aunt Millie just because she didn't install Service Pack 2, hot fix KB123456789, and so allowed spammers to use her name to send their crap?

No, but her ISP should have the right to temporarily disconnect her from the internet. Why? Because she (or her computer, but that's her responsibility) is causing problems on the internet.
It would also convince people that bad software causing worse problems is not "the way to go" (yes, i mean microsoft).

Re:Cheap fun

[ojQj]

You and the anonymous coward below both misunderstood the GP post. There are antibiotics that are designed to be taken only once. I don't know how many varieties there are of these antibiotics, but I do know at least that there is one for bladder infections.

GP is asking if the design of creating a lot of pills to be taken over a period of time is necessary in as many cases as it is used. (That's assuming I understood him correctly which is also not guaranteed.) If more antibiotics were designed to be taken only once, people would be less likely to make mistakes which lead to antibiotic resistance.

Re:Cheap fun

[pehrs]

Once upon the time spam through faxes was a hideous problem. But now it's rather rare. The combination of effective laws, enforcement of said laws and new tech actually stopped the spam.

It is months since I last got any fax spam, and had to respond with the usual 1000 pages of "Do not send advertising to this phone number". Using a modem that goes rather quick.

What we need is effective laws (forget the current). We need effective enforcement of said laws. Make it the ISP's responsibility to filter outgoing mail. If a user wants to run an SMTP server he will have to ask the ISP for permission and take responsibility for it. Make sure the fines /HURT/. Spam is one of the few kinds of crime where the punishment actually can be an effective deterrent, together with other economic crimes.

Last, and most important, people will have to stop the attitude of "Filter and try to survive". Begin striking at the source. Cutting of spammers from their income or raising the costs are both good ways. If they have a homepage, drain their bandwidth. Download it a couple of million times. Bandwidth is expensive. Try to get their payment systems revoked so they can't take payments. Snail mail addresses? Those are vulnerable. Anything that earns the spammer money should be targeted and shut down.

Here in Sweden fake invoices was a huge problem, until the company that handles most of the payments began freezing any account associated with such. In a matter of weeks the problem more or less disappeared. If this were possible with spam we would have a much easier life.

There is still a lot that can, and should be done. But if mail as a system is to survive we will have to defeat spam somehow. For people will eventually give up. I can deal with 100 spam a day, but I have relatives that don't use email any more.

Re:Cheap fun

[aoacoder]

"Spammers have hackers infest thousands of PCs with worms, and use those to spew forth their vendors' get rich quick schemes. " You sir, are an arrogant pig. The term hacker has nothing to do with the sort. This is a media development designed to destroy the good image of what a hacker really is. Perhaps if you looked back you would note that a hacker is someone deeply involved in technology, or any discipline for that matter. So you yourself are a hacker (except not in the sense of what the media try's to portray it to be). SO stop watching popular press, and then maybe you wouldn't demonize innocent computer geeks who have nothing to do with spam. Thomas

Well, not nitpicking

[savagedome]

But, surprisingly, the first spam wasn't sent via e-mail

Shouldn't that be "But, unsurprisingly, the first spam wasn't sent via e-mail".
It would be really a surprise if they sent spam by email 100 years ago. Don't you think?!

Re:Well, not nitpicking

[rjamestaylor]

In re: your .sig:

• Exercise the First Admendment: Post with the Karma Bonus

The First Admendment is to be excercised; merely listening to every fool exercising her First Admendment right doesn't lend support to freedom of speech.

Re:Well, not nitpicking

[clifyt]

No fucking shit.

Too many idiots think that free speech extends to private lands and domains. Its as if they think they can come into my living room and if you don't want to listen to them, you are violating their first amendment rights.

This is generally the argument spammers also use. They say its their first amendment right to say what they want. Sure...it is...on their fucking server. The minute they impose on my resources, they have violated any right they might have had and deserves any asskicking they may end up with. In real life, someone coming into my house repeatedly after asking them to leave and doesn't shut up is going to get a fucking two by four imprint in their forehead. I've been doing some remodeling, so I got one handy...

Just to be clear: First amendment applies to your personal space and public property, in theory, and no where else. Not the shopping mall, not the internet, not on the racist neighbors lawn.

Re:Well, not nitpicking

[JeanBaptiste]

"It would be really a surprise if they sent spam by email 100 years ago. Don't you think?!"

Whatever. Im no historian, just a hobby, but I bet you could find examples of spam long before that.

Easiest example, I bet snake oil salesmen in the 1800s would plaster houses and public business with flyers promoting their wares.

Even before that, I wouldn't doubt that dubious marketing practices have existed since recorded history. Ever since money has changed hands, annoying marketing has existed.

Spam - More than a nuisance

[cato kaze]

We joke and complain about spam, but personally I am wondering how much the internet can take before things just start to slow down drastically. Spam is increasing, not decreasing, and it is most certainly doing so with or faster than the pace of technology. We really need to find some solutions to this problem before spam becomes so widespread that the only way to fight it is to increast bandwith. (I don't mean just email spam, I mean popups and flash banners and such. The bandwith they take up must be massive, I'm amazed that the internet still functions with all the waste)

Re:Spam - More than a nuisance

[erick99]

That is an interesting point that seems obvious but I don't see it expressed that often. If spam really did get so bad that the Internet was noticeably affected, I mean to the point that big businesses were losing big money, I bet a very creative solution would be forthcoming pretty quickly. I think that is what it migh take. -erick

Where there's any universal medium, there's ads

[LostCluster]

There are really two kinds of person-to-person communication medium...

- An open network, where anybody can send to anybody... and that means you can get messages from people you never heard of, for better or worse. Lowlife types are allowed to thrive and spam away.
- A closed network where in order to stay in the club, you've gotta play by the rules. Lowlifes are bounced out on their first offenses. This keeps the trouble away, but it also limits the number of people who can reach you over that channel.

um.....

[Lord_Dweomer]

Wouldn't that make it the first JUNKMAIL and not spam? I thought spam (aside from the food) was solely tied to email.

Time to get tough

[buchalka]

We need to get tough with them.

Charge them, arrest them.

This is a good start

Of course this was not just spammers but they are all as bad as each other if you ask me.

Cunard sending spam?

[john_sheu]

Or not. What they did was more akin to direct-mailing (or perhaps even more specific than that). They had a target audience, and by being limited by cost, they could only send to the select of that target audience. Now, Spam is essentially free. In fact, there is no "target audience" per se; the demographics of those who reply to spam is representative of much more diversity than those who Cunard targeted.

Nice job hammering Wikipedia for no reason

[Peter Cooper]

The link in the story has nothing to do with the text used.. there's nothing on that page about spam being 100 years old. Worse, it's a link to an other useful resource which could do without being hammered by tens of thousands of Slashdot readers. Remember the recent stories about Wikipedia being overloaded on Slashdot recently?

Re:Thanks Billy

[buchalka]

One thing I rarely see mentioned is that spam is mostly micrososft's fault.

What a pile of crap. While I am no MS supporter blaming Microsoft is pure and simply wrong.

Blame the people DOING the spamming, blame the people who don't keep up to date with the latest patches (which will dramatically reduce the chance of your box becoming owned).

While you at it blame the people trying to own the box.

Those are owned because Billy and the Boys from Redmond simply have no idea how to build an operating system

Bzzzt. Wrong. See above. (This from a linux advocate).

From Wikipedia

[craXORjack]

Some of the "firsts" accomplished by Cunard include:

• First transatlantic passenger service (Britannia, 1840)
• First passenger ship to be lit by electricity (Servia, 1881)
• First twin-screw ocean liner (Campania, 1893)
• First steam turbine engines in a passenger liner (Carmania, 1905)
• First gymnasium and health centre aboard a ship (Franconia, 1911)
• Largest passenger ship (until 1996) (Queen Elizabeth, 1940)
• Largest passenger ship (Queen Mary 2, 2004)

But I don't see where it says they were the first to spam. Anyone have the link to that?

Proves the Difficulty of the Solution

[SpamJunkie]

I would assume that even such early spam was soon frowned upon. In its infancy unsolicited communicaiton was probably novel but it wouldn't take long to become the burden it is today. But because it has remained a burden for so long proves its success.

It is no more ingenious than a brute force attack. However, wherever else brute force fails it succeeds in the marketplace. If we tighten our email schemes, turn off pop-ups in our browsers and so on it stands to reason that spam will simply evolve, not die out. It has survived the shift from telegrams to email and all steps in between, it will likely not be quenched by anything less than a superior competitor: something that provides the same service - pairing potential buyers with sellers of questionable goods - yet isn't a burden to anyone who isn't interested.

Much like factoring prime numbers and brute forcing encryption it may well be impossible to replace spam with something "better". But if it will be stopped that's the only way.

Re:Careful - Collateral Damage

[ozmanjusri]

In Australia, your domain name is tied to your business name. You are not allowed to have a .com.au domain which is different from your business name. If I wanted to change the domain, I'd have to rename the business.

I have changed business and domain names once before, but even with mailouts and phone calls to clients etc it cost an enormous amount in lost work, not to mention all of the ancillary costs associated with name changes.

As a one-man-band trying to earn money as well as administer the business, at some stage I have to make the decision that it's easier to just work for someone else.

New trend in posts

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a new trend of having a personal opinion of the poster on /. Does anyone care? I find them annoying. For instance, in this post:

Let us all take out a moment to consider how to best 'repay' the spammers who followed for the 100 years of 'joy' they have given us. ;)

Thanks for wasting bandwidth.

Re:Fuck Spam in the Can!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that's ironic.

Re:Thanks Billy

[JuggleGeek]

One thing I rarely see mentioned is that spam is mostly micrososft's fault.

One thing that is often mentioned is that anonymous cowards like you give no legitimate information, and are just trolling. Tell your lies elsewhere - most people here are smart enough to know that spam would exist with or without MS.