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

[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

[rokzy]

during the cold war the USSR developed bacteriophages which were so successful that just one drop would cure lots of problems and doctors using them could operate in filthy conditions without fear of infection.

the Western pharma co's hated them and discredited them because they were a threat to profits.

when was the last time you took a single antibiotic? oh, that's right, it's more like 3 times a day for a week isn't it?

plus now overuse of antibiotics is kicking us in the arse because of resistance. I blame retarded parents who can't accept children sometimes get ill and it's a part of life and demand something regardless of effectiveness, and I blame the weak, short-sighted doctors for giving in and over-prescribing.

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

[iamacat]

Check this out. Free personal e-mail certificates!

I am affraid I am a Mac user, so I will take a gmail invite instead of DNF. The stick is optional.

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

[astrotek]

so lets think of the best way to repay the people that accually bought from the person that sent them a message 100 years ago.

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

[plover]

No, very few idiots actually buy from spammers.

Mostly, the idiots are the vendors who hire the spammers. They buy the spamming service for $60.00 for 10000 emails. The spammers invest $200 in "fake" purchases from the vendor. The vendor is so excited he forks over $1000 for 200,000 emails. The spammer sends them out, and pockets the $860, not caring if the vendor makes another sale or not. If he thinks the fish is really gullible, he might string him along with another investment of $100-200, in hopes of landing another $2000 or so.

Spammers are thieves, they lie, cheat and hack their way into our inboxes. What makes you think they treat their paying customers any better?

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

[plover]

No, even enforcing fully traceable spam and passing draconian laws won't stop it.

Most spam today comes from zombie PCs, not from giant spam servers. Spammers have hackers infest thousands of PCs with worms, and use those to spew forth their vendors' get rich quick schemes.

OK, you made spam traceable. So now what? 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?

It might mean Comcast shuts down Aunt Millie's PC from sending email. Or not -- maybe the zombie operator uses Aunt Millie's PC to generate a new Hotmail or gmail account, and sends forth the bilge from there? Extra steps that get Aunt Millie in hotter water, but do nothing to the spammers or their hacking minions.

Technological answers only stop them one zombie at a time. Sure, you can disinfect Aunt Millie's box, but by the time it's patched, both Uncle Fred and Grandma Anna's PCs have been wormed. Spam laws be damned, you're not going to be a popular government for jailing Millie, Fred and Anna for what amounts to a "failure to understand and apply Windows XP Service Pack 2's cumulative security patch for the week ending 9/18."

It's like any other crypto or security problem. Security is a perimeter defense, and it will always be attacked at the weakest point. Cryptologically hardened email will simply mean we spend more CPU cycles verifying that this spam did indeed come from Aunt Millie. ( And, the converse should indicate that the spammers have a weak point too -- I believe it's somewhere south of their pelvises, and north of their thighs. Apply the appropriate amount of pressure and see how much spam shows up tomorrow ... :-)

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

[ZorbaTHut]

Your post advocates a

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

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(X) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(X) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
(X) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(X) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
(X) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(X) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

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

Re:Cheap fun

[igrp]

Yes, I'm aware of that.

That's why I wrote 'does recognize my address as whitelisted'. A lot of people have multiple email accounts. I might respond to an email sent to one of my personal accounts from the office or using one of my role accounts (I don't always change the headers or ssh into my box to send a two line reply). I also often check my emails on the go (using my PDA & WiFi/cell phone) but usually wait 'til I can get my hands on a normal keyboard to reply.

What a Cunard

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd kill him if he weren't already dead.

Re:What a Cunard

[GrahamCox]

In case you haven't heard it, the joke is this:

Woman 1: My husband's a ship's captain, he works for Cunard. Woman 2: Well my husbands a postman, and he works pretty hard too!

Are Caveman's drawings spam?

[joeldixon66]

In terms of Internet spamming - it's closer to 26 years old - link.

I can't see anything about Cunard from the submitter's link.

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

[bburton]

I always thought SPAM came in a can...

Remember:

• When somebody talked about SPAM, they meant the food.
• When a Mouse was a little furry rodent
• When Hardware meant hammers, nails, etc.
• When RAM meant to butt into something.
• When Monitor meant to watch someone closely.
• When Desktops were made out of mahogany.
• When Wallpaper went on walls.
• When Icons where people you looked up to.
• When Pointers were a dog breed.
• When Buttons went on your shirt.
• When a Register was something a store kept money in.
• When a BUG meant an insect.

Ahh the days...

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.

Hmmmm.

[Sevn]

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.

I have the kind of love for spammers that makes me want to light them on fire and throw them down a flight of stairs. That's love baby.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Nos.]

Nice idea, but I liked when the name of one spammer and his home address was published here (amongst other places) and he found himself on every snail-mail mailing list in the US. I seem to remember hearing stories of US Postal trucks driving to his place to deliver all the mail.

Re:Hmmmm.

[danielsfca2]

...and throw them down a flight of stairs.

Just one flight of stairs???

That's a little generous, don't you think? I'd throw the bastards down the stairwell all the way down the Sears Tower! Of course, that's after I gouge out their eyes and shove their computers up their asses. Okay, getting a little worked up now, better quit.

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

Re:Spam - More than a nuisance

[ryanw]

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.

I would imagine the traffic of porn and usenet far outweigh spam and is also increasing at an exponential rate.

Re:Spam - More than a nuisance

[Bastian]

I would imagine the traffic of porn and usenet far outweigh spam and is also increasing at an exponential rate.

Last I checked, the majority of all Usenet traffic is spam.

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.

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

[joeldixon66]

And which one is Slashdot again?

I guess that it's the former - as I'm still able to post here.

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.

Re:Time to get tough

[zaxios]

Time to get tough...This is a good start

Yeah, and this will finish them off. I mean, we need to get tough, after all.

Define "spam"

[Jonboy X]

Google says:
Spam: Unsolicited "junk" e-mail sent to large numbers of people to promote products or services.

Note the e- in front of "mail" in the defintion. If it ain't e-mail, then it's just plain old junk mail. ;P

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.

Re:Cunard sending spam?

[thecampbeln]

A Lamborghini is 'essentially free' for Bill Gates, but that doesn't mean it's 'essentially free' for you or me. Likewise, spamming a ton of email address is 'essentially free' for you and me (or your and my companies) but that doesn't mean it's still more then some poor bastards yearly wage in rural China (or Africa, or India). And again, the 'direct-mailing' done by the uber-rich's ocean liner of choice was probably 'essentially free' for them as well.

The cost of a service (or lack there of) doesn't/shouldn't define that service. Besides, telegrams are sent electronically, just like email! So really, how is it different?

My cupboard...

[Suit_N_Tie]

The Spam in my cupboard is only 50 years old, so I guess I am doing well...

Well, to put a finer point on it...

[Sheetrock]

Most people consider spam as unsolicited commercial e-mail and have it in a separate class entirely from junkmail or telemarketing because it puts a heavier burden on the receiver than on the sender.

There are signs that this is changing however, with fewer mailservers handling e-mail, better bandwidth, and larger hard disk sizes it is quite likely that we are approaching a point at which spam begins to achieve parity with junkmail in terms of that sender/receiver cost relationship. At which point it may be wise to at least consider including spam as a marketing resource alongside more conventional services.

Junkmail keeps the cost of stamps low and helps subsidize other uses of the postal system. Perhaps if the same occurs with spam it won't be such an ugly concept?

First unwanted advertisements

[scoser]

The first unwanted advertisements were probably scrawled on cave walls and advertised "Atok's fine-carved spears, extra cheap! Kill many deer and bison!!!!!" a few hundred-thousand years ago, if we're going to get all technical about it.

Re:First unwanted advertisements

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

What about those pheromones emitted by those pesky primordal amphibians a few hundred thousand years ago? That would seem to qualify as unwanted advertising...

Re:First unwanted advertisements

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it more likely it was Atok's fine spear enlargers.

Practical uses for spammers

[stox]

1) Ebola research
2) Cost effective replacements for crash test dummies.
3) Cost effective replacements for animals in cosmetic testing.
4) Cost effective replacement for ballistics gel.

Repay? Most definitely!

[Anonymous Coward]

How can I ever repay them for the huge gigantic penis I now have? The girls love it!

Re:Repay? Most definitely!

[Zardus]

adsf;iladsuh foaip[hdsfpsa dhfpasiduhf apsiduhfapsdiu gfapsdfughas[duoh fapahsdfpasiuhf aspdiufhasdp uihfaspduihfasipfduh aspdufh aspuidhf

Ah, I know your pain, and there are others like you!

Gentlemen, do you want a smaller penis? Is your overlarge member hurting your friends and loved ones? Are you jealous of your neighbor's 2-inch pecker?

Well, we have the solution for you! Our 100% natural pills garauntee to reduce your size by up to 5 inches, in just two weeks! If you click now, we'll send you 8 bottles for just $19.99! That's an 80$ value!

asdfj;a soidfauhwg749p u8ashfas fjsdafjas dhsafdspdfuhasd8[fwa ehf oaisf asdfha sdfpashfd asdufpasdhf adsf9adshf asdfas8hdf sadf89ha sdfp9asd8hf psad9fh aspdfhsadpfh9asdfsa fda9dsp8fh sadf9p8as asdf9h

Inflation

[ProfessionalCookie]

Of course dollar for dollar the first spam sent was quite a lot cheaper. But when you account for inflation and the reduction in volume per can (from roughly 0.00084 Volkswagens to roughly 2 iPods) the price is actually $0.40USD/Can more expensive

Don't believe me? Check my references.

Yea, sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

For all we know, illicit advertising could have started even back in as far as the caveman days...

There was once a caveman named Ug who would hurl rocks from far away at unsuspecting dwellers. Each rock would have a pictures etched into it depicting a caveman holding a shield to protect himself from flying rocks. One day, Ug threw a rock from far away at another caveman, Og, with the usual picture etched into the rock. Hit and startled by the incomming rock, Og picked it up, gazed at the picture, scratched his head, and looked at Ug. Ug threw another rock, which this time hit Og right on the head. Angry, Og threw the rock back at Ug, only to see Ug hold up a shield and deflect the rock.

Og was very impressed. He and his tribe of other cavemen then walked over to Ug. Ug held up a picture showing himself handing another caveman the shield, and the other caveman handing him lots of furs. Og smiled, took the shield, and hit Ug over the head with his club, killing him. So Og and his tribe feasted on Ug, striking fear into the hearts of marketers who were not strong enough to defend themselves against a bunch of angry cavemen. Such a utopia prospered for generations, until the invention of the telephone.

spam older than Spam

[rjamestaylor]

Spam (the "food") is in its 6th decade.

100 years ago they probably called it Invasive Nuisance®.

Spam IS NOT just email

[intx13]

From Wikipidia: "In this article and those related, the term spamming is used broadly to refer to all of these behaviors, regardless of medium and commercial intent."

Notice the regardless of medium.

Personally, I consider spam to be the automatic supply of unwanted information. For that reason I wouldn't consider mailing lists and telemarketers as spammers. You signed up for the mailing list and telemarketing is not an automatic process. Besides, telemarketing provides (provided) a lot of people with jobs (even if bad jobs, some people need the money more than the good job).

For instance: You can be spammed with junk mail. A channel can be spammed by bots. You can be spammed with emails. You can't be spammed over the phone unless a recording is calling you. You can be spammed in the grocery store (oh wait, that's different...)

Of course, this is just my personal way of looking at it, so what do I know?

I can hear it on the tele

[Anonymous Coward]

o--o o -o oo ooo / o -o o-oo o- o-o --o o -- o -o - / o--o oo o-oo o-oo ooo

Re:I can hear it on the tele

[precize]

I don't know which of the following things is the most sad:

1) The parent was moderated as funny without the moderator knowing what the text said.

2) The moderator knew what the text said.

3) I took the time to decode the text.

Origin of spam (not SPAM)

[AssProphet]

In case any of you were wondering where the widely applied term "spam" came from here's an informative link

This link gives Hormel's position on the use of the term "spam" and the history behind it.

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?

Where's TFA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Without an article to substantiate the claim, maybe mkavanagh2 simply sent a fake story to win a bet.

Wasn't the Titanic enough?

[B747SP]

a moment to consider how to best 'repay' the spammers who followed

OK, so admittedly Cunard didn't buy into White Star Line until some 18 years after that little mishap with the Titanic, but didn't we show 'em, what hey old chap, shiver me timbers and all that!

$diety{'God'} is apparently omnipotent and all knowing and all that, so what's to say that he didn't plant the iceberg in anticipation of the fact that those people would become spammers in the not-to-distant (for 'him') future! Dumb bastards didn't learn, spammed anyway.

Well, it's a great fantasy, anyway.

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).

Careful - Collateral Damage

[ozmanjusri]

Let us all take out a moment to consider how to best 'repay' the spammers

While I agree with all the disgust the community has against spammers, please try to control your responses.
As a recurrent victim of "Joe Jobs" where a spammer forges my domain name in the Reply-To field of their junk, I'm already having to deal with thousands of bounced messages (currently about 120/minute) as well as the attacks of well-meaning but misguided people on my website.

I'm not sure what I've done to attract the attention of the spammer, but at the moment it looks like they'll succeed in putting me out of business - I can't use email while this is happening, since any filtering which brings the traffic down to a managable level also drops real messages.

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.

If only I wasn't vegan...

[aussersterne]

I'd say that we should repay them with SPAM.

That's right... a vigilante "SPAM squad" manning a truck carrying dozens of tons of SPAM, along with a delivery system not unlike a tree chipper that can accept SPAM by the ton and spray greasy SPAM puree hundreds of feet.

The SPAM squad would pull up to the houses of known spammers and douse the house, car, grounds, mailbox, and anything else in sight in 6-12 inches of greasy salted pork goo that would take years to clean up. If the weight of the flying SPAM puree hitting their front windows just "happend" to break them and fill their living room with chunks of SPAM as well, by "accident," that would just be too bad.

Say, 50-60 tons of SPAM per spammer in flash vigilante "actions" out to keep each of them busy for a few weeks (months? years?) at least trying to clean up their persons, personal effects, and lives and drive the smell (and flies) away. Just spray-and-go and let them come stumbling out, slipping and sliding and cursing, realizing that they have finally gotten their comeuppance.

Re:how to REALLY return the love

[aws910]

Nahh... this is better. Make them use the products they sell, one time for each message they send.

Simple solution: but it wont work without you.

[Whammy666]

The simplist way to combat spam is to prohibit the use of falsified mail headers and/or 'from:' return addresses. Violators could be fined per message sent.

This idea has been proposed before, but has been vigorously fought by spammers as unconstitutional. (I'm sure spammers are really concerned about the Constitution.) Their reasoning is that without the ability to send anonymous messages, free speech would suffer. Technically, they have a point. But you can satisfy the requirements of the First Amendment, while curtailing fraudulant headers/return addresses by simply saying that anonymous messages must have an explicit return address and sender id of (for example) 'anonymous@anonymous.anom'. Requiring the "ADV:" tag in the subject line is also a good defense against spam since it is easily filtered, yet can maintain anonymity.

None of these ideas are new, and there have been attempts to get them into law. But until we as spam haters generate enough spam of our own in the form of consumer compliants to our elected officials in an effort to overcome the lobbying dollars being spent to keep spam alive, then nothing is going to change.

In a perfect world...

[dracken]

....Spammers would be caught, jailed and made to share their cell with people who have enlarged their penis, taken viagra and are looking for a new relationship :^).

-Dracken

No, it was not Spam

[rfc1394]

It would have been Spam if the Cunard line had sent the telegrams collect!

Visit a spammer message board - see the felonies

[Animats]

For a good time, visit this spammer bulletin board. "Make Big Money with Spam". There's enough criminal activity described there to put some people in Club Fed for many years. This is a window into organized crime. Some excerpts:

• 07-07-2004, 05:25 PM
  Nugster is Offline:
  Junior Member
  Join Date: Jul 2004
  Reliable Proxie service hourly updated

  Hello, I am providing a very good proxie service with hourly updates.

  each members list contains 1,000-2,000 working proxies at all times.

  all you do is load the list into your mailer llike DM mailer uses links to get proxies set it to hourly updates and wala hands free mailing.

  we offer the service for a weekly price of $600 with discount for montly memberships which monthly is $2,200 a $200 savings.

  ...

  We are here to stay & aim to please. Our service is staffed by a full time crew of 10 people who are constantly maintaing our lists by hand 24/7 to ensure working proxies, unlike others who have there lists checked by computers only not acutally checking for smtp enable. ...

Need money laundering services?

• adamrich is Offline:
  Junior Member
  Join Date: Apr 2004
  Posts: 11
  processing Quote: Originally Posted by excelbru

  Can someone advise me a reliable bulk proof credit card processor not shutting me down after the first complaints?
  ...
  We can do such processing for you. Take a look at our site www.oxbill.com

And much, much more.

If you deal with spam, it's worth some time spent visiting that site. There's a whole criminal infrastructure to support spamming. You'll find "bullet proof web hosting", domain laundering, credit card laundering, virus/worm distributors selling access to zombie machines, mortgage lead buyers, and "pharmacy" operators.

Yes, it's been reported to CERT/Homeland Security and NANAE.

actually, it was before that....

[the-build-chicken]

It is hypothesized that certain neanderthal societies used to write inscriptions on large rocks before hurling them ferociously at passers by.

Coincidently enough, this has significant commonalities with one of todays more successful spam counter measures, which involves incribing "stop sending me spam" on similarly large rocks and hurling them ferociously at spammers.

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.

The first SPAM.....

[hashish]

"Cunard are able to offer a half price fare for a one leg trip on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Unfortunately Cunard are unable to offer return trips."

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:how to REALLY return the love

[colonslashslash]

Nahh... this is better. Make them use the products they sell, one time for each message they send.

So their punishment would include 42 meters of penis enlargement theropy, several hundered skanky Russian mail order brides and a heavy overdose of viagra and vicadin? Interesting punishment ;)

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.

Pfft! Fool Evolutionist!

[HarveyBirdman]

Everyone knows the first spam was 6,341 years ago when the serpent offered Eve an herbal remedy to not only give Adam more staying power, but add cubits to his manhood. Turns out it was just an apple, and Adam & Eve got blamed for the whole scam and banned by their ISP.

I said 'spam is 100 years old'

[pbjones]

my wife replied, 'it tastes like it too'

Re:Appropriate Trip?

[Colin Douglas Howell]

Heh. Unfortunately, the Titanic wasn't a Cunard ship; it was owned by the White Star Line, one of Cunard's main competitors.

Now if you'd mentioned the Lusitania, on the other hand...*evil grin*

Not Even Close

[wwi]

Nope. Not Even Close.

Postal "spam" has existed since the
post office was first founded. In
the 19th Century, the typical
addressee would be:

The Best Farmer In

Smallville, Missouri

or

Progressive Businessman In

Littletown, Iowa

The worst was before stamps,
when all letters were
sent collect. If someone was dumb
enough to claim one of these, they
paid the postage!

Hmmm, kinda familiar.....

Not true

[HBI]

The Lusitania sinking in 1915 had nothing to do with the US' declaration of war in 1917.

That had more to do with the Zimmermann note promising Mexico territorial adjustments in exchange for a declaration of war against the US, as well as sinkings of US flag merchant vessels in the North Atlantic.

Re:Cryptographically signed messages

[Fred_A]

I've had signed spam before. The signature was (obviously) broken but I was surprised someone had even thought of it.

I guess some people filter on the presence of a signature.
Now you have to filter on it's validity as well. Bit of a problem when strangers mail you...

Ah, the mandatory crackpot conspiracy theory, eh?

[Moraelin]

Let me tell you a little secret: I actually was on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, in the bad old days of the Cold War. It also happens that several family friends were doctors.

Guess what? If such wonder drugs ever existed, the soviets (and the whole soviet block) didn't use them either. Wonder why. Maybe because such wonder drugs only ever existed in crackpot conspiracy theories, but never In Real Life?

And don't tell me it was also the "evil" westen pharma corporations who were stopping the Soviets from using their own medicine. (I don't remember the West stoping the Soviets from building nukes or breeding hot strains of smallpox, for example.)

I'll tell you something funny: the whole Eastern European block had a very liberal policy when it came to antibiotics. And plenty of corruption. One way or the other, you could get pretty much any medicine you bloody pleased, whether you actually needed it or not. (Or whether it could even work at all for your disease or not.) Kids were routinely stuffed full of antibiotics and sulphamids at the slightest sign of a cold.

Yet noone ever got such a miracle cure. Even there, when you did get prescribed medicine, it was 3-4 times a day, for a week or more. Just like in the West. Go figure.

And if you needed an operation, they didn't just sprinkle some magic potion. They used sterilized equipment and aseptic rooms, just like in the West. Go figure.

So please spare me the bullshit conspiracy theories.

There is no magic wand that you can just wave and make the illness go away. There never was, never will be. Not on the Western side, not on the Soviet side, and not in China either.

And if there was one, those same pharma companies could patent it and have a monopoly on magic wands for 20 years straight. The one who had a magic wand that cures, say, diabetes, could sell it for a fortune per milligram, and make one helluva lot more profit from that than from being the 100'th guy selling cheap generic insulin.

Plus if there was one, what do you thing would happen the first time a pharma executive, or doctor or pharmacist got a fatal disease? Do you expect me to believe they'd just patiently await their own death, rather than threaten their profits? Better yet, that millions of doctors and pharmacists _all_ keep the secret rather than save their own lives or the lives of their children.

Dude, there is no amount of money in the world that could buy that.

And let me tell you why it's 3 times a day

[Moraelin]

The problem with curing a disease is that you have to kill some cells which aren't that fundamentally different from the normal cells in your body. In the case of viral diseases, they _are_ your normal cells, only slightly reprogrammed by the virus.

Hence most of the medicine is actually mildly toxic. Almost all of it, in high enough concentrations, can cause severe damage to the liver, kidneys, and/or other body parts.

So the trick to treating a disease, is to maintain a concentration just high enough to sorta harm the bacteria over time, but low enough so the normal cells aren't _too_ harmed. Hence taking small doses 3 times a day, for a week or more.

A dose which could kill all bacteria or mutated cells in one pill, would have an effect on your liver comparable to a shotgun blast at close range.

Point in case: my own mom, who basically stuffed herself with antibiotics and sulphamids back then, is now struggling just to stay alive. Her liver is basically destroyed. Maybe it's not a coincidence. She also thought that she was smarter than the doctors back then. Looking in retrospect, maybe she shouldn't have been that smart, eh?

So maybe the next time a doctor tells you some pills to take 3 times a day... maybe it's not some evil pharma conspiracy. Maybe the poor bugger is just trying to not cause permanent damage.