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

[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

[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 ... :-)

What a Cunard

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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?!

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.

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: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.

My cupboard...

[Suit_N_Tie]

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

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

[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.

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 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

Where's TFA?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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).

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.