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Spam Is 30 Years Old
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist commemorates spam's 30th anniversary, a week from today. The first spam message — archived here — was sent to 393 users of ARPANET on May 2, 1978 by someone from computing pioneers DEC. They had to type in all the addresses by hand first."
For those wondering, the original spam (nee Hormel spiced ham) turned 70 last year.
It looks like RMS was looking for love back then too!
10-MAY-78 23:20:30-PDT,2250;000000000001
Mail-from: MIT-AI rcvd at 7-MAY-78 2316-PDT
Date: 8 MAY 1978 0213-EDT
From: RMS at MIT-AI (Richard M. Stallman)
Subject: MSGGROUP# 697 Some Thoughts about advertising
To: stefferud at USC-ISI
Redistributed-To: [ISI]<MsgGroup>Mailing.List;154:
Redistributed-By: STEFFERUD (connected to MSGGROUP)
Redistributed-Date: 8 MAY 1978
---EDIT--
4) Would a dating service for people on the net be "frowned upon" by DCA? I hope not. But even if it is, don't let that stop you from notifying me via net mail if you start one.
The script was written in perl, of course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canter_&_Siegel
The article has notes about their numerous ethical lapses also.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Speaking of spam, there are all kinds of spam. There's what some humorless dweebs call comment spam, and then of course I must try to sell you some of this stuff.
Then of course there's Spam, SPAM, and S.P.A.M..
CLICK HERE FOR FREE!! pr0n
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
notice the lack of documentation to the claims. I didn't do the research on this, someone I didn't know. I had a friend point out the posting to me.
Popular thought is that the MUDers were using the term in 1985, but alas, google hasn't archived all those MUD logs.
Hence my careful use of the word "documented"
Maybe I should edit the wikipedia page!
And yes, I've been in correspondence with Brad Templeton, he also disputes my claim. But, I do have the google archive to back me up. If only I had been oblique in my reference.
The "reply-to:" field is used by most email clients as the "Sender". You can fill out the reply-to with anything you want. No exploits needed.
Actually, by 1978 6-bit terminals were pretty rare, at least in the computer labs I frequented. There were no longer any significant 6-bit networks, so the only reason to have a six-bit terminal was if your terminal was a electromechanical teleprinter, because mechanisms that could print the entire 7-bit ASCII character set were more expensive than those that couldn't. And by 1978, electronic terminals were beginning to replace teleprinters. This was the period in which Bill Joy used an ADM3a to write vi — the fact that vi/vim still uses h, j, k, & l for cursor motion reflects the fact that the ADM3a had arrows on those keys (its cursor motion sequences were the corresponding Control characters)
But it doesn't surprise me that ARPA was still using 6-bit teleprinters. I can't give a logical reason, there's just something very military about it. Major Czahor probably didn't even enter the message himself; he would have dictated it to a Signals Clerk. Quaint term, that.
arghhh.... lets try this again. http://groups.google.com/group/news.admin.net-abuse.email/msg/b7ce97a77276e16f I've not put it in an URL since that doesn't seem to work.
http://groups.google.com/group/news.admin/msg/483c12f48d13225e?output=gpl
Slashdot should block *.tinyurl.com and that yahoo scripts place, as well as prevent AC's from posting live links.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
Kind of the like a neighborhood where just about everybody knows everybody and thus everyone is accountable for any antisocial behaviour on their part.
telnet your-smtp-server 25
.
MAIL FROM: you@yourisp.com
RCPT TO: you@yourisp.com
DATA
Buy V1AGRA!
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!