Slashdot Mirror
NSF Research Reveals Chain Letter Travel Patterns
alphadogg writes to tell us that the NSF is researching chain letters and how they travel. The results aren't quite what one might expect, showing a pattern of more selective and circuitous travel. "One surprising finding was that messages often took meandering routes between people who knew each other, often through as many as 100 intermediaries. Many email users also received copies from multiple social groups. The researchers concluded that because messages come from many directions, there's ample opportunity for the messages to be edited along the way."
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Oh my gosh! That email about an email tracker is TRUE!! Chain letters DO get tracked! And guess what? If you send this information to 10 people, you'll get a $100 GIFT CERTIFICATE!
// jokes, obviously
it doesn't matter what the pattern is.. they all end up in my moms mailbox
I'm more interested in knowing why, when they plotted the path of the chainmail it looked like suit of, well, chainmail. This is a clear indication of the fractal nature of reality, such that our terminology for spam actually infects the upper layers of reality to the point where even couch potatos are zombified into following this ancient topology.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Reality has been shown to have a clear liberal bias.