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Forty Years of Spam Email (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The BBC has a video celebrating the 40th birthday of spam email. Here's a transcript of the video: "It is 40 years since the first spam email was sent. Marketer Gary Thuerk composed an email selling his company's newest computers and sent it to 400 users on ARPANET, which was the network that become the basis for the internet. Why is it called spam? It has been suggested that it was called spam after a song in a Monty Python sketch. Where patrons of a cafe were repeatedly offered something they didn't want. The concept of spam is nothing new. Unsolicited telegrams were sent over 100 years ago and we've come to accept junk mail as part of everyday life. Now [nearly 60%] of all email is spam. Like most rubbish, it can be found everywhere on earth."
we've even heard of spammers being murdered on the street and it didn't stop more spammers from coming up to take their place
I'm not sure that this solution has been properly and thoroughly tested, and I don't think, in good conscience and out of respect for the scientific principle that we can dismiss it so casually until we have more evidence.
Personally I'm a fan of a Lex Talionis type solution, where for every piece of Spam (unsolicted commercial email) sent, the sender must recieve (eat) one 'piece' of Spam (spiced ham). In one sitting. I'm happy for piece to be set at 1g. Small time offenders should survive that. And be suitable chastened.
I could never stop junk mail coming into my mailbox. So I decided to valorize it instead: years ago, I gave my adress to many stores, and in short order, I started receiving a lot of junk mail. As in, a LOT of junk mail.
What do I do with all that junk mail you ask? I make briquettes to throw in the fire in the winter. 3/4th of my heating needs are taken care of by that free fuel, delivered for free right on my doorstep. In the summer, I store the briquettes, and if I have too many of them, I sell them to the local recycler, who pays a token sum for it by the ton and burns it in our local power plant.
Making the briquette is a bit of a pain, even with the briquette machine, and they require sweeping the chimney more often because burning glossy paper fouls it up real fast. Also, burning the chemicals contained in the paper and in the ink isn't terribly green. But it results in real savings in heating fuel.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
This message is not spam.
...and 40 years of users clicking on spam. When will they learn?
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
I do the same with spam emails. I print them out and make briquettes. I saves me loads of money.
-- Make America hate again!