45 years ago today Gary Thuerk ruined the internet by sending the first bulk email. Recipients were not happy.
The earliest documented spam (although the term had not yet been coined[14]) was a message advertising the availability of a new model of Digital Equipment Corporation computers sent by Gary Thuerk to 393 recipients on ARPANET on May 3, 1978.[10] Rather than send a separate message to each person, which was the standard practice at the time, he had an assistant, Carl Gartley, write a single mass email. Reaction from the net community was fiercely negative, but the spam did generate some sales.[15][16]
Spamming had been practiced as a prank by participants in multi-user dungeon games, to fill their rivals' accounts with unwanted electronic junk.[16]
Spamming predates the internet. It’s been used since the beginning of electronic communication.
In the late 19th century, Western Union allowed telegraphic messages on its network to be sent to multiple destinations. The first recorded instance of a mass unsolicited commercial telegram is from May 1864, when some British politicians received an unsolicited telegram advertising a dentist.[13]
Why is it called spam anyway?
The term spam is derived from the 1970 "Spam" sketch of the BBC sketch comedy television series Monty Python's Flying Circus.[5][6] The sketch, set in a cafe, has a waitress reading out a menu where every item but one includes the Spam canned luncheon meat. As the waitress recites the Spam-filled menu, a chorus of Viking patrons drown out all conversations with a song, repeating "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam… Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!".[7]
In the 1980s the term was adopted to describe certain abusive users who frequented BBSs and MUDs, who would repeat "Spam" a huge number of times to scroll other users' text off the screen.[8] In early chat-room services like PeopleLink and the early days of Online America (later known as America Online or AOL), they actually flooded the screen with quotes from the Monty Python sketch.[citation needed] This was used as a tactic by insiders of a group that wanted to drive newcomers out of the room so the usual conversation could continue. It was also used to prevent members of rival groups from chatting—for instance, Star Wars fans often invaded Star Trek chat rooms, filling the space with blocks of text until the Star Trek fans left.[9]
Of course.
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