"Totally Spam? It's Lubricated"
Jym Dyer
>>> The term 'spam' was not applied to unsolicited commerical
>>> material until the infamous Cantor and Siegel "Green Card"
>>> posting in early 1994, 18 months later than C&H.
=v= I remember the term being used before that, for obnoxious
repetitive behavior, but not (yet) commercial reasons. Amongst
us computer geeks, it could also mean what we would now call
"flooding," or a Denial of Service attack.
=v= A search of Google Groups for "spam" yields too much for me
to wade through, even after trying a variety of secondary terms.
But a search for "spamming" leads to this 1990 explanation:
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=MAT.90Sep25210959%40zeus.organpipe.cs.arizona.edu
(or
if your newsreader can't handle that). Mostly I see it used for
MUD (a net-based game), but I found some 1992 mentions of it
for netnews, and a prescient accusation of "email-spamming" in
a particularly flameful newsgroup.
> http://www.google.com/groups?selm=8A%7C%5ECX%2B%40rpi.edu
=v= Well, this just raises more questions. Were MUDders and
BBSers influencing Kibo (He whose name should not be mentioned)?
Did H.W.N.S.N.B.M. influence Calvin? We need answers, here!
<_Jym_>
Mink Schmink
>=v= I remember the term being used before that, for obnoxious
>repetitive behavior, but not (yet) commercial reasons. Amongst
>us computer geeks, it could also mean what we would now call
>"flooding," or a Denial of Service attack.
I recall spamming meaning to send large email to people you wanted
to annoy, consisting OF the word "SPAM" repeated endlessly, or perhaps
the word "SPAM" in a very large ascii-art-sideways font. I would guess
that was around 1991 or 92, but my memory eludes me.
mink.
Default User
> I recall spamming meaning to send large email to people you wanted
> to annoy, consisting OF the word "SPAM" repeated endlessly, or perhaps
> the word "SPAM" in a very large ascii-art-sideways font. I would guess
> that was around 1991 or 92, but my memory eludes me.
It was used in MUD games, where certain repetitive actions would make
people's screens scroll so fast that they couldn't see the text they
needed.
Brian Rodenborn
David DeLaney
>>>> The term 'spam' was not applied to unsolicited commerical
>>>> material until the infamous Cantor and Siegel "Green Card"
>>>> posting in early 1994, 18 months later than C&H.
>
>=v= I remember the term being used before that, for obnoxious
>repetitive behavior, but not (yet) commercial reasons. Amongst
>us computer geeks, it could also mean what we would now call
>"flooding," or a Denial of Service attack.
The following was written after the greencards, so the term used back then
may not have been the same, but:
The first rememberable spam seems to have been from one Jay-Jay
(j...@cup.portal.com), in maybe 1985.
Contrib. post:
He posted a message to every single newsgroup the net had in those days
appealing for everyone to send him $1 each for "Jay-Jay's College Fund".
He got the same sort of reaction as Canter & Siegel. I'd be surprised
if the folks who run Portal didn't remember him, given how much grief
he created for them.
> Ah, the original spammer (or were there those before him that just didn't
> get noticed because the net was small?).
I am pretty sure he was the very first spammer ever. At the time everybody
reacted as if what he was doing was totally unprecedented.
>=v= Well, this just raises more questions. Were MUDders and
>BBSers influencing Kibo (He whose name should not be mentioned)?
>Did H.W.N.S.N.B.M. influence Calvin? We need answers, here!
> <_Jym_>
Dave "and what horrors remain lurking at the bottom of the bitbucket, their
hour not yet come round?" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
James Kibo Parry
>
> >>>> http://www.ucomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/09/01/
> >>> The term 'spam' was not applied to unsolicited commerical
> >>> material until the infamous Cantor and Siegel "Green Card"
> >>> posting in early 1994, 18 months later than C&H.
>
> =v= I remember the term being used before that, for obnoxious
> repetitive behavior, but not (yet) commercial reasons. Amongst
> us computer geeks, it could also mean what we would now call
> "flooding," or a Denial of Service attack.
I would agree with you wholeheartedly, although you really should have
repeated that several thousand times.
> [...] I found some 1992 mentions of it
> for netnews, and a prescient accusation of "email-spamming" in
> a particularly flameful newsgroup.
>
> > http://www.google.com/groups?selm=8A%7C%5ECX%2B%40rpi.edu
>
> =v= Well, this just raises more questions. Were MUDders and
> BBSers influencing Kibo (He whose name should not be mentioned)?
In that 1990 article of mine, I was actually thinking of that sort
of thing. Of course, everyone who attended college thinks that terms
like "spam" were invented at their college (because that was the first
place they encountered these terms -- this also happened with "nerd"
many years before) and just because the term "spam" was used all over
RPI in the late 1980s doesn't mean it originated there.
The etymology of the term as it was used in those days had to do
with the behavior of people on primitive real-time chat systems
(predecessors of MUDs.) RPI had one called "CB" (akin to CompuServe's
famous "CB Simulator") and later one called "Connect". In those days
(and I think to this day on ICQ and MUDs, although standards for
behavior have gone up somewhat) a lot of people who didn't have a clue
what to do to create conversation would just type in their favorite
song lyrics, or in the case of people at tech schools like RPI, recite
entire Monty Python routines verbatim. A particular favorite was
the "spam, spam, spam, spammity spam" one because people could just
type it once and just use the up-arrow key to repeat it. Hence,
"spamming" was flooding a chat room with that sort of clutter.
Like I said, I have no idea where "spam" in that sense originated --
all I know is that people at RPI were either exposed to it soon after
it originated elsewhere, or perhaps it could have actually originated
at RPI (and I imagine it would have also been independently invented
at many other places, too, given that a nerds everywhere had access
to the same "Monty Python" reruns.) But since in those days "spamming"
meant actually saying "spam spam spam spam spam" in places where other
people were trying to converse, it's clear that that's the etymology,
even if we don't know where or when this idea first occurred to someone.
And then somehow it mutated from meaning "people who say the same thing
over and over just to fill up chat-room bandwidth" to "people who send out
millions of E-mail advertisements". I'm not sure how it happened. Maybe
if we did some looking around we could find an article someone posted that
suggested that the term "spam" should be used for sending out lots of
useless E-mail.
Now, as a favor to the people who don't know how to click on links,
I'll quote the 1990 article of mine that you mentioned, complete with
a vintage misspelling and a .signature that evolved from a big sword.
/// VERY OLD RE-RUN WITH ASININE .SIGNATURE FOLLOWS ///////////////////////////
-> From: James 'Kibo' Parry (ki...@pawl.rpi.edu)
-> Subject: Craig Shergold Died For You. SPAM Could Have Saved Him.
-> Newsgroups: alt.slack, talk.bizarre
-> Followup-To: alt.slack, talk.bizarre, alt.aquaria, rec.humor, misc.pets,
-> alt.sex.bondage, misc.test, alt.flame
-> Keywords: SPAM
-> Date: 20 Nov 90 05:40:23 GMT
->
-> []
-> Craig Shergold's battle against the incurable disease
-> Gineokenella was going very well until last month, when he was
-> suffocated by a collapsing pile of postcards.
->
-> As a memorial to Craig, the Stamp out Printed Matter (SPAM)
-> society has been founded.
->
-> We advocate sending massive quantities of E-mail, TV signals,
-> loud noises, etc., but we are against anything that is printed or
-> written on paper. Why?
->
-> * Paper uses up trees! Every time you use a sheet of paper,
-> you've shortened a tree somewhere by 1/64 inch!
->
-> * Paper can give you nasty cuts.
->
-> * Sometimes paper mutates into a form which cannot be disposed
-> of--such as the pile of National Geographics that's been in your
-> parents' attic since 1948.
->
-> * Saddam Hussein's middle name, in Arabic, means "paper".
->
-> * Paper is almost, but not quite, edible, leading to millions of
-> cases of paper poisoning every year as stupid people thing that paper is
-> good food.
->
-> * Paper was a key material used at Nazi Tactical Headquarters for
-> most of World War II.
->
-> * Paper can KILL if it's thrown hard enough, sometimes.
->
-> So there you have it. Help prevent future postcard tragedies.
-> The next time some poor innocent kid who just happens to be named Chraig
-> Shergold wants you to send him postcards, send him a million phone calls
-> instead.
->
-> To get rid of your paper, the SPAM society suggests that you
-> sort it by type of paper and dispose of it thusly:
->
-> 1.) Convert all newspapers into fake fireplace logs.
->
-> 2.) All business correspondence, college homework, junk mail, etc.,
-> can be fed to a handy paper shredder and used to seed clouds to make it
-> rain to help crops grow to prevent world hunger.
->
-> 3.) All paper money--the most DANGEROUS form of paper--should be
-> placed in an envelope and IMMEDIATELY sent to:
-> KIBO
-> PO BOX 722
-> BOSTON, MA 02117-0722
->
-> Thank you for your care, hope, love, understanding, and cash.
->
->
-> Kibo
->
-> --
-> james "kibo" parry, 138 birch lane, scotia, ny 12302 <-- close to schenectady.
-> ki...@rpi.edu / Kibology / All colors / Kibo is no
-> user...@rpitsmts.bitnet / is better! / are arbitrary. / ordinary bozo.
-> Anything I say is my own opinion, which is always the opposite of Xibo's.
(Note: all the addresses mentioned are long gone. This was in the days
when you _had_ to have a .signature which _had_ to have your postal address
in it, I guess so that people could send you postcards saying "I just sent
you some E-mail, expect it to arrive next week.")
Although the .sig says Schenectady, I actually posted that from Boston,
since I was attending at Emerson College in fall of 1990 (they had
no Internet access, so I dialed out to one of my old RPI accounts.)
PO Box 722 in Boston was a mail drop I rented briefly (in the (T) building,
no less.) Sadly, my experiment in ripping off Soupy Sales did not
net too many pieces of green paper. (And yes, I got a few envelopes
with a couple dollars each, but I suspect people mainly sent them to see
if it would blow my mind. Sadly, it takes more than $2 to blow my mind.)
Jym, I'll assume that, because you looked at every single article in
Google's archive of everything that's ever been said or done anywhere
on the Internet, and you selected my article as an example, this must
mean I was the first person ever to refer to junk E-mail as "spam".
Now if you'll excuse me, I must go sue everyone on the Internet over this,
because everyone knows that lawsuits are what make such ridiculous claims
turn into true factoids (if you have the right lawyers.)
-- K.
If I can't afford both of
them, should I hire just
Canter, or just Siegel?
Joe Presley
speeding ticket riding his motorcycle and wanted people to send him $1 each
to help pay his ticket since he was a "poor college student" - his article
was in a lot of groups. He got blasted pretty harshly. I think it was
more like 1982-83, but my memory is a bit hazy.
"David DeLaney" <d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote in message
news:slrnblaei...@gatekeeper.vic.com...
.....<deleted lines>
Peter Trei
David DeLaney wrote:
> Jym Dyer <j...@econet.org> wrote:
>>>Peter Trei wrote:
> >>>> The term 'spam' was not applied to unsolicited commerical
> >>>> material until the infamous Cantor and Siegel "Green Card"
> >>>> posting in early 1994, 18 months later than C&H.
> >
> >=v= I remember the term being used before that, for obnoxious
> >repetitive behavior, but not (yet) commercial reasons. Amongst
> >us computer geeks, it could also mean what we would now call
> >"flooding," or a Denial of Service attack.
>
> The following was written after the greencards, so the term used back then
> may not have been the same, but:
>
> The first rememberable spam seems to have been from one Jay-Jay
> (j...@cup.portal.com), in maybe 1985.
> Contrib. post:
> He posted a message to every single newsgroup the net had in those days
> appealing for everyone to send him $1 each for "Jay-Jay's College Fund".
> He got the same sort of reaction as Canter & Siegel. I'd be surprised
> if the folks who run Portal didn't remember him, given how much grief
> he created for them.
> > Ah, the original spammer (or were there those before him that just didn't
> > get noticed because the net was small?).
> I am pretty sure he was the very first spammer ever. At the time everybody
> reacted as if what he was doing was totally unprecedented.
1988 actually. I remember this one. It's in GoogleGroups;
23 May, 1988. Here are the headers...
- start quote -
From: J...@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.unix.xenix,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news
Subject: HELP ME!!!
Message-ID: <58...@cup.portal.com>
Date: 24 May 88 04:51:00 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 34
XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.4419
- end quote -
...and yes, we were all immensely offended. Portal
was one the earliest commercial BBS systems to
get a link to the Internet, and this sort of thing was
one of the reasons the "port-holes" and other johnny
come latelies were sneered at by us old farts.
Thanks for reminding me. Every time I hear that
C&S invented spam, I thought of this post, but
could not remember enough details to track it
down.
I read somewhere that he actually got a fair
amount of cash through this, enough so the surplus
was sent to some kind of scholarship fund (which
he promised to do in the body of the post).
Peter Trei
Kevin S. Wilson
Parry) wrote:
>
> If I can't afford both of
> them, should I hire just
> Canter, or just Siegel?
I'd go with the one who is still alive, unless you're hoping to win a
judgment consisting of BRAAAAANES!!!
--
Kevin S. Wilson
Tech Writer at a University Somewhere in Idaho
"You can safely ignore Kevin in order to
maximise life's experience." --A. Loon, in alt.religion.kibology
Tim Chmielewski
news:kibo-02090...@10.0.1.2:
>[elided]
>...or in the case of people at tech schools like RPI, recite
> entire Monty Python routines verbatim. A particular favorite was
> the "spam, spam, spam, spammity spam" one because people could just
> type it once and just use the up-arrow key to repeat it.
>[elided]
Having seen a few more episodes now I have found out that while Monty
Python deserves its reputation, the actual series was a bit up and down
and everyone seems to think it was all funny.
A more consistent comedy series was the Goon Show on the radio. This is
mainly due to only one person writing it (Spike Milligan eventually
cracked under the pressure of keeping it funny though.)
Also it is very hard to quote out of context as the material doesn't work
unless you present it as a full 1/2 hour (with the music & sound
effects.)
The most nerdy thing you can do with it is read the scripts online.
Thanks.
--
My Tomorrow Series & Hong Kong Movie Reviews Site
http://members.dcsi.net.au/chuma/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/timchuma/
IQC: 198344892