Spamming?
Mat Watson
to the word, but I'm not really sure what it means. It seems to be
associtated with
1. Entering lots of commands.
2. Causing problems with the server. (maybe crash?)
Please explain the meaning to me.
--Mat m...@zeus.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Andrew C. Plotkin
> Wat...@zeus.opt-sci. (312)
> Spamming? I see a lot of reference
> to the word, but I'm not really sure what it means.
Same etymology as "trashing." Implied definition is "Putting so much
load on the system that it crumbles into a pile of trash / Spam / other
useless substance."
For a more vivid image, imagine taking some small cute animal and
pounding it with many many bricks. The result resembles Spam. (Yes, I
know, it's gross. We're immature hacker geeks and we *think* that way.
:-)
--Z
Patrick J Wetmore
>> Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.mud: 26-Sep-90 Spamming? Mat
>> Wat...@zeus.opt-sci. (312)
>
>> Spamming? I see a lot of reference
>> to the word, but I'm not really sure what it means.
>
>Same etymology as "trashing." Implied definition is "Putting so much
>load on the system that it crumbles into a pile of trash / Spam / other
>useless substance."
HERETIC! Ooh, you fool! Weenie! That's most definitely not where
spamming came from. Spam refers to a Monty Python skit, where
vikings sing "Spam" at a lady who floats down from the ceiling in
a restaurant where they serve spam with everything. The verb
"to spam" would be to send lots and lots of useless information (in
particular, the word "spam") over and over to someone, thus scrolling
their screen with lots and lots of lines of "spam spam spam spam spam spam"
etc. It has been generalized to mean sending lots of crap to servers
as well as people you want to annoy the hell out of.
A man who doesn't know his Monty Python is not a man worth talking to.
- Hurin, "could I have some spam spam eggs spam bacon spam spam and
sausage and spam and spam?" (or whatnot)
--
+------------------+ Could you fancy me as a pirate bold
|Patrick J. Wetmore| Or a longship Viking warrior with the old gods on his side
|fl...@pawl.rpi.edu| Well, I'm an inshore man and I'm nobody's hero
+------------------+ But I'll make you tight for a windy night and a dark ride
Ben Gamble
|In article <Ub0Djdy00...@andrew.cmu.edu> ap...@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin) writes:
|>> Spamming? I see a lot of reference
|>> to the word, but I'm not really sure what it means.
|>Same etymology as "trashing." Implied definition is "Putting so much
|>load on the system that it crumbles into a pile of trash / Spam / other
|>useless substance."
|"to spam" would be to send lots and lots of useless information (in
|particular, the word "spam") over and over to someone, thus scrolling
|their screen with lots and lots of lines of "spam spam spam spam spam spam"
|etc. It has been generalized to mean sending lots of crap to servers
|as well as people you want to annoy the hell out of.
| sausage and spam and spam?" (or whatnot)
I have a friend who used to be active on the BBS scene (Hi Rich, if
you're reading!) who told me tales of social interaction in chat mode.
Often, when an annoying, usually newbie-type person (a "munchie")
arrived on the scene, they would (each!) invoke the 'spam' program,
whose function was to pipe a given file to the munchie's connection in
the BBS equivalent of a whisper bomb. I'm told the most popular file
arguments to 'spam(1)' ( (-: ) were lpr pictures of Ferraris and so
forth.
So it seems likely that the name came from Python, but that this story
is part of the etymology of spam's use in the client/server context.
--
Ben Gamble | "It is unworthy of great men to lose hours
gam...@owlnet.rice.edu | like slaves in the labor of calculation."
Malcolm@someMuds | -- Pascal
Dsclmr: This was opinion-free. Reach my opinions c/o kha...@owlnet.rice.edu.
Marcus J. Ranum
Speak for yourself.
mjr./J_C