The Dawn of Spam

A possible 19th century mass telegraph

In the late 19th Century Western Union allowed telegraphic messages on its network to be sent to multiple destinations. Up until the Great Depression wealthy North American residents would be deluged with nebulous investment offers. This problem never fully emerged in Europe to the degree that it did in the Americas, because telegraphy was regulated by national post offices in the European region. Image File history File links Telegraphspam. ... Image File history File links Telegraphspam. ... The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. ... The Great Depression was an economic downturn which started in 1929 (although its effects were not fully felt until late 1930) and lasted through most of the 1930s. ...

History of Internet "spam" (1978-Present)

The earliest documented spam was sent in 1978, by Gary Thuerk. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Gary Thuerk was the worlds first spammer. ...

Although spamming has existed on the Internet since as early as 1978, the first major spamming incidents didn't take place until the early 1990s. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... See also 1990s, the band Germans dancing on the Berlin Wall in late 1989, the symbol of the cold war divide falls down as the world unites in the 1990s. ...

Spamming began becoming a major problem at the same time that the Internet began its exponential mainstream expansion in 1993 (also known as Eternal September). 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... Eternal September (also Great September, September that never ended, perpetual September, or endless September) is a Usenet slang expressions for the period of time beginning September 1993. ...

Origin of the term "spam"

The term spam is widely believed to have derived from the SPAM sketch of the BBC television comedy series "Monty Python's Flying Circus". Terry Jones, Eric Idle, and Graham Chapman in the Monty Python skit Spam. Spam is a popular Monty Python sketch, first broadcast in 1970. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of £4 billion. ... Monty Python, or The Pythons, is the collective name of the creators of Monty Pythons Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. ...

The sketch features a small restaurant in which every item on the menu includes SPAM canned meat, and a chorus of Vikings drowning out all conversation with a song consisting almost entirely of the word "SPAM". Hormel Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. ... The name Viking is a loan from the native Scandinavian term for the Norse seafaring warriors who raided the coasts of Scandinavia, Europe and the British Isles from the late 8th century to the 11th century, the period of European history referred to as the Viking Age. ...

• Make money fast
• Serdar Argic
• Canter & Siegel
• The net.kooks
• UUnet and the Usenet Death Penalty
• Sanford Wallace
• Spam attacks and sporgery
• Spam King
• Conviction of spammers to jail, see e.g. Howard Carmack

Make money fast was a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter which became so famous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-mail spam or Usenet newsgroups. ... Serdar Argic was the alias used in one of the first automated spamming incidents on Usenet. ... Laurence A. Canter (born June 24, 1953) and Martha S. Siegel (April 9, 1948-2000) were a husband-and-wife firm of lawyers who on April 12, 1994 posted the first massive commercial Usenet spam. ... A net. ... UUNET Technologies Logo Post-WorldCom UUNET Logo UUNET is one of the oldest and largest Internet Service Provider. ... On Usenet, the Usenet Death Penalty (or UDP) is a final penalty that may be issued against Internet service providers or single users who produce too much spam. ... Sanford Wallace is a spammer who came to notoriety in 1997, promoting himself as the original Spam King. ... Sporgery is the disruptive act of posting a flood of articles to a Usenet newsgroup, with the article headers falsified so that they appear to have been posted by others. ... Howard Carmack (also known as the Buffalo Spammer) was the first spammer, i. ...

References

• History
  • Reaction to the DEC Spam of 1978 Overview and text of the first known internet email spam.