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Newsgroup spam is a type of spam where the targets are Usenet newsgroups. Image File history File links Merge-arrow. ... This article is about electronic spam. ... Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name. ... A newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users at different locations. ...

Spamming of Usenet newsgroups actually pre-dates e-mail spam. The first widely recognized Usenet spam (though not the most famous) was posted on January 18, 1994 by Clarence L. Thomas IV, a sysadmin at Andrews University.^[1][2] Entitled "Global Alert for All: Jesus is Coming Soon",^[3] it was a fundamentalist religious tract claiming that "this world's history is coming to a climax." The newsgroup posting bot Serdar Argic also appeared in early 1994, posting tens of thousands of messages to various newsgroups, consisting of identical copies of a political screed relating to the Armenian Genocide. E-mail spam, also known as bulk e-mail or junk e-mail is a subset of spam that involves sending nearly identical messages to numerous recipients by e-mail. ... is the 18th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1994 (MCMXCIV) The year 1994 was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by the United Nations. ... The term system administrator (abbreviation: sysadmin) designates a job position of engineers involved in computer systems. ... Aerial view of Andrews University. ... Fundamentalist Christianity is a fundamentalist movement, especially within American Protestantism. ... Internet bots, also known as web robots, WWW robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the internet. ... Serdar Argic was the alias used in one of the first automated newsgroup spam incidents on Usenet, with the objective of denying the Armenian Genocide. ... Armenian Genocide photo. ...

The first commercial Usenet spam,^[4][2] and the one which is often (mistakenly) claimed to be the first Usenet spam of any sort, was an advertisement for legal services entitled "Green Card Lottery - Final One?".^[5] It was posted in April 1994 by Arizona lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, and hawked legal representation for United States immigrants seeking papers ("green cards"). Year 1994 (MCMXCIV) The year 1994 was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by the United Nations. ... 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. ... Immigration is the act of moving to or settling in another country or region, temporarily or permanently. ... A United States Permanent Resident Card (green card) A United States Permanent Resident Card, also green card, is an identification card attesting the permanent resident status of an alien in the United States of America. ...

Usenet convention defines spamming as excessive multiple posting, that is, the repeated posting of a message (or substantially similar messages). During the early 1990s there was substantial controversy among Usenet system administrators (news admins) over the use of cancel messages to control spam. A cancel message is a directive to news servers to delete a posting, causing it to be inaccessible to those who might read it. Some regarded this as a bad precedent, leaning towards censorship, while others considered it a proper use of the available tools to control the growing spam problem. For the band, see 1990s (band). ... A system administrator, or sysadmin, is a person employed to maintain, and operate a computer system or network. ... For other uses, see Censor. ...

A culture of neutrality towards content precluded defining spam on the basis of advertisement or commercial solicitations. The word "spam" was usually taken to mean excessive multiple posting (EMP), and other neologisms were coined for other abuses — such as "velveeta" (from the processed cheese product) for excessive cross-posting.^[6] A subset of spam was deemed cancellable spam, for which it is considered justified to issue third-party cancel messages.^[7] A neologism is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (or coined), often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. ...

In the late 1990s, spam became used as a means of vandalising newsgroups, with malicious users committing acts of sporgery to make targeted newsgroups all but unreadable without heavily filtering. A prominent example occurred in alt.religion.scientology. Another known example is the Meow Wars. For the band, see 1990s (band). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The newsgroup alt. ... The Meow Wars is often considered one of the largest Usenet flame wars of all time. ...

Prevalent in recent times is the MI-5 Persecution spam, which is well known across many, many newsgroups. These rambling postings often appear as clusters of 20 or more messages with varying subjects and content, but all related to Mike Corley's perceived surveillance of himself by MI5, the British intelligence agency. These rambling messages used to state the originator as MI5Victim@mi5.gov.uk. Lately (December 2007) the spammer has taken to altering the "from" address and subject line in an attempt to get past newsgroup "kill" filters. This UK-based spammer readily admits that he has mental illness in several of his postings.

The prevalence of Usenet spam led to the development of the Breidbart Index as an objective measure of a message's "spamminess". The use of the BI and spam-detection software has led to Usenet being policed by anti-spam volunteers, who purge newsgroups of spam by sending cancels and filtering it out on the way into servers. This very active form of policing has meant that Usenet is a far less attractive target to spammers than it used to be, and most of the industrial-scale spammers have now moved into e-mail spam instead. The Breidbart Index, developed by Seth Breidbart [1], provides a measure of severity of newsgroup spam. ... E-mail spam, also known as bulk e-mail or junk e-mail is a subset of spam that involves sending nearly identical messages to numerous recipients by e-mail. ...

References

1. ^ Templeton, Brad. Origin of the term "spam" to mean net abuse. Retrieved on 2006-07-11.
2. ^ ^{a b} 20 Year Archive on Google Groups. Google (2003). Retrieved on 2006-07-11.
3. ^ http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9401191510.AA18576%40jse.stat.ncsu.edu
4. ^ History of Spam. Mailmsg.com. Retrieved on 2006-07-11.
5. ^ http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=2odj9q%2425q%40herald.indirect.com
6. ^ velveeta
7. ^ FAQ: Current Usenet spam thresholds and guidelines

Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 192nd day of the year (193rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 192nd day of the year (193rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 192nd day of the year (193rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

• Sporgery