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. ===History=== The earliest documented spam (although the term had not yet been coined) 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.
Spamming has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions. A person who creates spam is called a spammer. ==Etymology== The term spam is derived from the 1970 "Spam" sketch of the BBC television comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus.
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. ===History=== The earliest documented spam (although the term had not yet been coined) 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.
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!". 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.
The word was also attributed to the flood of "Make Money Fast" messages that clogged many newsgroups during the 1990s.
Reaction from the net community was fiercely negative, but the spam did generate some sales. Spamming had been practiced as a prank by participants in multi-user dungeon games, to fill their rivals' accounts with unwanted electronic junk. The first major commercial spam incident started on March 5, 1994, when a husband and wife team of lawyers, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, began using bulk Usenet posting to advertise immigration law services.
The couple wrote a controversial book entitled How to Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway. An early example of nonprofit fundraising bulk posting via Usenet also occurred in 1994 on behalf of CitiHope, an NGO attempting to raise funds to rescue children at risk during the Bosnian War.
Attorney Laurence Canter was disbarred by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1997 for sending prodigious amounts of spam advertising his immigration law practice.
In 1998, the New Oxford Dictionary of English, which had previously only defined "spam" in relation to the trademarked food product, added a second definition to its entry for "spam": "Irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of newsgroups or users." There was also an effort to differentiate between types of newsgroup spam.
His email efforts were said to make up more than a third of all Internet email being sent from 1999 until 2002. Sanford Wallace and Cyber Promotions were the target of a string of lawsuits, many of which were settled out of court, up through a 1998 Earthlink settlement that put Cyber Promotions out of business.
His email efforts were said to make up more than a third of all Internet email being sent from 1999 until 2002. Sanford Wallace and Cyber Promotions were the target of a string of lawsuits, many of which were settled out of court, up through a 1998 Earthlink settlement that put Cyber Promotions out of business.
By and large, this request is obeyed in forums that discuss spam. ==Cost–benefit analyses== The European Union's Internal Market Commission estimated in 2001 that "junk email" cost Internet users €10 billion per year worldwide.
Smith in 2001 for his role in founding the modern spam industry which dealt billions in economic damage and established thousands of spammers into the industry.
Although less prevalent than its e-mail counterpart, according to a report from Ferris Research, 500 million spam IMs were sent in 2003, twice the level of 2002. ===Newsgroup and forum=== Newsgroup spam is a type of spam where the targets are Usenet newsgroups.
His email efforts were said to make up more than a third of all Internet email being sent from 1999 until 2002. Sanford Wallace and Cyber Promotions were the target of a string of lawsuits, many of which were settled out of court, up through a 1998 Earthlink settlement that put Cyber Promotions out of business.
Although less prevalent than its e-mail counterpart, according to a report from Ferris Research, 500 million spam IMs were sent in 2003, twice the level of 2002. ===Newsgroup and forum=== Newsgroup spam is a type of spam where the targets are Usenet newsgroups.
Prosecutors allege that Soloway used millions of "zombie" computers to distribute spam during 2003.
In 2004, United States passed the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 that provided ISPs with tools to combat spam.
In 2003, he sold a list of approximately 93 million AOL subscriber e-mail addresses to Sean Dunaway who sold the list to spammers. In 2007, Robert Soloway lost a case in a federal court against the operator of a small Oklahoma-based Internet service provider who accused him of spamming.
The trial, which began on June 5, was the first to include charges under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, according to a release from the Department of Justice.
In 2004, United States passed the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 that provided ISPs with tools to combat spam.
dollars in June 2004.
A cultural and technological history Sjouwerman, Stu; Posluns, Jeffrey, "Inside the spam cartel: trade secrets from the dark side", Elsevier/Syngress; 1st edition, November 27, 2004.
In 2005, Jason Smathers, a former America Online employee, pleaded guilty to charges of violating the CAN-SPAM Act.
The specific law that prosecutors used under the CAN-Spam Act was designed to crack down on the transmission of pornography in spam. In 2005, Scott J.
It is the largest amount awarded in compensation in the United Kingdom since Roberts v Media Logistics case in 2005. Despite the statutory tort that is created by the Regulations implementing the EC Directive, few other people have followed their example.
It grew exponentially over the following years, and by 2007 it constituted about 80% to 85% of all e-mail, by a conservative estimate.
The California legislature found that spam cost United States organizations alone more than $13 billion in 2007, including lost productivity and the additional equipment, software, and manpower needed to combat the problem.
Some spam attempts to capitalize on human greed, while some attempts to take advantage of the victims' inexperience with computer technology to trick them (e.g., phishing). One of the world's most prolific spammers, Robert Alan Soloway, was arrested by US authorities on May 31, 2007.
In 2003, he sold a list of approximately 93 million AOL subscriber e-mail addresses to Sean Dunaway who sold the list to spammers. In 2007, Robert Soloway lost a case in a federal court against the operator of a small Oklahoma-based Internet service provider who accused him of spamming.
The judgment includes a statutory damages award of about $10 million under Oklahoma law. In June 2007, two men were convicted of eight counts stemming from sending millions of e-mail spam messages that included hardcore pornographic images.
This marked the first prosecution since the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act (UEMA) was passed in September 2007. The FTC said it had received more than three million complaints about spam messages connected to this operation, and estimated that it may be responsible for sending billions of illegal spam messages.
As the Courts engage in active case management, such cases would probably now be expected to be settled by mediation and payment of nominal damages. ===New Zealand=== In October 2008, an international internet spam operation run from New Zealand was cited by American authorities as one of the world's largest, and for a time responsible for up to a third of all unwanted e-mails.
Postal Service recently intercepted counterfeit checks, lottery tickets and eBay overpayment schemes with a value of $2.1 billion. In a 2009 opinion, Gordon v.
Dunne, Robert "Computers and the law: an introduction to basic legal principles and their application in cyberspace" Cambridge University Press, 2009.
A growing number of criminals are also using spam to perpetrate various sorts of fraud. ==Geographical origins== In 2011 the origins of spam were analyzed by Cisco Systems.
Brown, Bruce Cameron "How to stop e-mail spam, spyware, malware, computer viruses, and hackers from ruining your computer" Atlantic Publishing Group, 2011.
Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (MIT Press; 2013) 304 pages; $27.95).
All text is taken from Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License .
Page generated on 2021-08-05