Spam Turns 30

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Spam Turns 30

Apr 25, 2008 10:20 AM PST | Comments: 2

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Thirty years ago next week, Gary Thuerk, a marketer at the now-defunct computer firm Digital Equipment Corporation, sent an email to 393 users of Arpanet, the US government-run computer network that eventually became the internet. It was the first spam email ever. That commercial message, sent on 3 May 1978, drew a swift and negative reaction. Recipients complained directly to Thuerk, who had made no attempt to hide his identity, and DEC was reprimanded by the Arpanet administrators.

Nevertheless, the email was a portent of things to come. Today, spam makes up 80 to 90% of all emails sent — around 120 billion messages per day — and is a multi-billion dollar industry.

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#1 | By J.D. Falk | Apr 25, 08 @10:55 am PST

Why is that first DEC spam always mentioned? There wasn’t a straight line from Gary to the modern botnet operators — there was really only a tiny trickle of impoliteness between 1978 and 1994. Today’s spammers have almost nothing in common with the spammers of ten years ago, much less thirty years ago.

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#2 | By Larry Seltzer | Apr 25, 08 @06:54 pm PST

When was the first botnet? That I’d like to know.

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