Spam Gets Older. Turns 30 On May 2nd!
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According to a Wikipedia entry following RSS Awareness Day, It is the 30th birthday of annoying SPAM. As spam turns 30 on May 2nd I would like to share with you how it all started. Way back in May 1978, Kurt Kleiner of NewScientistTech reminds us that it was Gary Thuerk, a marketer at the now-defunct computer firm Digital Equipment Corporation who started it. He sent the world’s first spam to the 393 users of ARPANET, the original version of the Internet. Though it is not clear that whether it was May 2nd or May 3rd but Wikipedia entry it was on May 2nd. For a marketing pitch Gary mailed the following message to the 393 users:
DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T. THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX OPERATING SYSTEM
AND THE DECSYSTEM-10 <PDP-10> COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE. BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T
AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM.
THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040
AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYSTEM-2020 IS A NEW LOW END MEMBER OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AND FULLY SOFTWARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 MODELS.
WE INVITE YOU TO COME SEE THE 2020 AND HEAR ABOUT THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY
AT THE TWO PRODUCT PRESENTATIONS WE WILL BE GIVING IN CALIFORNIA THIS
MONTH. THE LOCATIONS WILL BE:
TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1978 – 2 PM
HYATT HOUSE (NEAR THE L.A. AIRPORT)
LOS ANGELES, CA
THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1978 – 2 PM
DUNFEY’S ROYAL COACH
SAN MATEO, CA
(4 MILES SOUTH OF S.F. AIRPORT AT BAYSHORE, RT 101 AND RT 92)
A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW. ALSO TERMINALS ON-LINE TO OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 SYSTEMS THROUGH THE ARPANET. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND,
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT THE NEAREST DEC OFFICE
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXCITING DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY.
Though the mail received mix reactions from the users but it did result in some sales. Since then the Spam was born. Today Spamming is a multi billion dollar industry. Millions of spam mails are sent and received by the users around the world. When spam was considered as threat, many companies came up with a concept of spam protection e-mail services. In the beginning it proved to be of some use. But later on it was the spammers who won the battle. They became much intelligent. They started using different ways to tackle the filters. Today spam can be seen every where. Spammers have surely become more innovative. They target that space where they are sure of hitting maximum users and social networking sites like twitter, orkut, etc. are one of the examples.
Anti spammers are working hard to eradicate this problem but so far none of them has been 100% successful in doing it. But still hope floats. May be one day we may see the internet free from spam.
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