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Cyhist Sep 20, 1997 A
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========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 17:46:16 -0700
Reply-To: les@cs.stanford.edu
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Les Earnest <les@STEAM.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Re: history of spam (was history of acceptable use)
In-Reply-To: <199709191932.MAA04754@Steam.Stanford.EDU> (message from Peter
van Heusden on Fri, 19 Sep 1997 07:56:45 +0200)
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
>Spamming is a new development of the past two or three years. It developed after the web, not before.
It was actually about 20 years earlier. The first really gross piece of spam that I recall receiving was in the mid-1970s, from a DEC salesman who had just discovered the network. He sent a short invitation to a demonstration of some new equipment to an enormous list of people and foolishly included the names of all addressees in the message header, which was about six pages long. Remember that in that era nearly everyone read email on printing terminals rather than displays.
After a few hundred people sent him nasty email, he "rectified" this blunder by spamming an apology to the same list.
-Les Earnest
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: les@cs.stanford.edu
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Les Earnest <les@STEAM.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Re: history of spam (was history of acceptable use)
In-Reply-To: <199709191932.MAA04754@Steam.Stanford.EDU> (message from Peter
van Heusden on Fri, 19 Sep 1997 07:56:45 +0200)
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
>Spamming is a new development of the past two or three years. It developed after the web, not before.
It was actually about 20 years earlier. The first really gross piece of spam that I recall receiving was in the mid-1970s, from a DEC salesman who had just discovered the network. He sent a short invitation to a demonstration of some new equipment to an enormous list of people and foolishly included the names of all addressees in the message header, which was about six pages long. Remember that in that era nearly everyone read email on printing terminals rather than displays.
After a few hundred people sent him nasty email, he "rectified" this blunder by spamming an apology to the same list.
-Les Earnest
______________________________________________________________________
