At 12:55 PM 5/9/97 -0300, Kate Healey wrote:
>>...what exactly does 'spam' mean?
 
And at 09:49 AM 5/9/97 -0400, David Johnson replied:
 
>
>When one posts a message to multiple usenet newsgroups and publicly
>[snip]
 
I totally agree with this assessment of the potential threat to the net. If
ignored or left to it's own design, spam will only get worse to the
detriment of the entire network. We should all become more aware of the
problem and the ways of stopping it.
 
The so-called "traditional" definition of "usenet" spam as somehow
technically distinct from other kinds of spam is a bit anachronistic
anymore. It also largely appropriates the obscure origins of the term from
the world of MUDs ("Multi-User Domain" or originally "Multi-User Dungeon"
games)into the narrow confines of uunet. But in practice the name 'spam' is
applied to all forms of unsolicited electronic messages, including faxes.
 
It is also a mistake to equate junk email with junk snail mail. The costs
for spam are borne entirely by the receiver (ISP's, the network, you and I),
whereas in the case of bulk snail-mail, the majority of the costs are paid
for by the commercial advertiser. That is what is so attractive about
internet spam! The only real costs that spammers experience is the mass of
complaints they receive. Because of this, spammers have expended a great
deal of time and effort to protect themselves, disguising their points of
origin, utilizing fraudulent return addresses, employing multiple ISP's,
bouncing broadcast mailings off of throw-away accounts, injecting and
relaying spam from weakly administered internet providers, and perfecting
bulk email and filtering programs to better deliver their junk and protect
their identities.
 
The greatest spam threat in recent years hasn't come from the "red light" or
"black pages" district of the web, but from the consolidated spam companies
like Cyber Promotions (Sanford Wallace's spamming domain) and ISP spam
havens like AGIS (Apex Global Information Services, Inc.) which broadcast
massive amounts of unsolicited commercial email (UCE). (Correct me if I'm
wrong, but the term "black pages" seems a bit misplaced here since I think
the practice originated in the early protest against the CDA - the
Communications Decency Act of 1966 in the U.S. - and shouldn't necessarily
equate negatively on web content). At any rate, the web is involved only in
certain ways with the spamming problem, namely, the harvesting of email
addresses, and we shouldn't simply consider a web page's commercial
advertisement as spam.
 
>For more information on spam, and the internet itself, check out Patrick
>Crispen's Internet Roadmap, available on many servers (not spam, but
>satellites). I like MIT's at
>
>http://www.its.rmit.edu.au/publications/Roadmap/welcome.html
>
 
Some of my favorite links related to the definition of "spam:"
 
 
"What is Spam?" in "Remember! Only YOU Can Prevent Spammage Fires!" at -
 
        http://www.mall-net.com/spamfaq.html
 
 
The Net Abuse FAQ: "2.1) What is Spam?" at -
 
        http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html#2.1
 
... and "2.4) Where did the term 'Spam' come from?" at -
 
        http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html#2.4
 
 
Scott Hazen Mueller's "What is spam?" at -
 
        http://spam.abuse.net/spam//whatisspam.html
 
 
The Netizen's Guide to Spam, Abuse, and Internet Advertising's "What is
SPAM?" at -
 
        http://com.primenet.com/spamking/whatispam.html
 
Cheers,
 
--Lenny__