Dirty 30: Happy Birthday, Spam

by jordan | May 4, 2008 at 12:09 pm | 219 views | 2 comments

Thirty years of spam. Yes, that makes spam older than most email applications. Sort of crushes your spirit, doesn't it?

Indeed, here at NowPublic, we get our share of spam, in the form of articles, comments, private messages (the spam-femmes seem to really like Barry Artiste), and emails to staff accounts.

Subject lines from my inbox within the past two hours:
OzTjMgwGyVbyd
laser treatment
chunky
VZdsykmKYTdc
Larger And Larger
... plus the odd (and I do mean odd) marriage proposal from random fictional ladies via private message. If you find spammage in your PM inbox, let us know. We'll clean out the fridge, as it were.

Oh Spam, my how you have grown! Thirty years ago, on this day, you came into the world as a little misguided e-mail sent by an equipment engineer over Arpanet to promote a new line of computers. You were quickly shot down by other Arpanet users who called it an "insult... to have an obvious commercial message sent out over a research network." Yet, at some point in time, people stopped protesting you loudly enough. Now you comprise 80 percent to 95 percent of all e-mail sent, your crafty trojans and pesky viruses have infected millions of computers, and you've cost IT departments nearly $200 billion to combat you.

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cynthia yoo

at 16:07 on May 4th, 2008

good stuff:

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Barry Artiste

at 16:46 on May 4th, 2008

good stuff:

Jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff.

You too Sir, are ever so kind in your Shakespearean endeavours in describing our share of Babe Mails to be sure. Perhaps it is our George Clooney good looks, with a rakish charming persona only equalled by a young Gaby Hayes, complete with swashbuckling "Devil may Care" attitudes of Johnny Depp seem to get the babes all a flustered, as we regale them with such stories of epic proportions, though our Codpiece Bravery in the Bedroom department knows no bounds. Our Bounds, are usually are stopped Dead in their Tracks, when tales of feminine Woo are followed with with Tales of Woe and the polite request for sharing of our Bank Account Numbers as a prerequisite of erotic delights to come. That Sir is when you and I agree to close our Smoky Bedroom eyes and avert our Gaze from the salacious womanly prose on our computer screen. Alas we, as Ab Rippled men, chisled jaws to remain firm, are again, relagated to be alone time and time again with our supposedly "Fat Bank Accounts" intact.

Certainly if I could be alone with the "Spammers All", I would bring a "Blanket Party Atmosphere " to them complete with New York Sized Telephone books to administer Internet Justice with extreme prejudice.