What is the first spam sent?

Marketer Gary Thork usually sends his first unsolicited email on May 3, 1978. He was not well received, but confirmed that he did not make any mistakes. Currently, spam accounts for 53% of all emails.

Thuerk had written this ominous letter on May 1, but it didn't stop until two days later (this is why the email copy shows the previous date). I have sent it to about 400 people using ARPANET, an early introduction to the Internet, mainly used by scientists and researchers.

The purpose of the letter was to sell the computer to DEC, an East Coast company that tried to establish a business on the West Coast. The company's latest computer immediately provides ARPANET support, and Thuerk believes Arpanet users will like this feature.

This is part of the email (yes, it's all capitalized):

DIGITAL will introduce the newest members of the DECSSTEM-20 series; DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060 and 2060T. The DECSYSTEM-20 series computer was developed from the DECSYSTEM-10 computer architecture of the TENEX ND operating system. The DECSYSTEM-2060T and 2020 T provide full support for the ARPANET system within the TOPS-20 operating system.

[...]

We invite you to visit 2020 and this month we will learn about DECSSTEM-20 in two product demonstrations in California.

Arpanet users responded immediately and were annoyed that the message took up a lot of space. Some people question whether ARPANET's advertising is ethical, and some of them are uncomfortable with their lack of inclusion in the original information - the conversation is a huge point of conversation for online users, so some people think they are ignored.

Although mainly a negative reaction, Thuerk successfully sold several computers.

"The whole idea is to tell as many people as possible - any other way - to call and write real information - will be more expensive and time consuming," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2003.

"I am a pioneer," he pointed out. “I saw a new way of doing things.”

However, he decided not to pursue the ARPANET strategy and feared that his clients would suffer from a public relations disaster. The network has not spam for many years.

Of course, this has changed. Commercial email advertisements were common in the early 1990s, but they were not called "spam." Project manager Joel Furr was the first to use the term to cite ads, but he pointed out that the term has been widely used in chat forums.

“In the early days of the Internet, the use of the Internet was mainly limited to people working in universities or students in them,” Furr told NPR. “As a college student, we all know Monty Python.”

In those days, the chat room was very confusing.

“Every writing is a lot of people,” Farr explained. “When you have 100 or more people who sign up for these systems at the same time, it can be difficult to follow what people write.” It’s like being in a room, everyone says it once, so when you get real online When the noise is over, someone will eventually start typing, spam, spam, spam, spam..."

This is a reference to a monty Python sketch where a man tries to order a meal at the restaurant; the chef gives him a menu of meals, all of which include unwanted meat products.

Farr said he was the first to use this term to refer to group ads on the USENET team; it quickly became a shortcut to any type of unwanted advertising and eventually became the word "spam."

Although the spam prevention program has improved, most of us still browse through unnecessary advertisements while checking emails every day. We can thank Thuerk for starting this trend - and Furr brings us the terminology.