Comments on: Spam at 30. Happy birthday, sort of

It was 30 years ago today (I'm sure you're familiar with that refrain) but it wasn't about the music. Spam made its first unwelcome appearance via e-mail on this date.

[wango2007]

1978? No email as we know it then. The university/military people must have been spamming each other. I doubt this anniversary year is a valid one.

[rapier1]

yes there was email and email as we know it. Go read RFC 706 published in 1975 by Jon Postel. Sure, Arpanet wasne't nearly the size of the internet as we know now it but by 1978 it had most of the foundational characteristics of the modern Internet.

[charlie cooper]

via arpanet...a sales guy named Gary Thuerk sent out the message " "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." that was on May 3, 1978.

[My-Self]

Here are the 100 spammers responsible for more than 80% of all the spam volume :
http://www.spamhaus.org/Rokso/

Spam still exists because there is no political will to stop it, and now that antispam products are an established category making more money globally than the spammers + spam support services, we see conflicting interests and a decreasing will to remedy the problem. In the meantime, the scourge still causes millions of hours in lost productivity, consumer confusion and lack of trust for all online businesses.