Richard Nantel

This coming week will mark the 30th anniversary of the birth of e-mail spam. According to technology writer Brad Templeton, the first spam message was sent on May 3, 1978, by a Gary Thuerk to 320 e-mail Arpanet addresses and read as follows:

DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T. THE DEC SYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX OPERATING SYSTEM AND THE DECSYSTEM-10 <PDP-10> COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE. BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM.

THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040 AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYSTEM-2020 IS A NEW LOW END MEMBER OF THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AND FULLY SOFTWARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER DECSYSTEM-20 MODELS.

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. THE LOCATIONS WILL BE:

TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1978 – 2 PM
HYATT HOUSE (NEAR THE L.A. AIRPORT)
LOS ANGELES, CA

THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1978 – 2 PM
DUNFEY’S ROYAL COACH
SAN MATEO, CA
(4 MILES SOUTH OF S.F. AIRPORT AT BAYSHORE, RT 101 AND RT 92)

A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW. ALSO TERMINALS ON-LINE TO OTHER DECSYSTEM-20 SYSTEMS THROUGH THE ARPANET. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT THE NEAREST DEC OFFICE. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXCITING DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY.

Apparently, old DEC computer keyboards didn’t have a way to turn off caps lock.

Many recipients responded and were not pleased with the commercial nature of the DEC e-mail. One respondent wrote:

ON 2 MAY 78 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION (DEC) SENT OUT AN ARPANET MESSAGE ADVERTISING THEIR NEW COMPUTER SYSTEMS. THIS WAS A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE USE OF ARPANET AS THE NETWORK IS TO BE USED FOR OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ONLY. APPROPRIATE ACTION IS BEING TAKEN TO PRECLUDE ITS OCCURRENCE AGAIN.

You can read other responses to this first spam message here.

Today, commercial spam accounts for an estimated 80-90 percent of all e-mail traffic.

More about the history of spam is available here.

I must be doing a great job. Why else would I receive more than 800 offers of employment via e-mail in a single day? I’m certain that’s more than Steve Jobs, Al Gore, and Warren Buffett get in a month, combined.

The 800+ e-mails that arrived in my in-box yesterday morning contained variations of the following subject lines:

• Become employed today in a respectable international company and reach financial success (no investment required).
• High-paid positions in a large successful company are waiting for talented candidates (no sign-up fees).
• Home-based employment opportunities for talented people. No investment needed, no sign-up fees.

Although I’m careful not to post my Brandon Hall Research e-mail address on the Web, it has been harvested by the worst of the mega spammers. These spammers use cheap but sophisticated mailing software that obscures their IP and e-mail addresses and changes the message dynamically to stay one step ahead of spam filters.

To deal with the onslaught, I’ve had to turn up the level of spam filtering on my e-mail account. No longer are spam messages simply flagged as ***SPAM*** in the subject line. Now, they’re deleted on the mail server before they get to my in-box.

The problem with this solution is that, in the past, one legitimate message in a few hundred would be accidentally flagged as spam. I’d find it a few days later in my spam folder, drowning in a sea of offers for mortgage financing, cheap meds, and lonely girls. Consequently, there’s now a real likelihood that I’ll no longer receive the occasional legitimate e-mail.

It doesn’t look like we’ll be abandoning e-mail any time soon. In fact, more and more mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs are adding e-mail capability. Spammers have fertile new grounds to invade.

According to a recent article on Information Age titled Productivity Drain,

“…during one 24 hour period in 2007, Postini saw data volumes of e-mail traffic hit 17 terabytes, 93 percent of which was spam. The costs associated with managing such colossal volumes in-house are sky-rocketing, with IT security market analysts at Ferris Research predicting that the global cost of spam in 2007 will double to reach $100 billion.“

I’d love to give up e-mail. It’s clearly the killer app gone bad.

One of the benefits I’m seeing to using social networks for work, learning, and leisure is that messaging is controlled and limited to only my contacts. Whereas increasingly I dread opening my e-mail client to check e-mail, I open Facebook knowing that only people I know will be contacting me.

Some organizations have been blocking their employees’ access to social networks in fear that the networks will negatively affect productivity. It seems to me that these platforms instead provide an effective way to wean ourselves off e-mail, raise our productivity, and reduce expenses related to managing spam.