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1978: First bulk commercial email (Spam)

 

The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as "spam") is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.

 

:thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

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abarbarian
On May 3rd, 1978, a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) marketing representative named Gary Thuerk and a DEC engineer named Carl Gartley sent what many believe to be the first email spam. (The message was dated May 1st, but sent on May 3rd.) It advertised two events in California promoting the new DECsystem-20, the first DEC computer capable of connecting easily to the ARPAnet, predecessor to the internet. The message was addressed (by hand) to every ARPAnet user on the West Coast of the United States that they could find, but ran into an unexpected limit: the mail program would only accept 320 addresses. The rest of the addresses bled into the body of the message, and some recipients forwarded it on.

 

And while it's true that the first bulk unsolicited commercial email was sent in 1978, there are stories of non-commercial mass messaging going back much further — such as the MIT user who transmitted, in 1971, the words "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way." Perhaps we should consider that the first Tweet?

 

http://www.cauce.org/2011/05/33-years.html

 

 

"The message was addressed (by hand)" :w00tx100: :worthy:

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