Do you like spam? Clogging up your email inbox and making you waste time sorting through messages that are meant to waste your time or cause you harm. No, chances are you do not like spam. It is one of the oldest issues when it comes to computers and is perhaps one of the few issues that everyone can agree that they hate (except for the spammers that is). But have you ever wondered just how spam got its nickname?
As the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are in full force here in York, Pennsylvania we offer you a brief diversion from it. We hope that you enjoy this.
SPAM
You are probably saying it has something to do with Hormel’s canned pork product introduced in 1937 and made popular during World War II called SPAM. It was so popular that it even kept the Soviet army fed during the war as they ate over 100 million tons of it. After the war Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev later stated “without SPAM we would never have been able to feed our army.” So much for the greatness of Communism eh? Your grandparents probably enjoyed it too and it is still sold today but you are probably asking yourself what exactly it has to do with your email’s inbox since email did not exist then?
SPAM itself has nothing to do with your inbox but it is the reason that spam is called spam and for that we have Monty Python to thank.
Monty Python
We have to take you to 1970 with the British sketch comedy show Monty Python’s Flying Circus. In one of their sketches, called of course “Spam”, Eric Idle and Graham Chapman are trying to order breakfast in a restaurant that serves SPAM with everything. In typical Python fashion, Chapman’s cries for something different are drowned out by the SPAM song sung by a chorus dressed as Vikings after some hilarity done by Hungarian-speaking John Cleese. It was so popular it was released as its own record and included on their second album.
The sketch was done a year before Ray Tomlinson would even send the very first email over ARPANET. The Pythons also inspired Guido van Rossum who developed the programming language Python and named it in their honor and references appear frequently in the code including spam and eggs which replaces foo and bar.
OK, What Does That Have To Do With Email?
Of course, the Pythons did not intend for perhaps their greatest legacy to be giving a name to something that we all hate. When the first usage of the word spam came about is difficult to determine and several different theories abound.
One possibly came in the early 1980s on an early chat system called Relay when a user would hop on, post annoying text (like the lyrics to the SPAM song) and promptly leave. Another possibility came in 1993 when a Usenet moderator was toying around with new moderation software and accidentally posted the same message 200 times. One of the users called it spam in his own post and the moderator apologized, also calling it spam.
The first actual use may have been in 1990 on a multi-user dungeon, an early multi-person shared environment where users could interact with each other and share things with the community. It reminded people of Dungeons and Dragons and its name was derived from that, not an actual dungeon. Random users would just start flooding the system with information or unwanted text and it became known as spamming the system. In perhaps the earliest documented case of the term spam, this happened while a group was ironically discussing the origins of the term spam for junk messages.
A Problem That Came With The Internet
As Internet connectivity reached the masses spammers found many new targets. Back then the problem with spam was even worse as bandwidth was limited so getting hit with spam messages or emails that took a long time to download was a huge issue. It was also one of the original nerd-war tactics where fans of say Star Trek would flood Star Wars chat rooms with random text making them unusable. Other terms that were tried to describe actions like this were trashing and flooding. Spamming sounds much better.
Spam became a popular term on Usenet and the first bots were used to send out spam emails in 1994. In the early days of the Internet this could be quite lucrative as Arizona immigration lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel found out when they bulk posted advertisements on Usenet for their services. They claimed free speech and it is believed that they reached over 30 million users, many of whom complained through faxes and phone calls to Usenet. The Siegels even wrote a book about it later though Canter and Siegel lost their practice.
They were of course not the first people to do something like that. In 1978 Gary Thurek sent an advertisement over ARPANET to 393 users advertising a new computer at his company, Digital Equipment Corporation. In fact, this practice dated back to the 19th century as the telegraph company Western Union allowed messages to be sent to multiple recipients. Quick thinking entrepreneurs sent their messages to as many rich people as they could meaning the first people to be victimized by spam did not even own a computer. Thurek’s stunt drew the ire of a lot of users though the company survived until 1998 when it was bought by Compaq and some of its products are still produced under the Hewlett-Packard line.
Spam Is Synonymous With Junk
The rise of the use of the term spam created a tough situation for Hormel. Their product was still popular around the world and in the US. Hawaiians love spam and it is served in all of the McDonald’s found on the island earning it the nickname Hawaiian Steak. It is so popular that Burger King followed suit so that they would not lose customers. SPAM stands for spiced ham which was picked through a naming contest won by the brother of Hormel’s then VP. He won $100 for his efforts.
SPAM itself is produced in Austin, Minnesota which also houses the SPAM Museum. Shady Cove, Oregon hosts an annual parade in the product’s honor and the annual SPAM Jam in Waikiki, Hawaii is coming up in April. Unfortunately the SPAMarama in Austin, Texas is no longer held. Hormel produces around 33,000 pounds of SPAM per year and comes in several different varieties. At one point a kosher version of the product was even made.
Hormel trademarked SPAM and says that the product itself should be spelled in uppercase letters. They actually did try to trademark “spam” and launched lawsuits against companies that used the term to stop its use with junk email or text but they were unsuccessful. Hormel was trying to avoid the situation that would arise one day when people would ask why they named their product after junk mail. Fortunately, Hormel has kept their humor about it after their legal failures and wound up sponsoring Eric Idle’s play Spamalot, which is based on the popular movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Spam Is A Problem
Spam continues to be a huge problem today, even with modern spam and junk filters. It is believed that as many as 14.5 billion spam emails are sent every single day or around 45% of all emails sent. Some researchers believe that the percentage may actually be as high as 70%. Advertising is the most common form of spam making up roughly 36% of all spam emails with adult-related emails coming in second at around 32% and financial spam coming in at around 26%. Scams and fraud only make up around 2% of all spam emails with most of that being phishing attempts.
It is believed that dealing with spam costs about $20 billion every year due to lost productivity and dealing with the fallout from what happens when people open the messages. That number is only expected to rise. China generated the most spam messages as of 2019 (about 20% of all spam) overtaking the US though these messages were targeted primarily at residents in the United States and South Korea the most.
So, now head out to the grocery store and purchase a few tins of SPAM. Be creative with it and see what tasty concoctions you can make (here’s a few to start). You can eat it while you clear your inbox of all of the spam messages. Whether or not you want to curse the names of any of the pioneers of spam is up to you but just remember, it’s not Monty Python’s fault.