<nettime> The Curse of Spam, Historicized

["Bruce Sterling" <bruces@well.com>]

This is http://keithlynch.net/spamline.html

Here is Keith Lynch's timeline of spam-related events, terms,
concepts, people, and sites, according to DejaNews and my own
archives.  There is more about e-mail spam than usenet spam, since I'm
more interested in battling the former.  Plenty isn't on here simply
because it would be a hassle to search for it, e.g. when various
spam-related lawsuits were started or won.  Gradual transitions are
also of course not shown, even though they're more important than
anything that is shown.  For instance the fact that there are
finally no major sites which allow spamming, which knowingly host
spamvertised web pages, or which tell complainers to register on the
spammer's remove list.  No honest and rational person still advocates
remove lists.  Please e-mail me (kfl@keithlynch.net) any suggestions or
comments.  No spam please.

Year   Term
  Month

85  8  Chain letters via e-mail (quickly stamped out until 1993)

91  2  Craig Shergold wants cards
91  2  Craig Shergold doesn't want cards

93  6  The $5 -> $50,000 chain letter on news, some titled MAKE.MONEY.FAST
93  9  The $5 -> $50,000 chain letter on news mentioning Dave Rhodes

94  3  "MMF" (any chain letter, after classic subject line
"MAKE.MONEY.FAST")
94  3  unsolicited commercial e-mail (now called e-mail spam)
94  4  The "green card lawyers" (Canter & Siegel) newsgroup spam
94  4  "spam" (meaning mass sending of netnews)
94 11  CancelMoose
94 12  "spam" (meaning mass sending of mail to legitimate mailing lists)
94 12  The "good times" e-mail virus hoax

95  1  "Krazy" Kevin Lipsitz (notorious newsgroup spammer)
95  3  "velveeta" (crossposting an article to too many newsgroups)
95  4  "Briedbart Index" to decide which newsgroup posts are spam
95  4  Jeff Slaton (notorious spammer, "the Spam King")
95  5  Floodgate (spamware)
95  5  news.admin.net-abuse newsgroup
95  6  "spamvertise" (to advertise via spam)
95  6  "spamware" (spamming software)
95  6  UDP (Usenet Death Penalty -- all newsgroup postings from site are
nuked)
95  7  "spam" (meaning mass sending of mail to all addresses one can
scrounge)
95  7  NoCeM
95  8  Sanford Wallace (uber-spammer -- cyberpromo, savetrees, ispam,
       answerme, spamford, etc)
95  8  List of 2 million e-mail addresses offered for sale
95 10  abuse@ addresses
95 11  "remove list" (the first (?) of many that were intended to be
universal)
95 11  "LART"
95 11  Cyber Promotions, aka CyberPromo (notorious spam outfit)

96  1  "rogue domain"
96  1  Freedom Knights ("anti-censorship" pro-spam group)
96  3  Spamblocks (e.g. REMOVE.TO.REPLY) added to addesses to foil spammers
96  3  Yuri Rutman (notorious spammer)
96  4  "UCE" (meaning Unsolicited Commercial E-mail)
96  4  Lightning Bolt (spamware)
96  4  X-No-Archive: header lines
96  5  Walt Rines (notorious spammer -- Quantcom, IEMMC, etc)
96  6  IDP (Internet Death Penalty -- all packets from site are nuked)
96  6  Whack-a-Mole (spammers who quickly lose accounts but keep reappearing
       at different sites)
96  7  "spamhaus" (a spamming site)
96  7  news.admin.net-abuse.email newsgroup
96  7  List of 7 million e-mail addresses offered for sale
96  8  "UBE" (meaning Unsolicited Bulk E-mail)
96  9  "Spamford" (nickname for uber-spammer Sanford Wallace)
96  9  "munging" (another term for spamblocking)
96 10  "spamblock"
96 10  Ready-Aim-Fire (spamware)
96 10  List of 11 million e-mail addresses offered for sale
96 11  "Four Reports" chain letter mentioning Christopher Erickson
96 11  "Teergrube" (a relay which discards everything) proposed
96 12  Dave Mustachi (notorious spammer -- Floodgate spamware)
96 12  Earthstar (rogue domain)
96 12  Nancynet (rogue domain)
96 12  E-mail Blaster (spamware)

97  1  Quantcom (rogue domain)
97  1  Extractor Pro (spamware)
97  3  "open relay"
97  3  Dan Huffnal (notorious spammer)
97  3  Stealth (spamware)
97  4  IEMMC (e-mail spammers' organization, claimed to have "universal"
       remove list)
97  5  CAUCE (an organization that favors a law banning UCE but not UBE)
97  5  Smith bill (would ban UCE but not UBE)
97  6  Spam hearings at the FTC
97  6  "SMTP hijacking" (first use was apparently in a message from *me*)
97  6  "relay rape"
97  6  List of 31 million e-mail addresses offered for sale
97  6  abuse-email@ and abuse-news@ addresses
97  7  "Picklejar" (nickname for spammer Walt Rines)
97  7  mallet (weapon metaphorically used against spammers)
97  7  BulkMate (spamware)
97  7  List of 57 million e-mail addresses offered for sale
97  8  "relay hijacking"
97  8  Goldrush (spamware)
97  9  "Four Reports" chain letter mentioning Karen Liddell
97  9  E-mail Platinum (spamware)
97 10  AGIS (last major spam-friendly site) kicks off CyberPromo, Quantcom,
       Nancynet, and other spammers.  IEMMC dead.  Whack-a-Mole epoch
begins.
97 10  Joe Melle (notorious spammer -- NOIC, TSF-industries, etc)
97 10  RBL (Realtime Blackhole List) of spam sites, run by Paul Vixie
97 10  Golden Mallet award
97 12  List of 80 million e-mail addresses offered for sale

98  1  "E-Rage" (what spammers claim spam opponents suffer from)
98  1  "Lumber Cartel" (what spammers claim spam opponents are being
       paid by)
98  2  Rapidfire (spamware)
98  3  Express Mail Server (spamware)
98  3  remove-list.com (yet another "universal" remove list, was
       finally disconnected in September but is still (10/98) often being
       touted in spams).
98  4  ISOC (Internet Society) meeting on spam
98  4  Netcom (last major holdout) finally agrees to stop hosting
       spamvertised web sites
98  6  "Murking" (spamming while citing the proposed Murkowski
       spam law as "proof" that this spam is ok).
98  7  HyperOrbit (spamware)
98  7  List of 91 million e-mail addresses offered for sale
98  8  "404 compliant" said of a spammer's web page which has been
       deleted, analogous to murkers claiming to be "301 compliant"
98 10  SAFEeps, yet another universal remove list.  Sigh.
98 11  Dotless numeric web sites (e.g. http://3448157907/xx12),
       to make tracing harder.

99 11  DMA announces a new global remove list (e-mps.org).  Idiots.

Also see the "official" news.admin.net-abuse jargon file:

http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ip/freenet/subs/complaints/spam/jargon.txt

and my net timeline http://keithlynch.net/timeline.html
which is similar to this page but without the focus on spam.

Last updated November 25th, 1999

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