Happy Anniversary! 30 Years of Email Spam

This week marks the first known spam email that was sent 30 years ago on Saturday. But the message sent on May 3, 1978 by a marketer for the now defunct DEC computer company to around 400 people on the west coast of the United States wasn't called spam, and the sender dispatched it without ill intent.
How things have changed. For one, instead of having to type each email address individually, programs can send out millions of automated emails in minutes.
Another drastic change is that spammers don't have to try to find ISPs to send spam. Now botnets, hijacked personal and office PCs that carry out remote commands, have control of some 30% of PCs. Yes, thats probably you, blog reader that still uses IE version 5.5 or earlier. See my post from Feb of 2007.

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