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Date: | Wed, 21 Sep 1994 10:53:48 PDT |
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REPLY TO 09/21/94 09:10 FROM [log in to unmask] "Museum discussion list":
What is spamming?
Erin McIntire and a number of other people have asked about the
meaning of the word "spam". "Spam" on *this* group seems to have
been used to mean simply an unwanted or irrelevant posting
(particularly a self-serving one). In the wider net community
though, spam refers to a type of malicious mischief often
directed at the perpetrators of irrelevant, self-serving postings
(like the lawyer who sent an ad to nearly every list on god's green
internet). (btw, imho, announcements of courses, workshops,
conferences related to the subject of a listserv aren't spamming:
they're what--among other things--a listserv's for.)
>From "Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (FOLDOC)"
A glossary of programming languages, architectures, networks,
domain theory, mathematics, in fact anything to do with
computing.
Copyright (c) Denis Howe 1993.
spam
[from the {MUD} community] vt. 1. To crash a program by
overrunning a fixed-size buffer with excessively large input
data. See also {buffer overflow}, {overrun screw}, {smash the
stack}. 2. To cause a newsgroup to be flooded with irrelevant
or inappropriate messages. You can spam a newsgroup with as
little as one well- (or ill-) planned message (e.g. asking
"What do you think of abortion?" on soc.women). This is often
done with {cross-post}ing (e.g. any message which is
crossposted to alt.rush-limbaugh and alt.politics.homosexuality
will almost inevitably spam both groups).
Richard Kohn
Research Libraries Group
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