[LINK] Spam celebrates birthday

[Adam Todd]

At 13:59 05/06/2008, Jan Whitaker wrote:

> >Spam is 30 years old
> >---------------------
> >Staying with the internet, spam email celebrated, if that is the
> >word, its 30th birthday on May 3rd.  The first spam message was
> >sent on the 3rd May 1978 to 400 people over the Arpanet - the
> >forerunner to the internet. Today, according to the FBI, 75% of
> >scams operate via spam and spammers earned over $239m (£121m) from
> >these scams in 2007.  More worryingly is the fact that up to 85% of
> >all emails sent each day are spam. For more information on this
> >visit:
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7380788.stm

Got me curious about that one!  I doubt very much 
in 1978 anyone sent a Penis Enlarger or Breast 
Enhancement or Nigrian Scam email, or anything remotely similar.

Is there an actual record of this email that was sent?

Reading the article it says that it was the first 
email marketing message sent by DEC (Digital 
Equipment Corporation).  It also says DEC is 
defunct, but as DEC was mostly main frames and 
terminals and was bought by HP, I'd prefer to 
remember the grandness of DEC as "absorbed by progress"

Anyway, I'm sure it wasn't SPAM as the 400 people 
were obviously on some kind of mail list related 
to DEC - such as a tech list, support list or service list.

Given the case, one would say that a marketing 
message might be quite acceptable as a means of 
telling people about hardware, software and new 
products that relate to their computing environment.

Anyway I wasn't on the net till 1983, so I missed it :(