An Explanation of Email Spam, Instant Messaging, Chat Room Spam and Internet Forum Spam

When someone hears the word Spam, they generally think of the ominous lunch meat. However, there is another type of spam, this spam is on the Internet that millions of people frequent every day. I will be discussing in this article, the spam that is associated with the Internet.

What exactly is Spam? Lets go to Wikipedia and see how they define the word. Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam and junk fax transmissions. Spam can also be defined as the excessive multiple posting or a repeated posting of the same message.

Let's dive into the history of Internet spam to better enhance everyone's knowledge of this irritating subject. There is some debate on where and how exactly the term spam got its name. However most people on the Internet have come to generally accept that the term spam comes from the Monty Python song, "Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam..." And much like the song, spam is an endless continuance of seemingly worthless text. In about the 1980's the term spam was used to describe abusive users who would frequent BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) and MUD's (Multi-User Dungeon, Multi-User Domain, Multi-User Dimension) and the user would type the word "spam" continuously until the force the other user's text off of the computer screen. In the early beginnings of the Internet chat rooms, abusive users of spam would post the word "spam" continuously so that any newcomers to the chat room would be discouraged enough to leave and that normal chat discussions could resume.

I am going to briefly explain a few of the more common types and versions of spam that can be found quite widely on the Internet today.