Spam etymology

[Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM>]

Python buffs and etymology fans will get a kick out of this. The rest
of you can hit <d> now.

If you are not familiar with the Monty Python routine that started the
current use of the word ``spam,'' here's a little refresher. The routine
has two people going into a diner where every menu item has Spam (tm) in
it. It starts off with ``Spam and eggs,'' ``Spam and beans,'' and ``Spam,
beans, and eggs'' and launches into ``Spam, Spam, Spam, beans, and Spam,''
to which a chorus of Vikings begins singing a ridiculous little ditty
about Spam, repeating the word over and over again. Soon the ``woman''
in the sketch loses it.

Early hackers, being huge Python fans, naturally began using the word
to mean crashing a program by overrunning a fixed-size buffer with
excessively large input data. Too much spam causes the program
to ``lose it.'' If you close your eyes you can almost see them chanting
``Spam, spam, spam, spam, wonderful spam!...'' as the program crashes and
burns.

If you get mad at someone on the net, you might try to spam their email
program by, say, sending them a very large, useless file (such as a
uuencoded core dump, or a JPEG of your neighbors cat), several dozen
times. It is this particular act of spamming that has subtley changed
the word to refer to any mass mailing.

So there you go. Spam, the pinkish coloured, edible (?) pork product
becomes synonymous with email bombing. Isn't that special? Don't try
spamming at home, folks. In general, vengeance directed at unseen foes is
a bad practice. My strategy these days is to smile sagely to myself and
say, ``Oh man! I feel sorry for the sys admin on that network!'' and
go on about my merry business. I know that enough other folks will be
hammering the poor boobs email address so hard that a polite message
from me will go unheeded.

    _______________   _____
   /  ___  __/__\  \ /  / _\    Steve Fouts
  /___ \|  |  ___\  |  /  __\   sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
 /   /  \  |      \   /      \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper,
but _minds_ alive on the shelves."      -- Gilbert Highet