Gary Thuerk, The First SPAM Spreader on the Internet
The father of spam
“The world’s oldest spam was sent at 12:33 EDT on 3 May 1978 by Gary Thuerk (USA).
Gary Thuerk, Marketing Manager of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), an American computer company, on May 3, 1978, wanted to broadcast news about the first sale of his company’s newest computer in Los Angeles and San Mateo, California.
With the knowledge of Carl Gartley, the owner of the email account that Thuerk borrowed, he sent the first spam to computer networks of several universities and government agencies known as ARPANET, which is the first wide-area packet-switching network with distributed control. At that time, thousands of people connected to the ARPAnet network, and most of them were computer scientists.
Thuerk himself intends to send email invitations to all 400 ARPANET members living on the United States' west coast. However, instead of emailing each member individually, as was standard procedure at the time, he decided to send just one email to all 400 people. Suddenly, Thuerk’s steps sparked the scientific community's emotions, who were members of the ARPANET network. However…
