35 lines
2.2 KiB
Plaintext
35 lines
2.2 KiB
Plaintext
spam
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vt.,vi.,n. [from Monty Python's Flying Circus ] 1. To crash a program by
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overrunning a fixed-size buffer with excessively large input data. See also
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buffer overflow , overrun screw , smash the stack. 2. To cause a newsgroup
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to be flooded with irrelevant or inappropriate messages. You can spam a
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newsgroup with as little as one well- (or ill-) planned message (e.g. asking
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What do you think of abortion? on soc.women ). This is often done with
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cross-post ing (e.g. any message which is cross-posted to alt.rush-limbaugh
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and alt.politics.homosexuality will almost inevitably spam both groups).
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This overlaps with troll behavior; the latter more specific term has become
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more common. 3. To send many identical or nearly-identical messages
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separately to a large number of Usenet newsgroups. This is more specifically
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called ECP , Excessive Cross-Posting. This is one sure way to infuriate
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nearly everyone on the Net. See also velveeta and jello. 4. To bombard a
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newsgroup with multiple copies of a message. This is more specifically
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called EMP , Excessive Multi-Posting. 5. To mass-mail unrequested identical
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or nearly-identical email messages, particularly those containing
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advertising. Especially used when the mail addresses have been culled from
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network traffic or databases without the consent of the recipients. Synonyms
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include UCE , UBE. As a noun, spam refers to the messages so sent. 6. Any
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large, annoying, quantity of output. For instance, someone on IRC who walks
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away from their screen and comes back to find 200 lines of text might say Oh
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no, spam. The later definitions have become much more prevalent as the
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Internet has opened up to non-techies, and to most people senses 3 4 and 5
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are now primary. All three behaviors are considered abuse of the net, and
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are almost universally grounds for termination of the originator's email
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account or network connection. In these senses the term spam has gone
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mainstream, though without its original sense or folkloric freight there is
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apparently a widespread myth among luser s that spamming is what happens
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when you dump cans of Spam into a revolving fan. Hormel, the makers of Spam,
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have published a surprisingly enlightened position statement on the Internet
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usage.
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