03/12/2012


This is a fun story of a spam attack that ends up uniting a group of people. As reported in the Wall Street Journal article, a spam message sent to a listserv address created an auto-reply to all. Many other people replied-to-all with "remove". This happened over and over. Finally, one user said:

"Do people understand that, by replying to all, you're perpetuating this ridiculous spam cycle?" someone from the U.K. wrote. "I realize that I'm doing exactly the same by sending this message, but I thought it was an observation worth airing to the group."

To which others "replied-to-all" to agree, adding more noise and some anger.

But a funny thing happened along the way: The mutual misery of spam hell changed into a sort of comradery, uniting many of the spam victims. As the WSJ reports:

Then, the tone suddenly changed. Padraig Belton, a writer in London, made a suggestion: "Personally, I feel that after this many emails from you lot, we should all knock off together to the pub." His motion was seconded. "Hello from Canada, all!… Where's the pub?" "I am in," wrote a third person. "And, yes, I know in replying to all, I am adding to the madness."

But the best part of the story is the creation of a LinkedIn group, called Unified by Spam - The Social Experiment.

Here the members can all get to know each other. In a strange way, serendipity brought them together. From Wikipedia, Serendipity means a "happy accident" or "pleasant surprise" of finding something good without looking for it. 


Here is one of the quotes from the group:





So I am off to join this group and meet some new people from around the world...



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