Yeah, I had a little chuckle there as I shook my head. There's a special place in hell for people who do things like that without any care or concern for the greater good.
@@canuck_gamer3359 Quote from the online comic Freefall on the subject: I think government lawyers would have an easier job if we didn't have to spend so much time keeping private-sector lawyers from burning their own house down.
@@dougearnest7590 There was a real uproar when that message came through. Commercial speech just wasn't done! If I remember correctly (it was a long time ago), the lawyers not only were proud of what they did, they wrote a book telling others how to do it themselves. Also, if I remember correctly, the term "spam" originated on USENET. Rumor was that someone actually asked Hormel if they minded if we used the term. They said they didn't care as long as it wasn't capitalized and it was clear from context that we weren't talking about their food product.
@@johnopalko5223 Usenet culture got it from the "Spam sketch" by Monty Python, where the word "Spam" gets repeated over and over. That led to "spam" meaning "repeated messages, often annoyingly repeated", in email, usenet, and chatrooms -- and also in gaming culture came to mean "repeating the same in-game action or ability".
One of my husband's coworkers got a scam call on his desk phone several years ago claiming to be from the IRS. They work in a call center _for the IRS._ lol.
The “IRS” called my Dad several years ago saying he needed to pay within half an hour or lose his house. His answer was “so I have half an hour to find a lawyer?” They cursed him out and hung up.
Here in Canada we've had some guy with a vaguely middle-eastern accent claiming to be from the Canada Revenue Agency. I've also worked in a number of call centers, and occasionally we'd have robocalls find their way through the phone system. (No idea how it would have even gotten into the system, although most phone systems of that general type will eventually route any call that doesn't make a selection to an agent somewhere, since you can't make selections from rotary dial phones.) And now the end-roll ad has a pretty good ad for a waterproof shoes, with one guy making a point with how great they've been in the Canadian winter for the last month. Too bad it's AUGUST, eh?
@@jeank5410 One of the key marks for somebody trying to scam you is creating a sense of urgency, if somebody starts pressuring you to send money immediately or X Y and Z will happen then it's almost guaranteed to be a scam.
Spam joke: The first person to buy a Model T picked it up in 1909 at the Ford factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit. He proudly drove it home. Fifteen minutes later he got a phone call trying to sell him an extended warranty on the car.
@@whelpdog1 I know as I owned a 1926 for a couple years but because mine had a 2 speed rear end people assumed it was a normal car because of the shifter. When I explained how it worked the look on people’s faces was amusing! I will say and it ironic but it was the easiest car I’ve driven and was super reliable although that doesn’t mean much since it didn’t get driven too much.
I read a Nigerian Prince story with a twist. The target of the scam (call him the spamee) lived in England. When he received the spam, he replied that he had been looking for a source of African crafts for his chain of stores in England. Then ensued an email chain that lasted months. The spammer sent photos of crafts and their prices, tried to arrange export licenses and shipping, but he could never close the deal. The spammer finally wised up to the fact that he was being played. The best part was that the spammer sent an email to the spamee saying how wrong it was to try cheat some one.
Classic. I've had spammers try to school me on how rude, unethical, or even illegal I was being by rejecting their scam, refusing to provide their requested information and insisting on doing things the normal way. Someone on Craigslist demanding personal information as part of a sale if I remember right. Eventually blocked and reported them.
my favorite i got was of course from Nigeria apparently a Nigerian astronaut was stuck on the ISS and just need my $500 to help him get back home...as far as i know he is still stuck up there....
The term Spam originates from a Monty Python comedy skit set in a cafe which only served Spam. It’s a surreal sketch with a party of Vikings at a table who intermittently chant “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam” as the cafe worker recites the all Spam menu. The customer famously doesn’t want any Spam. Early computer guys were big Python fans.
I would have thought it was a direct reference to the original Spam (tinned meat), being cheaply available in large quantities but of limited actual value
I am a cyber security specialist and I have to say, you are spot on. I can now confirm that the History Guy does thorough research on the topics he covers. 😊
What I think is brilliant is the method of storytelling here. THC realizes that with a story like phishing, everyone thinks they"know the story". He acknowledges this upfront with a lovely retelling of modern day spam. THEN...he gives us the history, uncorking the really juicy stuff and looping back to the modern beginning. Let this be a lesson to storytellers everywhere! So well done.
Do ultra-repetitive RUclips ads qualify as phishing, or merely Spam? Like these: "Doctors beg you to throw out this vegetable"."Do this every day for gut health". "Cleanse your colon"; Detox your liver". "Beautiful young women want to meet [wealthy] older men". I've never clicked on any of these, and I'd be afraid to find out what happens if you do, even by accident ---- at the very least it would likely skew the algorithms to send you more of the same or similar, and someone somewhere will be tracking your viewing choices in order to try and sell you something, or selling your like/dislike data to someone else who will try to profit from it. There is also a possibility of ending up with malware on your phone or computer from these sites. Note that RUclips tracks whatever your eyes settle on for even 5 seconds as you scroll,, and it ends up in your "watched" history. I'd love to find a way to stop the autoplaying that starts on its own as you scroll.
Best phiahing score, when podesta got phished and the world found out about powerful people and their love of "cheese pizza" and hot dogs, spirit cooking and "eating the pain".
I worked for a Federal Intelligence agency for 33 years. I occasionally got scam calls. I told the idiots who they had called, and that we knew exactly where they were calling from, despite their attempts to conceal it.
How ironic my wife got a text message from the IRS last night stating there was a problem with her account that they couldn’t deposit $6343 into our account. If only she clicked on the link below she can have all the money and the problem is solved. So this is very ironic that he posted this this morning!! Also I got excited with your pirate reference and my 13-year-old daughter rolled her eyes at me. Lol 😂
A great video. I am going to share this at work as I am constantly seeing people hit with these type of emails. And as a security Analyst I am constantly looking to find new ways for people to learn about these type of attacks. Thanks!
The explanation I've heard for the word 'spam' in the context of unsolicited emails was that it derived from a famous Monty Python sketch about a cafe where nearly everything on on the menu is spam. An early message board user compared the experience of opening his email inbox and having to delete dozens of unwanted messages just to get to the few he actually wanted to the experience of the customer in the sketch who doesn't like spam. At one point the literal Mafia was involved in the Spam industry. I remember seeing a news article about a guy who had been identified as the source of something like a third of all Spam globally at one point in the late 90's or early 2000's. He was an actual Italian-American mobster based in Florida who looked like Tony Soprano and had a criminal record a mile long.
Ah, the phishers on Facebook. The pattern is so common, its laughable. A friend request from an account a few weeks to a few months old. Basically nothing but pictures available. And those pictures, lol, I can call out the pattern: 1 or 2 pics of handsome, middled aged guy. 1 of office space, 1 or 2 of nice public parts of a house. 2 pics of a kid (8-12) or a pet, a solo pic of the kid/pet that says some version of "I love this guy/girl" and one of the supposed new friend with kid/pet. A fancy vacation (often skiing) without kid/pet. And a pic with of "friend" with some kindly authority figure(s), often male priests/ministers
As someone currently studying a Bachelor of IT I appreciate this video. There needs to be more history taught in I.T courses and I believe this right here should be a mandatory viewing in any beginner cyber security course.
With how clueless some people are about these things in their old age, I'm wondering if I'll be naive when I'm old. Like I'll be talking to my grandson, "No really, he was the Prince of Mars, I went to his space palace and he told me he would split his 254 brognars with me if I could front him the 19 brognar tax! He was real!" "Oldest trick in the book, grandpa."
My favorite in terms of absurdity is the prince of Nigeria one. It has become so famous that it has spawned running jokes. Top second is where people would pose as the wife of Nelson Mandela and would ask for money to cover his medical bills. You can imagine why the second stopped being used since he died in all.
Not so long ago I received an email saying I had won first prize in a lottery. I was surprised because I never entered that lottery, which wasn't even in the country I live in, or indeed in the same hemisphere. But needless to say, there were no problems claiming my eleven million pounds sterling and I am now living happily on my very own tropical island!
As a professional artist I get a lot of spam through my website wanting a pricelist, and it is always someone pretending that they want the art as an anniversary present for their husband, so it has to happen very quickly. And, "Would I take a check?" No, I would not take a check. Not sure what they are really after
"2600" refers to the 2600Hz tone, which was a control tone used by phone networks. Phone phreaks would build or buy circuits which would generate this tone to gain access to the toll-free backbone and make free calls. Younger viewers might not be aware that making phone calls outside of the local area (sometimes less than 5 miles away) would incur tolls charged to the phone number that the call was being made from -- the 2600Hz tone would bypass these increased per-minute fees. Likewise, early online services were charged by the minute, so getting someone's AOL login info meant having access without having to pay the hefty fees.
Good old "long distance", first only achievable by calling the operator, then later by dialing direct. Another possibly lost and gone phone item, the "collect call". "At the tone, state your name",. . . . BEEP, MomIwillbehomelate! BEEP.
@@ronfullerton3162 ""At the tone, state your name",. . . . BEEP, MomIwillbehomelate!" WAIT i thought I invented that trick...... the other trick i came up with was to auto forward my office phone to home...then people that were in free calling area of my office could get my home phone without paying long distance charges...
@@MickeyMousePark Another friend of mine would call home collect and would ask to speak person to person with himself. His Mom would answer the phone, the operator would ask for him, and she would say that he wasn't there. That way she knee that her son was safe and at his destination safely, and it didn't cost anything for the call. My folks didn't care about the cost. We were by no means rich, but they were willing to pay the cost for the peace of mind.
Back in the early 90s, my dad received one of those paper letters from Nigeria. We lived in Brazil and none of us at home spoke English. He used to run a business and thought it could be a legitimate business proposition, so he asked me to take the letter to my English teacher at school. I was 10 or 11 and was just beginning to learn English. I remember her face reading it. She immediately realized it was a scam, but because I was excited about it, she didn’t know how to tell me. 🤣🤣
You finally got me. I am bored of youtube now. Feels like it keeps repeating and recycling the content with different channels lately. I'm doin it. Biting the bullet and getting Magellan TV with your offer. You win. Almost went with History Hit. Just gotta locate my cc and watch one documentary just to get my value's worth
I don't generally comment, but decided to acknowledge my appreciation of The History Guy channel's always superior content. I liken THG and Co. to historical archeologists that unearth little historical gemstones and veins of prescious mettle for us to enjoy at our leisure. Thanks THG and family. P.S.: Had to add the tune that popped into my head as I pressed the Enter key - "Its a Family Affair" by Sly and the Family Stone.
The hack on Target was very interesting. I went to a security talk and they detailed how it all came about. Very clever people. One thing that came out of it, never ever make assumptions.
Important part of history. The word spam came from a product called spam (wich is just canned pork). What made the spam word useable as language is from a tv show where they, spam the spam word.
A couple of years after the email began to be federated in the mid-1990s, we did some research and found about 98% of the entire email traffic was spam and that continued to be the baseline into the 2000s. I have no idea how heavy that load is today, but there are also more forms of spam and on more channels than simple email.
@@allangibson2408 i don't want to pull these comments for this video too far but...yes i find it so funny every report about Bill Gates in AZ (it is even spelled the same unlike maybe Gaetz) has to say not THAT Bill Gates...I wonder if Bill Gates AZ has ever used the confusion to get a great restaurant reservation... I knew a guy named Jason Priestley at the height of 90210 (TV show) he hated that he had to say not THAT Jason Priestley..when he would tell girls his name they would say yeahhhhhh whatever....
@@allangibson2408 excellent point!...i never thought about that...hmm i wonder if it is Bill Gates AZ that is putting those tracking devices in the vaccine an the nutters got confused LOL
When talking to my clients about spam filters I use an old example. A city in the UK implemented a citywide spam filter (for city employee email accounts). This worked well, except for the city planning division. As it turned out the filter blocked the word "erection", which really stymied anyone wanting to erect a structure.
I'm sure some form of it as old as money. "Dear sir, my late father's fortune was seized by the Persians when they took Athens. I need 500 drachmas to bribe a Persian official to get it back..."
"Hi, I'm from The Government, I want to send you a 'stimulus payment' of $1,200! All I need you to do is pay me $450,000 in taxes over the past 50 years!" "Wait, I've heard this one..."
That's the old scam. The new scam is we'll send you $1,200 stimulus and in return we'll charge you about $450,000 for the next 50 years. Democrats sure know how to spend other people's money.
We're so used to them bleeding us of money that when they occasionally give some back in a pretence of caring about us, we're like, "This is unbelievable! Oh, you're so kind".
@@robertthomas5906 You’re right the Republicans just borrow money and hope somebody else will pay for it in the future. Though I’m sure you’re deducting your Business Jet.
@@maddyg3208 Bleeding us for money? Is it because you don’t demand any government services? You don’t demand a large military? You didn’t Cheer when Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq? You didn’t hear for the bush tax cuts? Do you realize without those the debt would’ve been paid off and all of those interest payments on the trillions that Bush had to borrow would have been in your pocket?
The latest trend I have seen is spammers claiming to be "agents" of various companies. They all use different random (probably recently created) addresses, so it is hard to filter them out. Fortunately, one common element - so far - is that their email address all begin with "office@". So I use that to create the filter that sends them to trash. I'm sure that will change.
Yeah, he even missed saying that on his video about the Coast Guard ship in WWII, even though a pirate festival was a big part of the story. I suspect the real History Guy was on vacation or something, an impostor taking over the role, and now he's back.
Fun fact: In an episode of The Addams Family, Gomez (for some reason) receives a call from the telephone operator requesting that he put more coins into the phone in order to pay for a call he had just placed (apparently, she thought he was on a pay phone). Gomez picks up a small gong, strikes it (to simulate the sound of coins going into the phone) and tells the operator that that ought to cover it. This demonstrated on network television that Gomez Addams was a phone phreak. For further information, I highly recommend the book "Exploding the Phone." Very interesting, even if you aren't a "techie".
Everytime I watch one of these on a videos on a topic I work with professionally, I always have this knee jerk reaction to run to comments to make corrections. I then realize to be patient, and recognize that it's a summary of a complex issue for mass consumption and to chill out. That seems like a fine balance to walk, and you've walked it very well.
Thank you for this video. It seems like spam and phishing and hacking is here to stay, and it's particularly damaging when "professional" hackers sponsored by a national government do it. Regular criminals can be kept out with locks and alarms, but no amount of software can protect a person from responding to an email without thinking about who's on the other end. Ultimately, Internet crimes can only be countered by educating potential victims.
Now if only Flynn, from the original "Tron" were here. He could go in and fix it with his Tron program... oh, and help The History Guy Bobblehead on the shelf. Looks like Dracula is about to take a bite.
Idea… History of collimated light and optics. Culminating with the invention of the laser. And all of the incredible things the laser has given us…… “LIGO”, “The national ignition facility“, and, most importantly… Cat entertainment!
Actually... I LOVE that computer, cell phone and mail fraud is so big. Now I just throw away jury duty notices, IRA notices... my plausable explanation is... it looked like a phishing scam to me, so I did not reply...
From where I sit, I'd say that a large part of the spam problem is caused by the lack of motivation to do anything about it. I file hundreds of spam reports every month. A large portion of which come from about a dozen or so ISPs. I've reached the point where I can just glance at a spam and guess with a high degree of accuracy which system sent it. Every one gets reported, but hardly anything seems to be done about it.
Alexander Graham Bell once said of of the telephone: "Worst thing I ever did was invent the telephone". Or something like that. I can't remember the exact quote but apparently he was constantly getting phone calls from people everywhere and he grew very annoyed by it.
@@tygrkhat4087 Any number I do not recognize is nit answered. If they really want me, they can leave a message. Most scammers will not leave a message, except the scammer that demanded I call back or he would have the sheriff serve me a warrant for my arrest. That was three years ago, and the sheriff hasn't arrived yet.
I have a method that works on the phone callers. I wish I had one for the email senders. I bought a powerful air horn from Canadian Tire. I give these weird accent callers a good loud toot. After calling me they have a bad headache and prefer not to call again. You could call it a sort of homemade "Do Not Call" list.
My great grandma almost almost payed to get my dad out of prison in Mexico... no one thought to call my dad who was very much not in mexico and ask first
I always thought that the nomenclature of 'spam,' came about because of the famous Monty Python sketch, simply because 'there was a lot of it.' Did you know ... The Internet term 'Spam' (unsolicited bulk messaging) was derived from the Spam Sketch. ... During the courtroom sketch, after the police officer ( ...
I would like to see a history on the other Spam. The "dubious pink blob of potted meat". I actually like the Spam meat and it has an interesting history.
6:20 - Obviously it was already old news (War Games came out in 1983 and Sneakers in 1992) but I remember so well around 95-96 (I would have been maybe eleven or twelve) going through some horrendous Internet 1.0 sites in the public library computer lab to find online versions of the Anarchist Cookbook and learning more about Phone Phreaking and all that good stuff and just wishing SO BAD that I understood computers/electronics better and that I was/could somehow have been a part of all that. I'm nearing 40 and I STILL want to be a pen tester because of Sneakers though...
I agree, the early labor unions like the Knights of Labor would be a great lesser known topic and the not well known Industrial Workers of the World is a gold mine of dramatic union stories among so many others
A lot of it comes out of India too. I get calls that say it's in my state only to be talking to a guy in India. and the Phone numbers that are shown on Caller Id are out of service. Extended warranties on cars, Solar, and free Vacations. The first person speaks English when then hands you off and it's a guy in a call center with a lot of background noise. 98 % of my daily calls are this crap. My phone service tells me don't answer the phone, I said ok if that is the case they why do I need to pay you for phone service? They had no answer. I think the only way to keep it down is to change phone numbers on a regular basis and I am not sure if that would be more than a fool's errand.
Not just giving information but IMHO more importantly is not dealing, medically and financially, with something important and dangerous because you believe that they are just another spam scam.
A man I dated for a little while got "involved" with two different Russian "women" who convinced him to send several thousand dollars so they could come join him in the US. Needless to say, neither of them ever arrived. The first was before I ever knew him, and I begged him to talk with me if he was ever tempted to do such a thing again--at the time I was well trained in recognizing such scams due to my work. At some point we fell out of communication for several months. When we reconnected, he told me it had happened a second time, though he had "only" sent this one $2000. In retrospect, maybe I should have considered marrying him more seriously! Nah, why spoil a good friendship with rings and contracts and stuff?
This brings back fond memories of the early Internet and the many kind offers of financial windfall from some Nigerian prince, I had never met, if I would just send $1100.00. I didn't have it at the time...damn, I could have been rich.
They're still happening. Now if only I could get my hands on $3k to help those poor third worldians address their financial problems due to [insert contemporary newsworthy situation likely to invoke sympathy] and they will send me $12m as a thankyou.
Interesting fact spam filters are probably the first commercial use of machine learning, the name comes from Monty Python and the usage was older than email. Even now if you Google spam span and ham you will probably get an explanation of how it used to work.
I worked for in customer service for the U.S. Post Office and so quite often received calls from people who had been scammed. One common one was for a person to offer more than the asking price for a laptop being sold on Ebay if only the seller would Express Mail the item to them in Nigeria. The "buyer" would "pay" for the item using a phony money order and the seller could verify it on an equally phony, but official looking website. Once an item had left the country it could not be recalled and, of course, the seller couldn't cash the money order. The "buyer" got a free laptop and also the opportunity to mine the its hard drive for personal information. Perhaps the ph in phony is part of the word phishing?
You ever hear of the "P-P-P-Powerbook!"? In 2004, a guy was selling his friend's nearly-new Powerbook on eBay; seems the friend got buyer's remorse _after_ the return period had passed, and didn't have or want an eBay account. One of those scammers offered to buy the Powerbook _outside_ eBay through a phony escrow site -- and the seller pretended to fall for it. He made the scammer a fake laptop out of a 3-ring binder. He glued on keys from a broken keyboard, and drew a screen and ports and buttons and such in dark blue marker. He also threw in a broken ball-mouse (decorated with blue-and-black marker to sort-of resemble the Apple laser mouse of the time), a broken CD-ROM drive, and an old book to get the weight about right. Then FedEx'd the whole thing the scammer's mail-drop address in the UK -- and declared it to customs as a $2000 computer, so the scammer would have to pay a few hundred dollars in customs duties to get it. The seller documented the whole saga in a SomethingAwful forum thread, then condensed _that_ into a PDF so the rest of us wouldn't have to wade through the SA forums for it. It's documented elsewhere online too; Google "p-p-p-powerbook" to find info and pics. I forget where and how I stumbled across it.
My old man bought a computer and got on the Internet in the late 80s, the very late 80s. I remember picking up the phone and hearing a bunch of weird noises and he told me he was online with somebody in Florida. It took about a half a day to download a picture of an old Corvette. He called it the world wide web. I couldn't give a shit about it back then, I was 15 years old and I thought computers were for nerds.
A pair of lawyers paid to have the first spam message sent. That figures.
And they didn't show any remorse for doing so, but rather proud of what they did. That's how we know they were real lawyers.
Yeah, I had a little chuckle there as I shook my head. There's a special place in hell for people who do things like that without any care or concern for the greater good.
@@canuck_gamer3359 Quote from the online comic Freefall on the subject:
I think government lawyers would have an easier job if we didn't have to spend so much time keeping private-sector lawyers from burning their own house down.
@@dougearnest7590 There was a real uproar when that message came through. Commercial speech just wasn't done!
If I remember correctly (it was a long time ago), the lawyers not only were proud of what they did, they wrote a book telling others how to do it themselves.
Also, if I remember correctly, the term "spam" originated on USENET. Rumor was that someone actually asked Hormel if they minded if we used the term. They said they didn't care as long as it wasn't capitalized and it was clear from context that we weren't talking about their food product.
@@johnopalko5223 Usenet culture got it from the "Spam sketch" by Monty Python, where the word "Spam" gets repeated over and over. That led to "spam" meaning "repeated messages, often annoyingly repeated", in email, usenet, and chatrooms -- and also in gaming culture came to mean "repeating the same in-game action or ability".
One of my husband's coworkers got a scam call on his desk phone several years ago claiming to be from the IRS. They work in a call center _for the IRS._ lol.
The “IRS” called my Dad several years ago saying he needed to pay within half an hour or lose his house. His answer was “so I have half an hour to find a lawyer?” They cursed him out and hung up.
🤔I would like to know what they told the guys who called
Here in Canada we've had some guy with a vaguely middle-eastern accent claiming to be from the Canada Revenue Agency. I've also worked in a number of call centers, and occasionally we'd have robocalls find their way through the phone system. (No idea how it would have even gotten into the system, although most phone systems of that general type will eventually route any call that doesn't make a selection to an agent somewhere, since you can't make selections from rotary dial phones.)
And now the end-roll ad has a pretty good ad for a waterproof shoes, with one guy making a point with how great they've been in the Canadian winter for the last month. Too bad it's AUGUST, eh?
I got a call from the "department of the IRS" once. I laughed, stated that the IRS isn't a department and hung up
@@jeank5410 One of the key marks for somebody trying to scam you is creating a sense of urgency, if somebody starts pressuring you to send money immediately or X Y and Z will happen then it's almost guaranteed to be a scam.
Spam joke: The first person to buy a Model T picked it up in 1909 at the Ford factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit. He proudly drove it home. Fifteen minutes later he got a phone call trying to sell him an extended warranty on the car.
The first model T hit the market in 1908 though.
@@SquishyZoran And had an automatic transmission.
@@whelpdog1 That actually made me laugh out loud!
@@SquishyZoran It had three pedals Forward, Brake in the middle and Reverse on the right.
@@whelpdog1 I know as I owned a 1926 for a couple years but because mine had a 2 speed rear end people assumed it was a normal car because of the shifter. When I explained how it worked the look on people’s faces was amusing! I will say and it ironic but it was the easiest car I’ve driven and was super reliable although that doesn’t mean much since it didn’t get driven too much.
I read a Nigerian Prince story with a twist.
The target of the scam (call him the spamee) lived in England. When he received the spam, he replied that he had been looking for a source of African crafts for his chain of stores in England.
Then ensued an email chain that lasted months. The spammer sent photos of crafts and their prices, tried to arrange export licenses and shipping, but he could never close the deal.
The spammer finally wised up to the fact that he was being played. The best part was that the spammer sent an email to the spamee saying how wrong it was to try cheat some one.
Classic. I've had spammers try to school me on how rude, unethical, or even illegal I was being by rejecting their scam, refusing to provide their requested information and insisting on doing things the normal way. Someone on Craigslist demanding personal information as part of a sale if I remember right. Eventually blocked and reported them.
my favorite i got was of course from Nigeria apparently a Nigerian astronaut was stuck on the ISS and just need my $500 to help him get back home...as far as i know he is still stuck up there....
😆 🤣 😂 😹 ❣
Reminds me of those people who contact Indian call centre scammers and waste their time.
The term Spam originates from a Monty Python comedy skit set in a cafe which only served Spam. It’s a surreal sketch with a party of Vikings at a table who intermittently chant “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam” as the cafe worker recites the all Spam menu. The customer famously doesn’t want any Spam. Early computer guys were big Python fans.
I don't think Monty Python was around during the French revolution :)
I would have thought it was a direct reference to the original Spam (tinned meat), being cheaply available in large quantities but of limited actual value
absolutely correct, from the repeated fast use of the words spam in the skit, computer nerds were also fans of monty python :D
The Monty Python Spam sketch: ruclips.net/video/zLih-WQwBSc/видео.html Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!
@@SLane249 Legend has it they were turned away at the gates of Paris by a French guard who insulted their mothers.
I am a cyber security specialist and I have to say, you are spot on. I can now confirm that the History Guy does thorough research on the topics he covers. 😊
I find it fascinating that even cybercrime has its roots in history. I guess it is true that "there is nothing new under the sun."
Nothing new under the sun. Funny I was thinking exactly the same thing!
@@Thor-rq4lk I was, too.
What I think is brilliant is the method of storytelling here. THC realizes that with a story like phishing, everyone thinks they"know the story". He acknowledges this upfront with a lovely retelling of modern day spam. THEN...he gives us the history, uncorking the really juicy stuff and looping back to the modern beginning. Let this be a lesson to storytellers everywhere! So well done.
It doesn't help that we do not teach our kids basic cyber hygiene in school or homes and it isn't only the elderly that succumb to phishing attempts.
Why would we do that? It would mean that the kids would have to think for themselves and we cannot have that.
I teach my kids to be wary on the internet
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to phish, and he'll scam for a lifetime.
:-)
Well said
Teach a man to phish, he'll go whaling.
@@AugustusTitus Teach a man to phish, he will be a prince.
Do ultra-repetitive RUclips ads qualify as phishing, or merely Spam? Like these: "Doctors beg you to throw out this vegetable"."Do this every day for gut health". "Cleanse your colon"; Detox your liver". "Beautiful young women want to meet [wealthy] older men". I've never clicked on any of these, and I'd be afraid to find out what happens if you do, even by accident ---- at the very least it would likely skew the algorithms to send you more of the same or similar, and someone somewhere will be tracking your viewing choices in order to try and sell you something, or selling your like/dislike data to someone else who will try to profit from it. There is also a possibility of ending up with malware on your phone or computer from these sites.
Note that RUclips tracks whatever your eyes settle on for even 5 seconds as you scroll,, and it ends up in your "watched" history. I'd love to find a way to stop the autoplaying that starts on its own as you scroll.
did not mention robo dialers fast growing segment of this issue
Best phiahing score, when podesta got phished and the world found out about powerful people and their love of "cheese pizza" and hot dogs, spirit cooking and "eating the pain".
As an IT security professional, I really appreciate learning about the history of these threats.
I worked for a Federal Intelligence agency for 33 years. I occasionally got scam calls. I told the idiots who they had called, and that we knew exactly where they were calling from, despite their attempts to conceal it.
The first phone call: "Watson come here I want you."
The second?: "We'd like to tell you about this special offer just for you."
How ironic my wife got a text message from the IRS last night stating there was a problem with her account that they couldn’t deposit $6343 into our account. If only she clicked on the link below she can have all the money and the problem is solved. So this is very ironic that he posted this this morning!! Also I got excited with your pirate reference and my 13-year-old daughter rolled her eyes at me. Lol 😂
A great video. I am going to share this at work as I am constantly seeing people hit with these type of emails. And as a security Analyst I am constantly looking to find new ways for people to learn about these type of attacks. Thanks!
The French missed a big opportunity when they opted to put someone other than Inspector Clouseau on the case!
@@Paul_Ch52 Hey thanks Paul. Let me know your full name, account number, and bank routing number and I'll make a direct deposit for you.
It's because he wasn't in France. I'm a close friend, send me 200 Euro for a train ticket and we can put him on the case.
(Not really)
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
My favorite: when someone asks me to 'verify' my information. Well I know my information, you verify to me that you have the right information.
The explanation I've heard for the word 'spam' in the context of unsolicited emails was that it derived from a famous Monty Python sketch about a cafe where nearly everything on on the menu is spam. An early message board user compared the experience of opening his email inbox and having to delete dozens of unwanted messages just to get to the few he actually wanted to the experience of the customer in the sketch who doesn't like spam. At one point the literal Mafia was involved in the Spam industry. I remember seeing a news article about a guy who had been identified as the source of something like a third of all Spam globally at one point in the late 90's or early 2000's. He was an actual Italian-American mobster based in Florida who looked like Tony Soprano and had a criminal record a mile long.
it's humbling that this is now considered history.
Ahh, harmless marketing. I do love a good oxymoron.
@@Paul_Ch52 OK, this stopped being funny several repeats ago.
Ah, the phishers on Facebook. The pattern is so common, its laughable. A friend request from an account a few weeks to a few months old. Basically nothing but pictures available. And those pictures, lol, I can call out the pattern: 1 or 2 pics of handsome, middled aged guy. 1 of office space, 1 or 2 of nice public parts of a house. 2 pics of a kid (8-12) or a pet, a solo pic of the kid/pet that says some version of "I love this guy/girl" and one of the supposed new friend with kid/pet. A fancy vacation (often skiing) without kid/pet. And a pic with of "friend" with some kindly authority figure(s), often male priests/ministers
As someone currently studying a Bachelor of IT I appreciate this video. There needs to be more history taught in I.T courses and I believe this right here should be a mandatory viewing in any beginner cyber security course.
Thanks THG. Have a great weekend!
As a cyber security pro, you did a great job on this topic! Well done, sir.
It started with the telephone. I'll bet the 2nd call was a scammer.
With how clueless some people are about these things in their old age, I'm wondering if I'll be naive when I'm old. Like I'll be talking to my grandson, "No really, he was the Prince of Mars, I went to his space palace and he told me he would split his 254 brognars with me if I could front him the 19 brognar tax! He was real!"
"Oldest trick in the book, grandpa."
My favorite in terms of absurdity is the prince of Nigeria one. It has become so famous that it has spawned running jokes. Top second is where people would pose as the wife of Nelson Mandela and would ask for money to cover his medical bills. You can imagine why the second stopped being used since he died in all.
Not "clueless", just vulnerable.
@@lastswordfighter "You can imagine why the second stopped being used since he died in all."
slow them down but should not be much of obstacle heheheh
Not so long ago I received an email saying I had won first prize in a lottery. I was surprised because I never entered that lottery, which wasn't even in the country I live in, or indeed in the same hemisphere. But needless to say, there were no problems claiming my eleven million pounds sterling and I am now living happily on my very own tropical island!
As a professional artist I get a lot of spam through my website wanting a pricelist, and it is always someone pretending that they want the art as an anniversary present for their husband, so it has to happen very quickly. And, "Would I take a check?" No, I would not take a check. Not sure what they are really after
Speaking of which History Guy, We've been trying to reach you....😎
....about your car's extended warranty.
@@jamesslick4790 You too?! My truck is 25 years old. Imagine my surprise when I found out it still had a warranty.
"Hello, this is Rachel from card services...."
@@goodun2974 😂👍😂
@@goodun2974 The only Rachel I want to talk to is my niece.
"2600" refers to the 2600Hz tone, which was a control tone used by phone networks. Phone phreaks would build or buy circuits which would generate this tone to gain access to the toll-free backbone and make free calls. Younger viewers might not be aware that making phone calls outside of the local area (sometimes less than 5 miles away) would incur tolls charged to the phone number that the call was being made from -- the 2600Hz tone would bypass these increased per-minute fees. Likewise, early online services were charged by the minute, so getting someone's AOL login info meant having access without having to pay the hefty fees.
Good old "long distance", first only achievable by calling the operator, then later by dialing direct. Another possibly lost and gone phone item, the "collect call". "At the tone, state your name",. . . . BEEP, MomIwillbehomelate! BEEP.
@@ronfullerton3162 ""At the tone, state your name",. . . . BEEP, MomIwillbehomelate!"
WAIT i thought I invented that trick......
the other trick i came up with was to auto forward my office phone to home...then people that were in free calling area of my office could get my home phone without paying long distance charges...
@@MickeyMousePark Another friend of mine would call home collect and would ask to speak person to person with himself. His Mom would answer the phone, the operator would ask for him, and she would say that he wasn't there. That way she knee that her son was safe and at his destination safely, and it didn't cost anything for the call. My folks didn't care about the cost. We were by no means rich, but they were willing to pay the cost for the peace of mind.
Phishstory that deserves to be remembered.
Back in the early 90s, my dad received one of those paper letters from Nigeria. We lived in Brazil and none of us at home spoke English. He used to run a business and thought it could be a legitimate business proposition, so he asked me to take the letter to my English teacher at school. I was 10 or 11 and was just beginning to learn English. I remember her face reading it. She immediately realized it was a scam, but because I was excited about it, she didn’t know how to tell me. 🤣🤣
You finally got me. I am bored of youtube now. Feels like it keeps repeating and recycling the content with different channels lately. I'm doin it. Biting the bullet and getting Magellan TV with your offer. You win. Almost went with History Hit. Just gotta locate my cc and watch one documentary just to get my value's worth
I don't generally comment, but decided to acknowledge my appreciation of The History Guy channel's always superior content. I liken THG and Co. to historical archeologists that unearth little historical gemstones and veins of prescious mettle for us to enjoy at our leisure. Thanks THG and family. P.S.: Had to add the tune that popped into my head as I pressed the Enter key - "Its a Family Affair" by Sly and the Family Stone.
The hack on Target was very interesting. I went to a security talk and they detailed how it all came about. Very clever people. One thing that came out of it, never ever make assumptions.
Happy Phish Day! Great timing on the upload
Important part of history. The word spam came from a product called spam (wich is just canned pork). What made the spam word useable as language is from a tv show where they, spam the spam word.
Great presentation Thank you for thisI remember that Golden Age well and AO hell 😄I was a James Veech fan too😁👍
Electronic SPAM created by a pair of lawyers.
Why am I not surprised???
A couple of years after the email began to be federated in the mid-1990s, we did some research and found about 98% of the entire email traffic was spam and that continued to be the baseline into the 2000s. I have no idea how heavy that load is today, but there are also more forms of spam and on more channels than simple email.
Bill Gates still owes me a trip to Disneyland.
Ge's still working on it! Do you know just how HARD that is to organize???
Bill Gates is busy dealing with the Republicans audit crap in Arizona (probably a different Bill Gates from the one you are thinking of however…).
@@allangibson2408 i don't want to pull these comments for this video too far but...yes i find it so funny every report about Bill Gates in AZ (it is even spelled the same unlike maybe Gaetz) has to say not THAT Bill Gates...I wonder if Bill Gates AZ has ever used the confusion to get a great restaurant reservation...
I knew a guy named Jason Priestley at the height of 90210 (TV show) he hated that he had to say not THAT Jason Priestley..when he would tell girls his name they would say yeahhhhhh whatever....
@@MickeyMousePark I wonder if the other Bill Gates has problems in Arizona now too… (as both are now on the shit list from the Trumpettes).
@@allangibson2408 excellent point!...i never thought about that...hmm i wonder if it is Bill Gates AZ that is putting those tracking devices in the vaccine an the nutters got confused LOL
When talking to my clients about spam filters I use an old example. A city in the UK implemented a citywide spam filter (for city employee email accounts). This worked well, except for the city planning division. As it turned out the filter blocked the word "erection", which really stymied anyone wanting to erect a structure.
I had no idea that this went back 200 years. Thanks for the lesson today!
I'm sure some form of it as old as money. "Dear sir, my late father's fortune was seized by the Persians when they took Athens. I need 500 drachmas to bribe a Persian official to get it back..."
Next you're going to tell me that i wasn't exchanging emails with a Nigerian Prince....
Who wants to break it to this guy? 😅🤣
"Hi, I'm from The Government, I want to send you a 'stimulus payment' of $1,200! All I need you to do is pay me $450,000 in taxes over the past 50 years!"
"Wait, I've heard this one..."
Oof! 🤦🏻♂️😅✌🏼
That's the old scam. The new scam is we'll send you $1,200 stimulus and in return we'll charge you about $450,000 for the next 50 years.
Democrats sure know how to spend other people's money.
We're so used to them bleeding us of money that when they occasionally give some back in a pretence of caring about us, we're like, "This is unbelievable! Oh, you're so kind".
@@robertthomas5906
You’re right the Republicans just borrow money and hope somebody else will pay for it in the future. Though I’m sure you’re deducting your Business Jet.
@@maddyg3208 Bleeding us for money? Is it because you don’t demand any government services? You don’t demand a large military? You didn’t Cheer when Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq?
You didn’t hear for the bush tax cuts? Do you realize without those the debt would’ve been paid off and all of those interest payments on the trillions that Bush had to borrow would have been in your pocket?
The latest trend I have seen is spammers claiming to be "agents" of various companies. They all use different random (probably recently created) addresses, so it is hard to filter them out. Fortunately, one common element - so far - is that their email address all begin with "office@". So I use that to create the filter that sends them to trash. I'm sure that will change.
"Don't all good stories included pirates" yay.... it's been a while
Say the line bart
Yeah, he even missed saying that on his video about the Coast Guard ship in WWII, even though a pirate festival was a big part of the story. I suspect the real History Guy was on vacation or something, an impostor taking over the role, and now he's back.
THG there's one going around atm targeting YT content creators. They got Jim Browning and Spiffing Brit just to name a few. Be careful mate.
Fun fact: In an episode of The Addams Family, Gomez (for some reason) receives a call from the telephone operator requesting that he put more coins into the phone in order to pay for a call he had just placed (apparently, she thought he was on a pay phone). Gomez picks up a small gong, strikes it (to simulate the sound of coins going into the phone) and tells the operator that that ought to cover it.
This demonstrated on network television that Gomez Addams was a phone phreak.
For further information, I highly recommend the book "Exploding the Phone." Very interesting, even if you aren't a "techie".
Everytime I watch one of these on a videos on a topic I work with professionally, I always have this knee jerk reaction to run to comments to make corrections. I then realize to be patient, and recognize that it's a summary of a complex issue for mass consumption and to chill out. That seems like a fine balance to walk, and you've walked it very well.
Thank you for this video. It seems like spam and phishing and hacking is here to stay, and it's particularly damaging when "professional" hackers sponsored by a national government do it. Regular criminals can be kept out with locks and alarms, but no amount of software can protect a person from responding to an email without thinking about who's on the other end. Ultimately, Internet crimes can only be countered by educating potential victims.
Now if only Flynn, from the original "Tron" were here. He could go in and fix it with his Tron program...
oh, and help The History Guy Bobblehead on the shelf. Looks like Dracula is about to take a bite.
Idea…
History of collimated light and optics. Culminating with the invention of the laser.
And all of the incredible things the laser has given us…… “LIGO”, “The national ignition facility“, and, most importantly… Cat entertainment!
Always something new and interesting, even about a subject I know so well. Thank you again for one of the best channels on the internet.
I wish you can live for 120 years to continue giving the world history
Jim Browning approves.
I've heard that Jim Browning has been a victim & been persuaded to take down his RUclips channel. That must've been a *very* persuasive scammer.
@@stephenphillip5656 Yea he recovered it and made a video about it
@@stephenphillip5656 Yep. He made a video about it. It needed up being perfect timing by a scammer.
I wondered if there were any pirates in this story!
I love to fry up the SPAM in a nice thick glaze of BBQ sauce.
Slices of SPAM fried in batter for me
I prefer Spam being left untouched on a store shelf.
Fried spam and fresh tomato sammich.
You bring a fresh view on a subject. Most of us either don't think about or aren't aware exists.
Thank you.
Actually... I LOVE that computer, cell phone and mail fraud is so big. Now I just throw away jury duty notices, IRA notices... my plausable explanation is... it looked like a phishing scam to me, so I did not reply...
From where I sit, I'd say that a large part of the spam problem is caused by the lack of motivation to do anything about it. I file hundreds of spam reports every month. A large portion of which come from about a dozen or so ISPs. I've reached the point where I can just glance at a spam and guess with a high degree of accuracy which system sent it. Every one gets reported, but hardly anything seems to be done about it.
“Hey, mayn, ever been to a Phishing concert?”
Alexander Graham Bell once said of of the telephone: "Worst thing I ever did was invent the telephone". Or something like that. I can't remember the exact quote but apparently he was constantly getting phone calls from people everywhere and he grew very annoyed by it.
I get spam on my email and phone all the time, but I don't respond to or believe what they say.
If I get a number my phone doesn't recognize, it says "Scam likely."
@@tygrkhat4087 Any number I do not recognize is nit answered. If they really want me, they can leave a message. Most scammers will not leave a message, except the scammer that demanded I call back or he would have the sheriff serve me a warrant for my arrest. That was three years ago, and the sheriff hasn't arrived yet.
I have a method that works on the phone callers. I wish I had one for the email senders.
I bought a powerful air horn from Canadian Tire. I give these weird accent callers a good loud toot. After calling me they have a bad headache and prefer not to call again. You could call it a sort of homemade "Do Not Call" list.
I was going to watch this video but when I saw it was spam, I automatically deleted it. 😅 😂 🤣
Social methods remain the number 1 method, it is almost impossible to hack without relying on the ignorance of others.
TCIP? I know that TCP/IP is Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol but I'm not sure what TCIP is.
I am surprised no mention of Sanford "Spamford" Wallace. Perhaps one of the biggest spammers of the early internets in the early 90's
the dislikes are from scammers/phishers
Video idea! Make a hat video about the old steel Civil Defense hats. What do you think?
My great grandma almost almost payed to get my dad out of prison in Mexico... no one thought to call my dad who was very much not in mexico and ask first
I always thought that the nomenclature of 'spam,' came about because of the famous Monty Python sketch, simply because 'there was a lot of it.'
Did you know ... The Internet term 'Spam' (unsolicited bulk messaging) was derived from the Spam Sketch. ... During the courtroom sketch, after the police officer ( ...
(High pitched voice): _”But I don’t WANT any Spam!”_
Signed up for Magellan Tv, love it.
Excellent video! Deep, engaging, and accurate. Thanks.
Lovely Spam, Incredible Spam! Spam Spam Spam eggs and Spam is my fav!
I would like to see a history on the other Spam. The "dubious pink blob of potted meat". I actually like the Spam meat and it has an interesting history.
So I would say that the "Trojan Horse" ruse could also be a very early phishing scam.
Another great episode Professor!
6:20 - Obviously it was already old news (War Games came out in 1983 and Sneakers in 1992) but I remember so well around 95-96 (I would have been maybe eleven or twelve) going through some horrendous Internet 1.0 sites in the public library computer lab to find online versions of the Anarchist Cookbook and learning more about Phone Phreaking and all that good stuff and just wishing SO BAD that I understood computers/electronics better and that I was/could somehow have been a part of all that. I'm nearing 40 and I STILL want to be a pen tester because of Sneakers though...
Out of curiosity, could you do a video about the history of unions in the USA?
Great history there.
I agree, the early labor unions like the Knights of Labor would be a great lesser known topic and the not well known Industrial Workers of the World is a gold mine of dramatic union stories among so many others
@@scottabc72 , the IWW, aka the "Wobblies"! Yes, a great idea for a THG episode.
A lot of it comes out of India too. I get calls that say it's in my state only to be talking to a guy in India. and the Phone numbers that are shown on Caller Id are out of service. Extended warranties on cars, Solar, and free Vacations. The first person speaks English when then hands you off and it's a guy in a call center with a lot of background noise. 98 % of my daily calls are this crap. My phone service tells me don't answer the phone, I said ok if that is the case they why do I need to pay you for phone service? They had no answer. I think the only way to keep it down is to change phone numbers on a regular basis and I am not sure if that would be more than a fool's errand.
No money in farming. Might try my hand at pharming 😂
Not just giving information but IMHO more importantly is not dealing, medically and financially, with something important and dangerous because you believe that they are just another spam scam.
A man I dated for a little while got "involved" with two different Russian "women" who convinced him to send several thousand dollars so they could come join him in the US. Needless to say, neither of them ever arrived. The first was before I ever knew him, and I begged him to talk with me if he was ever tempted to do such a thing again--at the time I was well trained in recognizing such scams due to my work. At some point we fell out of communication for several months. When we reconnected, he told me it had happened a second time, though he had "only" sent this one $2000. In retrospect, maybe I should have considered marrying him more seriously! Nah, why spoil a good friendship with rings and contracts and stuff?
Very accurate and very interesting and of course as always well-researched great job😎👍
If you don't eat phish do you end up with a low spam count?
This brings back fond memories of the early Internet and the many kind offers of financial windfall from some Nigerian prince, I had never met, if I would just send $1100.00. I didn't have it at the time...damn, I could have been rich.
They're still happening. Now if only I could get my hands on $3k to help those poor third worldians address their financial problems due to [insert contemporary newsworthy situation likely to invoke sympathy] and they will send me $12m as a thankyou.
It would be better if Phishing was a thing of the past and completely forgotten :-)
Interesting fact spam filters are probably the first commercial use of machine learning, the name comes from Monty Python and the usage was older than email. Even now if you Google spam span and ham you will probably get an explanation of how it used to work.
Alexander Graham Bell makes the first phone call. Minutes later he gets a call telling him his Car's extended warranty is about to expire.
An eye-opening episode. "In order to avoid the Trap - you must be aware of its existence". Thufir Hawat. DUNE.
I worked for in customer service for the U.S. Post Office and so quite often received calls from people who had been scammed. One common one was for a person to offer more than the asking price for a laptop being sold on Ebay if only the seller would Express Mail the item to them in Nigeria. The "buyer" would "pay" for the item using a phony money order and the seller could verify it on an equally phony, but official looking website. Once an item had left the country it could not be recalled and, of course, the seller couldn't cash the money order. The "buyer" got a free laptop and also the opportunity to mine the its hard drive for personal information. Perhaps the ph in phony is part of the word phishing?
You ever hear of the "P-P-P-Powerbook!"?
In 2004, a guy was selling his friend's nearly-new Powerbook on eBay; seems the friend got buyer's remorse _after_ the return period had passed, and didn't have or want an eBay account. One of those scammers offered to buy the Powerbook _outside_ eBay through a phony escrow site -- and the seller pretended to fall for it.
He made the scammer a fake laptop out of a 3-ring binder. He glued on keys from a broken keyboard, and drew a screen and ports and buttons and such in dark blue marker. He also threw in a broken ball-mouse (decorated with blue-and-black marker to sort-of resemble the Apple laser mouse of the time), a broken CD-ROM drive, and an old book to get the weight about right. Then FedEx'd the whole thing the scammer's mail-drop address in the UK -- and declared it to customs as a $2000 computer, so the scammer would have to pay a few hundred dollars in customs duties to get it.
The seller documented the whole saga in a SomethingAwful forum thread, then condensed _that_ into a PDF so the rest of us wouldn't have to wade through the SA forums for it. It's documented elsewhere online too; Google "p-p-p-powerbook" to find info and pics. I forget where and how I stumbled across it.
@@AaronOfMpls I love it. It's great making those low-lifes pay once in a while.
My old man bought a computer and got on the Internet in the late 80s, the very late 80s. I remember picking up the phone and hearing a bunch of weird noises and he told me he was online with somebody in Florida. It took about a half a day to download a picture of an old Corvette. He called it the world wide web. I couldn't give a shit about it back then, I was 15 years old and I thought computers were for nerds.
Just noticed a picture of Napoleon Bonacat on the wall. Is this new or did I miss something previously?
Awesome description of the rectangular canned meat! At least we think its real.
I got that same DOT spam last week as well.