Serdar Argic

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Serdar Argic (Turkish: Serdar Argıç) was the alias used in one of the first automated newsgroup spam incidents on Usenet, with the objective of denying the Armenian genocide.

Usenet posts

For a period of several months in the first half of 1994, the Internet user under the pseudonym of "Serdar Argic" (with the address [email protected]) posted messages in any Usenet

Wendy Grossman
said:

Serdar Argic, who apparently managed to run a daily search on all of Usenet for mentions of Turkey, and followed up all such messages with lengthy and historically inaccurate diatribes about genocide against the Turks.[1]

Argic's postings soon numbered in the tens of thousands, and averaged over 100 posts per day,

Thanksgiving turkey
but was cross-posted to a soc.* group. The posts sometimes contained direct responses to specific statements, indicating some human intervention.

Response

Internet users sent complaints to UUNET, the Internet service provider hosting the account of Serdar Argic. UUNET never took any action based on the complaints, since Serdar Argic was posting from a host downstream from the host they fed (anatolia!zuma) over which they had no control. Serdar Argic became known as the Zumabot due to the name of his host.[4]

Usenet messages can be cancelled, which prevents their further propagation. However, at the time, there was a fear of the free use of third-party cancellations, as it was felt they could set a precedent for the cancellation of posts by anyone simply disagreeing with the messages. Cancellations were rarely performed at the time, because spam was not the problem it became in subsequent years.

The Serdar Argic posts stopped in April 1994, after UUNET cancelled subscription of anatolia.

Popular culture

Accelerando, Charles Stross describes one character as "a kind of Serdar Argic of intellectual property."[5]

See also

References

  1. Net.Wars, NYU Press, 1997, chapter 11 (a), (b)
  2. ^ "Hasan B-) Mutlu". Imperium.lenin.ru. Retrieved 2008-09-04.
  3. ^ "Serdar Argic in Eye Weekly". Jaedworks.com. Retrieved 2008-09-04.
  4. ^ "The Zumabot's Tale". Jaedworks.com. Retrieved 2008-09-04.
  5. ^ Charles Stross. "Accelerando". Accelerando.org. Archived from the original on 2008-05-19. Retrieved 2008-09-04.