hi

What kind of replying magic IS THIS??!! You've somehow summoned a dead thread!! How dare you

Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social networking spam, television advertising and file sharing network spam. It is named for Spam, a luncheon meat, by way of a Monty Python sketch in which Spam is included in almost every dish.
Spamming remains economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous, and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. In the year 2011, the estimated figure for spam messages is around seven trillion. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions.
A person who creates electronic spam is called a spammer.
In different media

[edit]Email
Main article: Email spam
Email spam, also known as unsolicited bulk Email (UBE), junk mail, or unsolicited commercial email (UCE), is the practice of sending unwanted email messages, frequently with commercial content, in large quantities to an indiscriminate set of recipients. Spam in email started to become a problem when the Internet was opened up to the general public in the mid-1990s. It grew exponentially over the following years, and today composes some 80 to 85% of all the email in the world, by a "conservative estimate".[3] Pressure to make email spam illegal has been successful in some jurisdictions, but less so in others. Spammers take advantage of this fact, and frequently outsource parts of their operations to countries where spamming will not get them into legal trouble.
Increasingly, email spam today is sent via "zombie networks", networks of virus- or worm-infected personal computers in homes and offices around the globe. Many modern worms install a backdoor which allows the spammer to access the computer and use it for malicious purposes. This complicates attempts to control the spread of spam, as in many cases the spam doesn't obviously originate from the spammer. In November 2008 an ISP, McColo, which was providing service to botnet operators, was depeered and spam dropped 50%-75% Internet-wide. At the same time, it is becoming clear that malware authors, spammers, and phishers are learning from each other, and possibly forming various kinds of partnerships.
An industry of email address harvesting is dedicated to collecting email addresses and selling compiled databases.[4] Some of these address harvesting approaches rely on users not reading the fine print of agreements, resulting in them agreeing to send messages indiscriminately to their contacts. This is a common approach in social networking spam such as that generated by the social networking site Quechup.[5]
[edit]Instant messaging
Main article: Messaging spam
Instant messaging spam makes use of instant messaging systems. Although less ubiquitous than its e-mail counterpart, according to a report from Ferris Research, 500 million spam IMs were sent in 2003, twice the level of 2002. As instant messaging tends to not be blocked by firewalls, it is an especially useful channel for spammers. This is very common on many instant messaging systems such as Skype.
[edit]Newsgroup and forum
Main article: Newsgroup spam
Newsgroup spam's a type of spam where the targets are Usenet newsgroups. Spamming of Usenet newsgroups actually pre-dates e-mail spam. Usenet convention defines spamming as excessive multiple posting, that is, the repeated posting of a message (or substantially similar messages). The prevalence of Usenet spam led to the development of the Breidbart Index as an objective measure of a message's "spamminess".
Main article: Forum spam
Forum spam is the creating of messages that are advertisements on Internet forums. It is generally done by automated spambots. Most forum spam consists of links to external sites, with the dual goals of increasing search engine visibility in highly competitive areas such as weight loss, pharmaceuticals, gambling, pornography, real estate or loans, and generating more traffic for these commercial websites. Some of these links contain code to track the spambot's identity; if a sale goes through, when the spammer behind the spambot works on commission.
[edit]Mobile phone
Main article: Mobile phone spam
Mobile phone spam is directed at the text messaging service of a mobile phone. This can be especially irritating to customers not only for the inconvenience but also because of the fee they may be charged per text message received in some markets. The term "SpaSMS" was coined at the adnews website Adland in 2000 to describe spam SMS.
[edit]Online game messaging
Many online games allow players to contact each other via player-to-player messaging, chat rooms, or public discussion areas. What qualifies as spam varies from game to game, but usually this term applies to all forms of message flooding, violating the terms of service contract for the website. This is particularly common in MMORPGs where the spammers are trying to sell game-related "items" for real-world money, chiefly among these items is in-game currency.
[edit]Spam targeting search engines (spamdexing)
Main article: Spamdexing
Spamdexing (a portmanteau of spamming and indexing) refers to a practice on the World Wide Web of modifying HTML pages to increase the chances of them being placed high on search engine relevancy lists. These sites use "black hat search engine optimization (SEO) techniques" to deliberately manipulate their rank in search engines. Many modern search engines modified their search algorithms to try to exclude web pages utilizing spamdexing tactics. For example, the search bots will detect repeated keywords as spamming by using a grammar analysis. If a website owner is found to have spammed the webpage to falsely increase its page rank, the website may be penalized by search engines.
[edit]Blog, wiki, and guestbook
Main article: Spam in blogs
Blog spam, or "blam" for short, is spamming on weblogs. In 2003, this type of spam took advantage of the open nature of comments in the blogging software Movable Type by repeatedly placing comments to various blog posts that provided nothing more than a link to the spammer's commercial web site.[6] Similar attacks are often performed against wikis and guestbooks, both of which accept user contributions. Another possible form of spam in blogs is the spamming of a certain tag on websites such as Tumblr. On March 18, the 'Hipster' and 'YOLO' tag on Tumblr was spammed by photos of Paul McCartney, due to the dedication of a number of Beatles fans and their persistent posting.[citation needed]
[edit]Spam targeting video sharing sites


Screenshot from a spam video on Youtube claiming that the film in question has been deleted from the site, and can only be accessed on the link posted by the spambot in the video description (if the video were actually removed by YouTube, the description would be inaccessible, and the deletion notification would look different).
Video sharing sites, such as YouTube, are now being frequently targeted by spammers. The most common technique involves people (or spambots) posting links to sites, most likely pornographic or dealing with online dating, on the comments section of random videos or people's profiles. Another frequently used technique is using bots to post messages on random users' profiles to a spam account's channel page, along with enticing text and images, usually of a sexually suggestive nature. These pages may include their own or other users' videos, again often suggestive. The main purpose of these accounts is to draw people to their link in the home page section of their profile. YouTube has blocked the posting of such links. In addition, YouTube has implemented a CAPTCHA system that makes rapid posting of repeated comments much more difficult than before, because of abuse in the past by mass-spammers who would flood people's profiles with thousands of repetitive comments.
Yet another kind is actual video spam, giving the uploaded movie a name and description with a popular figure or event which is likely to draw attention, or within the video has a certain image timed to come up as the video's thumbnail image to mislead the viewer, such as a still image from a feature film, purporting to be a part-by-part piece of a movie being pirated, e.g. Big Buck Bunny Full Movie Online - Part 1/10 HD, a link to a supposed keygen or an ISO file for a video game, or similar. The actual content of the video ends up being totally unrelated, a Rickroll, sometimes offensive, or just features on-screen text of a link to the site being promoted.[7] In some cases, the link in question may lead to an online survey site, a passworded archive file, or in extreme cases, malware.[8] Others may upload videos presented in an infomercial-like format selling their product which feature actors and paid testimonials, though the promoted product or service is of dubious quality and would likely not pass the scrutiny of a standards and practices department at a television station or cable network.
[edit]SPIT
SPIT (SPam over Internet Telephony) is VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) spam, usually using SIP (Session Initiation Protocol).
[edit]Academic Search
Academic Search Engines enable researchers to find academic literature and are used to obtain citation data for calculating performance metrics such as the H-index and impact factor. Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and OvGU demonstrated that most (web-based) academic search engines, especially Google Scholar, are not capable of identifying spam attacks.[9] The researchers manipulated the citation counts of articles, and managed to make Google Scholar index complete fake articles, some containing advertising.[9]
[edit]Noncommercial forms

E-mail and other forms of spamming have been used for purposes other than advertisements. Many early Usenet spams were religious or political. Serdar Argic, for instance, spammed Usenet with historical revisionist screeds. A number of evangelists have spammed Usenet and e-mail media with preaching messages. A growing number of criminals are also using spam to perpetrate various sorts of fraud.[10]
[edit]Geographical origins

A 2011 Cisco Systems report shows spam volume originating from countries worldwide. As 4th and 5th position are tied, no 5th is listed. [11]
Rank Country Percentage of spam volume
1 India 13.9
2 Russia 9.0
3 Vietnam 7.9
4 South Korea 6.0
4 Indonesia 6.0
6 China 4.7
7 Brazil 4.5
8 United States 3.2
[edit]History

[edit]Pre-Internet
In the late 19th Century Western Union allowed telegraphic messages on its network to be sent to multiple destinations. The first recorded instance of a mass unsolicited commercial telegram is from May 1864.[12] Up until the Great Depression wealthy North American residents would be deluged with nebulous investment offers. This problem never fully emerged in Europe to the degree that it did in the Americas, because telegraphy was regulated by national post offices in the European region.
[edit]Etymology
According to the Internet Society and other sources, the term spam is derived from the 1970 Spam sketch of the BBC television comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus.[13] The sketch is set in a cafe where nearly every item on the menu includes Spam canned luncheon meat. As the waiter recites the Spam-filled menu, a chorus of Viking patrons drowns out all conversations with a song repeating "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam... lovely Spam! wonderful Spam!", hence "Spamming" the dialogue.[14] The excessive amount of Spam mentioned in the sketch is a reference to the preponderance of imported canned meat products in the United Kingdom, particularly a brand of tinned ham (Spiced ham = SPAM) from the USA, in the years after World War II, as the country struggled to rebuild its agricultural base. Spam captured a large slice of the British market within lower economic classes and became a byword among British children of the 1960s for low-grade fodder due to its commonality, monotonous taste and cheap price — hence the humour of the Python sketch.
In the 1980s the term was adopted to describe certain abusive users who frequented BBSs and MUDs, who would repeat "Spam" a huge number of times to scroll other users' text off the screen.[15] In early chat rooms services like PeopleLink and the early days of Online America (later known as America Online or AOL), they actually flooded the screen with quotes from the Monty Python Spam sketch.[citation needed] With internet connections over phone lines, typically running at 1200 or even 300 bit/s, it could take an enormous amount of time for a spammy logo, drawn in ASCII art to scroll to completion on a viewer's terminal. Sending an irritating, large, meaningless block of text in this way was called spamming. This was used as a tactic by insiders of a group that wanted to drive newcomers out of the room so the usual conversation could continue. It was also used to prevent members of rival groups from chatting—for instance, Star Wars fans often invaded Star Trek chat rooms, filling the space with blocks of text until the Star Trek fans left.[16] This act, previously called flooding or trashing, came to be known as spamming.[17] The term was soon applied to a large amount of text broadcast by many users.
It later came to be used on Usenet to mean excessive multiple posting—the repeated posting of the same message. The unwanted message would appear in many if not all newsgroups, just as Spam appeared in nearly all the menu items in the Monty Python sketch. The first usage of this sense was by Joel Furr[18] in the aftermath of the ARMM incident of March 31, 1993, in which a piece of experimental software released dozens of recursive messages onto the news.admin.policy newsgroup.[19] This use had also become established—to spam Usenet was flooding newsgroups with junk messages. The word was also attributed to the flood of "Make Money Fast" messages that clogged many newsgroups during the 1990s.[citation needed] In 1998, the New Oxford Dictionary of English, which had previously only defined "spam" in relation to the trademarked food product, added a second definition to its entry for "spam": "Irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of newsgroups or users."[20]
There are several popular false etymologies of the word "spam". One, promulgated by early spammers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, is that "spamming" is what happens when one dumps a can of Spam luncheon meat into a fan blade.[citation needed] Another is the backronym stupid pointless annoying messages".[citation needed] There was also an effort to differentiate between types of spam. That which was sent indiscriminately to any e-mail address was true spam while that which was targeted to more likely prospects, although just as unsolicited, was called velveeta (after the cheese product). But this latter term didn't persist.
[edit]History of Internet spam
The earliest documented spam (although the term had not yet been coined[21]) was a message advertising the availability of a new model of Digital Equipment Corporation computers sent by Gary Thuerk to 393 recipients on ARPANET in 1978.[18] Rather than send a separate message to each person, which was the standard practice at the time, he had an assistant, Carl Gartley, write a single mass e-mail. Reaction from the net community was fiercely negative, but the spam did generate some sales.[22][23]
Spamming had been practiced as a prank by participants in multi-user dungeon games, to fill their rivals' accounts with unwanted electronic junk.[23] The first known electronic chain letter, titled Make Money Fast, was released in 1988.
The first major commercial spam incident started on March 5, 1994, when a husband and wife team of lawyers, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, began using bulk Usenet posting to advertise immigration law services. The incident was commonly termed the "Green Card spam", after the subject line of the postings. Defiant in the face of widespread condemnation, the attorneys claimed their detractors were hypocrites or "zealouts", claimed they had a free speech right to send unwanted commercial messages, and labeled their opponents "anti-commerce radicals." The couple wrote a controversial book entitled How to Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway.[23]
Within a few years, the focus of spamming (and anti-spam efforts) moved chiefly to e-mail, where it remains today.[15] Arguably, the aggressive email spamming by a number of high-profile spammers such as Sanford Wallace of Cyber Promotions in the mid-to-late 1990s contributed to making spam predominantly an email phenomenon in the public mind.[citation needed] By 2009, the majority of spam sent around the world was in the English language; spammers began using automatic translation services to send spam in other languages.[24]
[edit]Trademark issues

Hormel Foods Corporation, the maker of SPAM luncheon meat, does not object to the Internet use of the term "spamming". However, they did ask that the capitalized word "Spam" be reserved to refer to their product and trademark.[25] By and large, this request is obeyed in forums which discuss spam. In Hormel Foods v SpamArrest, Hormel attempted to assert its trademark rights against SpamArrest, a software company, from using the mark "spam", since Hormel owns the trademark. In a dilution claim, Hormel argued that Spam Arrest's use of the term "spam" had endangered and damaged "substantial goodwill and good reputation" in connection with its trademarked lunch meat and related products. Hormel also asserts that Spam Arrest's name so closely resembles its luncheon meat that the public might become confused, or might think that Hormel endorses Spam Arrest's products.
Hormel did not prevail. Attorney Derek Newman responded on behalf of Spam Arrest: "Spam has become ubiquitous throughout the world to describe unsolicited commercial e-mail. No company can claim trademark rights on a generic term." Hormel stated on its website: "Ultimately, we are trying to avoid the day when the consuming public asks, 'Why would Hormel Foods name its product after junk email?".[26]
Hormel also made two attempts that were dismissed in 2005 to revoke the marks "SPAMBUSTER"[27] and Spam Cube.[28] Hormel's Corporate Attorney Melanie J. Neumann also sent SpamCop's Julian Haight a letter on August 27, 1999 requesting that he delete an objectionable image (a can of Hormel's Spam luncheon meat product in a trash can), change references to UCE spam to all lower case letters, and confirm his agreement to do so.[29]
[edit]Cost-benefit analyses

The European Union's Internal Market Commission estimated in 2001 that "junk e-mail" cost Internet users €10 billion per year worldwide.[30] The California legislature found that spam cost United States organizations alone more than $13 billion in 2007, including lost productivity and the additional equipment, software, and manpower needed to combat the problem.[31] Spam's direct effects include the consumption of computer and network resources, and the cost in human time and attention of dismissing unwanted messages.[32] Large companies who are frequent spam targets utilize numerous techniques to detect and prevent spam.[33]
In addition, spam has costs stemming from the kinds of spam messages sent, from the ways spammers send them, and from the arms race between spammers and those who try to stop or control spam. In addition, there are the opportunity cost of those who forgo the use of spam-afflicted systems. There are the direct costs, as well as the indirect costs borne by the victims—both those related to the spamming itself, and to other crimes that usually accompany it, such as financial theft, identity theft, data and intellectual property theft, virus and other malware infection, child pornography, fraud, and deceptive marketing.
The cost to providers of search engines is not insignificant: "The secondary consequence of spamming is that search engine indexes are inundated with useless pages, increasing the cost of each processed query".[2] The methods of spammers are likewise costly. Because spamming contravenes the vast majority of ISPs' acceptable-use policies, most spammers have for many years gone to some trouble to conceal the origins of their spam. E-mail, Usenet, and instant-message spam are often sent through insecure proxy servers belonging to unwilling third parties. Spammers frequently use false names, addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information to set up "disposable" accounts at various Internet service providers. In some cases, they have used falsified or stolen credit card numbers to pay for these accounts. This allows them to quickly move from one account to the next as each one is discovered and shut down by the host ISPs.
The costs of spam also include the collateral costs of the struggle between spammers and the administrators and users of the media threatened by spamming.[34] Many users are bothered by spam because it impinges upon the amount of time they spend reading their e-mail. Many also find the content of spam frequently offensive, in that pornography is one of the most frequently advertised products. Spammers send their spam largely indiscriminately, so pornographic ads may show up in a work place e-mail inbox—or a child's, the latter of which is illegal in many jurisdictions. Recently, there has been a noticeable increase in spam advertising websites that contain child pornography.
Some spammers argue that most of these costs could potentially be alleviated by having spammers reimburse ISPs and persons for their material.[citation needed] There are three problems with this logic: first, the rate of reimbursement they could credibly budget is not nearly high enough to pay the direct costs[citation needed], second, the human cost (lost mail, lost time, and lost opportunities) is basically unrecoverable, and third, spammers often use stolen bank accounts and credit cards to finance their operations, and would conceivably do so to pay off any fines imposed.
E-mail spam exemplifies a tragedy of the commons: spammers use resources (both physical and human), without bearing the entire cost of those resources. In fact, spammers commonly do not bear the cost at all. This raises the costs for everyone. In some ways spam is even a potential threat to the entire e-mail system, as operated in the past. Since e-mail is so cheap to send, a tiny number of spammers can saturate the Internet with junk mail. Although only a tiny percentage of their targets are motivated to purchase their products (or fall victim to their scams), the low cost may provide a sufficient conversion rate to keep the spamming alive. Furthermore, even though spam appears not to be economically viable as a way for a reputable company to do business, it suffices for professional spammers to convince a tiny proportion of gullible advertisers that it is viable for those spammers to stay in business. Finally, new spammers go into business every day, and the low costs allow a single spammer to do a lot of harm before finally realizing that the business is not profitable.
Some companies and groups "rank" spammers; spammers who make the news are sometimes referred to by these rankings.[35][36] The secretive nature of spamming operations makes it difficult to determine how proliferated an individual spammer is, thus making the spammer hard to track, block or avoid. Also, spammers may target different networks to different extents, depending on how successful they are at attacking the target. Thus considerable resources are employed to actually measure the amount of spam generated by a single person or group. For example, victims that use common anti-spam hardware, software or services provide opportunities for such tracking. Nevertheless, such rankings should be taken with a grain of salt.
[edit]General costs
In all cases listed above, including both commercial and non-commercial, "spam happens" because of a positive Cost-benefit analysis result if the cost to recipients is excluded as an externality the spammer can avoid paying.
Cost is the combination of
Overhead: The costs and overhead of electronic spamming include bandwidth, developing or acquiring an email/wiki/blog spam tool, taking over or acquiring a host/zombie, etc.
Transaction cost: The incremental cost of contacting each additional recipient once a method of spamming is constructed, multiplied by the number of recipients. (see CAPTCHA as a method of increasing transaction costs)
Risks: Chance and severity of legal and/or public reactions, including damages and punitive damages
Damage: Impact on the community and/or communication channels being spammed (see Newsgroup spam)
Benefit is the total expected profit from spam, which may include any combination of the commercial and non-commercial reasons listed above. It is normally linear, based on the incremental benefit of reaching each additional spam recipient, combined with the conversion rate. The conversion rate for botnet-generated spam has recently been measured to be around one in 12,000,000 for pharmaceutical spam and one in 200,000 for infection sites as used by the Storm botnet.[37] They specifically say in the paper "After 26 days, and almost 350 million e-mail messages, only 28 sales resulted".
[edit]In crime

Spam can be used to spread computer viruses, trojan horses or other malicious software. The objective may be identity theft, or worse (e.g., advance fee fraud). Some spam attempts to capitalize on human greed whilst other attempts to use the victims' inexperience with computer technology to trick them (e.g., phishing). On May 31, 2007, one of the world's most prolific spammers, Robert Alan Soloway, was arrested by U.S. authorities.[38] Described as one of the top ten spammers in the world, Soloway was charged with 35 criminal counts, including mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.[38] Prosecutors allege that Soloway used millions of "zombie" computers to distribute spam during 2003.[citation needed] This is the first case in which U.S. prosecutors used identity theft laws to prosecute a spammer for taking over someone else's Internet domain name.[citation needed]
In an attempt to assess potential legal and technical strategies for stopping illegal spam, a study from the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, Berkeley, “Click Trajectories: End-to-End Analysis of the Spam Value Chain” (PDF), cataloged three months of online spam data and researched website naming and hosting infrastructures. The study concluded that: 1) half of all spam programs have their domains and servers distributed over just 8% or fewer of the total available hosting registrars and Autonomous Systems. Overall, 80% of spam programs are distributed over just 20% of all registrars and Autonomous Systems; 2) of the 76 purchases for which the researchers received transaction information, there were only 13 distinct banks acting as credit card acquirers and only three banks provided the payment servicing for 95% of the spam-advertised goods in the study; and, 3) a “financial blacklist” of banking entities that do business with spammers would dramatically reduce monetization of unwanted emails. Moreover, this blacklist could be updated far more rapidly than spammers could acquire new banking resources, an asymmetry favoring anti-spam efforts.[39]
[edit]Political issues

Spamming remains a hot discussion topic. In 2004, the seized Porsche of an indicted spammer was advertised on the Internet;[40] this revealed the extent of the financial rewards available to those who are willing to commit duplicitous acts online. However, some of the possible means used to stop spamming may lead to other side effects, such as increased government control over the Internet, loss of privacy, barriers to free expression, and the commercialization of e-mail.[citation needed]
One of the chief values favored by many long-time Internet users and experts, as well as by many members of the public, is the free exchange of ideas. Many have valued the relative anarchy of the Internet, and bridle at the idea of restrictions placed upon it.[citation needed] A common refrain from spam-fighters is that spamming itself abridges the historical freedom of the Internet, by attempting to force users to carry the costs of material which they would not choose.[citation needed]
An ongoing concern expressed by parties such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union has to do with so-called "stealth blocking", a term for ISPs employing aggressive spam blocking without their users' knowledge. These groups' concern is that ISPs or technicians seeking to reduce spam-related costs may select tools which (either through error or design) also block non-spam e-mail from sites seen as "spam-friendly". Spam Prevention Early Warning System (SPEWS) is a common target of these criticisms. Few object to the existence of these tools; it is their use in filtering the mail of users who are not informed of their use which draws fire.[citation needed]
Some see spam-blocking tools as a threat to free expression—and laws against spamming as an untoward precedent for regulation or taxation of e-mail and the Internet at large. Even though it is possible in some jurisdictions to treat some spam as unlawful merely by applying existing laws against trespass and conversion, some laws specifically targeting spam have been proposed. In 2004, United States passed the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 which provided ISPs with tools to combat spam. This act allowed Yahoo! to successfully sue Eric Head, reportedly one of the biggest spammers in the world, who settled the lawsuit for several thousand U.S. dollars in June 2004. But the law is criticized by many for not being effective enough. Indeed, the law was supported by some spammers and organizations which support spamming, and opposed by many in the anti-spam community. Examples of effective anti-abuse laws that respect free speech rights include those in the U.S. against unsolicited faxes and phone calls, and those in Australia and a few U.S. states against spam.[citation needed]
In November 2004, Lycos Europe released a screen saver called make LOVE not SPAM which made Distributed Denial of Service attacks on the spammers themselves. It met with a large amount of controversy and the initiative ended in December 2004.[41][42][43]
Anti-spam policies may also be a form of disguised censorship, a way to ban access or reference to questioning alternative forums or blogs by an institution. This form of occult censorship is mainly used by private companies when they can not muzzle criticism by legal ways.[44]
[edit]Court cases

See also: E-mail spam legislation by country
[edit]United States
Sanford Wallace and Cyber Promotions were the target of a string of lawsuits, many of which were settled out of court, up through the famous 1998 Earthlink settlement[citation needed]which put Cyber Promotions out of business. Attorney Laurence Canter was disbarred by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1997 for sending prodigious amounts of spam advertising his immigration law practice. In 2005, Jason Smathers, a former America Online employee, pled guilty to charges of violating the CAN-SPAM Act. In 2003, he sold a list of approximately 93 million AOL subscriber e-mail addresses to Sean Dunaway who, in turn, sold the list to spammers.[45][46]
In 2007, Robert Soloway lost a case in a federal court against the operator of a small Oklahoma-based Internet service provider who accused him of spamming. U.S. Judge Ralph G. Thompson granted a motion by plaintiff Robert Braver for a default judgment and permanent injunction against him. The judgment includes a statutory damages award of $10,075,000 under Oklahoma law.[47]
In June 2007, two men were convicted of eight counts stemming from sending millions of e-mail spam messages that included hardcore pornographic images. Jeffrey A. Kilbride, 41, of Venice, California was sentenced to six years in prison, and James R. Schaffer, 41, of Paradise Valley, Arizona, was sentenced to 63 months. In addition, the two were fined $100,000, ordered to pay $77,500 in restitution to AOL, and ordered to forfeit more than $1.1 million, the amount of illegal proceeds from their spamming operation.[48] The charges included conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, and transportation of obscene materials. The trial, which began on June 5, was the first to include charges under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, according to a release from the Department of Justice. The specific law that prosecutors used under the CAN-Spam Act was designed to crack down on the transmission of pornography in spam.[49]
In 2005, Scott J. Filary and Donald E. Townsend of Tampa, Florida were sued by Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist for violating the Florida Electronic Mail Communications Act.[50] The two spammers were required to pay $50,000 USD to cover the costs of investigation by the state of Florida, and a $1.1 million penalty if spamming were to continue, the $50,000 was not paid, or the financial statements provided were found to be inaccurate. The spamming operation was successfully shut down.[51]
Edna Fiedler, 44, of Olympia, Washington, on June 25, 2008, pleaded guilty in a Tacoma court and was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment and 5 years of supervised release or probation in an Internet $1 million "Nigerian check scam." She conspired to commit bank, wire and mail fraud, against US citizens, specifically using Internet by having had an accomplice who shipped counterfeit checks and money orders to her from Lagos, Nigeria, last November. Fiedler shipped out $ 609,000 fake check and money orders when arrested and prepared to send additional $ 1.1 million counterfeit materials. Also, the U.S. Postal Service recently intercepted counterfeit checks, lottery tickets and eBay overpayment schemes with a face value of $2.1 billion.[52][53]
In a 2009 opinion, Gordon v. Virtumundo, Inc., 575 F.3d 1040, the Ninth Circuit assessed the standing requirements necessary for a private plaintiff to bring a civil cause of action against spam senders under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, as well as the scope of the CAN-SPAM Act's federal preemption clause.[54]
[edit]United Kingdom
In the first successful case of its kind, Nigel Roberts from the Channel Islands won £270 against Media Logistics UK who sent junk e-mails to his personal account.[55]
In January 2007, a Sheriff Court in Scotland awarded Mr. Gordon Dick £750 (the then maximum sum which could be awarded in a Small Claim action) plus expenses of £618.66, a total of £1368.66 against Transcom Internet Services Ltd.[56] for breaching anti-spam laws.[57] Transcom had been legally represented at earlier hearings but were not represented at the proof, so Gordon Dick got his decree by default. It is the largest amount awarded in compensation in the United Kingdom since Roberts -v- Media Logistics case in 2005 above, but it is not known if Mr. Dick ever received anything. (An image of Media Logistics' cheque is shown on Roberts' website[58] ) Both Roberts and Dick are well known figures in the British Internet industry for other things. Dick is currently Interim Chairman of Nominet UK (the manager of .UK and .CO.UK) while Roberts is CEO of CHANNELISLES.NET (manager of .GG and .JE).
Despite the statutory tort that is created by the Regulations implementing the EC Directive, few other people have followed their example. As the Courts engage in active case management, such cases would probably now be expected to be settled by mediation and payment of nominal damages.
[edit]New Zealand
In October 2008, a vast international internet spam operation run from New Zealand was cited by American authorities as one of the world’s largest, and for a time responsible for up to a third of all unwanted emails. In a statement the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) named Christchurch’s Lance Atkinson as one of the principals of the operation. New Zealand’s Internal Affairs announced it had lodged a $200,000 claim in the High Court against Atkinson and his brother Shane Atkinson and courier Roland Smits, after raids in Christchurch. This marked the first prosecution since the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act (UEMA) was passed in September 2007. The FTC said it had received more than three million complaints about spam messages connected to this operation, and estimated that it may be responsible for sending billions of illegal spam messages. The US District Court froze the defendants’ assets to preserve them for consumer redress pending trial.[59] U.S. co-defendant Jody Smith forfeited more than $800,000 and faces up to five years in prison for charges to which he pled guilty.[60]
[edit]Bulgaria
While most countries either outlaw or at least ignore spam, Bulgaria is the first and until now only one to legalize it. According to the Bulgarian E-Commerce act[61] (Чл.5,6) anyone can send spam to mailboxes published as owned by a company or organization, as long as there is a "clear and straight indication that the message is unsolicited commercial email" ("да осигури ясното и недвусмислено разпознаване на търговското съобщение като непоискано") in the message body.
This made lawsuits against Bulgarian ISP's and public e-mail providers with antispam policy possible, as they are obstructing legal commerce activity and thus violate Bulgarian antitrust acts. While there are no such lawsuits until now, several cases of spam obstruction are currently awaiting decision in the Bulgarian Antitrust Commission (Комисия за защита на конкуренцията) and can end with serious fines for the ISP's in question.
The law contains other dubious provisions — for example, the creation of a nationwide public electronic register of email addresses that do not want to receive spam.[62] It is usually abused as the perfect source for e-mail address harvesting, because publishing invalid or incorrect information in such a register is a criminal offense in Bulgaria.

----------------------------

I take no credit for the information provided hear. It is a direct copy of the wikipedia article titled Spam (electronic), copied June 5, 2012. Don't sue me. Don't ask me why I think someone would sue me for copying a resource free to use and edit and that is also not necessarily true. Bla bla bla. spam spam spam spam

ughhh had to get that out of my system.

Earth (or the Earth) is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the world, the Blue Planet,[21] or by its Latin name, Terra.[note 6]

Earth formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar nebula, and life appeared on its surface within one billion years.[22] The planet is home to millions of species, including humans.[23] Earth's biosphere has significantly altered the atmosphere and other abiotic conditions on the planet, enabling the proliferation of aerobic organisms as well as the formation of the ozone layer which, together with Earth's magnetic field, blocks harmful solar radiation, permitting life on land.[24] The physical properties of the Earth, as well as its geological history and orbit, have allowed life to persist. The planet is expected to continue supporting life for another 500 million to 2.3 billion years.[25][26][27]

Earth's crust is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates, that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of the surface is covered by salt water oceans, with the remainder consisting of continents and islands which together have many lakes and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. Earth's poles are mostly covered with solid ice (Antarctic ice sheet) or sea ice (Arctic ice cap). The planet's interior remains active, with a thick layer of relatively solid mantle, a liquid outer core that generates a magnetic field, and a solid iron inner core.

Earth interacts with other objects in space, especially the Sun and the Moon. At present, Earth orbits the Sun once every 366.26 times it rotates about its own axis, which is equal to 365.26 solar days, or one sidereal year.[note 7] The Earth's axis of rotation is tilted 23.4° away from the perpendicular of its orbital plane, producing seasonal variations on the planet's surface with a period of one tropical year (365.24 solar days).[28] Earth's only known natural satellite, the Moon, which began orbiting it about 4.53 billion years ago, provides ocean tides, stabilizes the axial tilt, and gradually slows the planet's rotation. Between approximately 3.8 billion and 4.1 billion years ago, numerous asteroid impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment caused significant changes to the greater surface environment.

Both the mineral resources of the planet and the products of the biosphere contribute resources that are used to support a global human population.[29] These inhabitants are grouped into about 200 independent sovereign states (193 United Nations recognized sovereign states), which interact through diplomacy, travel, trade, and military action. Human cultures have developed many views of the planet, including personification as a deity, a belief in a flat Earth or in the Earth as the center of the universe, and a modern perspective of the world as an integrated environment that requires stewardship.





Contents
[hide] 1 Name and etymology
2 Chronology 2.1 Evolution of life
2.2 Future

3 Composition and structure 3.1 Shape
3.2 Chemical composition
3.3 Internal structure
3.4 Heat
3.5 Tectonic plates
3.6 Surface
3.7 Hydrosphere
3.8 Atmosphere 3.8.1 Weather and climate
3.8.2 Upper atmosphere

3.9 Magnetic field

4 Orbit and rotation 4.1 Rotation
4.2 Orbit
4.3 Axial tilt and seasons

5 Moon
6 Habitability 6.1 Biosphere
6.2 Natural resources and land use
6.3 Natural and environmental hazards
6.4 Human geography

7 In culture
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links


Name and etymology

The modern English noun earth developed from Middle English erthe (recorded in 1137), itself from Old English eorthe (dating from before 725), ultimately deriving from Proto-Germanic *erthō. Earth has cognates in all other Germanic languages, including Dutch aarde, German Erde, and Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish jord.[30] The Earth is personified as a goddess in Germanic paganism (appearing as Jörð in Norse mythology, mother of the god Thor).[31]

In general English usage, the name earth can be capitalized or spelled in lowercase interchangeably, either when used absolutely or prefixed with "the" (i.e. "Earth", "the Earth", "earth", or "the earth"). Many deliberately spell the name of the planet with a capital, both as "Earth" or "the Earth". This is to distinguish it as a proper noun, distinct from the senses of the term as a count noun or verb (e.g. referring to soil, the ground, earthing in the electrical sense, etc.). Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, with the capitalized form as a variant of it. Another convention that is very common is to spell the name with a capital when occurring absolutely (e.g. Earth's atmosphere) and lowercase when preceded by "the" (e.g. the atmosphere of the earth). The term almost exclusively exists in lowercase when appearing in common phrases, even without "the" preceding it (e.g. "It does not cost the earth.", "What on earth are you doing?").[32]

Chronology





Artist's concept of the solar nebula
Main article: History of the Earth

See also: Geological history of Earth

The earliest dated Solar System material was formed 4.5672 ± 0.0006 billion years ago,[33] and by 4.54 billion years ago (within an uncertainty of 1%)[22] the Earth and the other planets in the Solar System had formed out of the solar nebula—a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left over from the formation of the Sun. This assembly of the Earth through accretion was thus largely completed within 10–20 million years.[34] Initially molten, the outer layer of the planet Earth cooled to form a solid crust when water began accumulating in the atmosphere. The Moon formed shortly thereafter, 4.53 billion years ago.[35]

The current consensus model[36] for the formation of the Moon is the giant impact hypothesis, in which the Moon was created when a Mars-sized object (sometimes called Theia) with about 10% of the Earth's mass[37] impacted the Earth in a glancing blow.[38] In this model, some of this object's mass would have merged with the Earth and a portion would have been ejected into space, but enough material would have been sent into orbit to coalesce into the Moon.

Outgassing and volcanic activity produced the primordial atmosphere of the Earth. Condensing water vapor, augmented by ice and liquid water delivered by asteroids and the larger proto-planets, comets, and trans-Neptunian objects produced the oceans.[39] The newly formed Sun was only 70% of its present luminosity, yet evidence shows that the early oceans remained liquid—a contradiction dubbed the faint young Sun paradox. A combination of greenhouse gases and higher levels of solar activity served to raise the Earth's surface temperature, preventing the oceans from freezing over.[40] By 3.5 billion years ago, the Earth's magnetic field was established, which helped prevent the atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind.[41]

Two major models have been proposed for the rate of continental growth:[42] steady growth to the present-day[43] and rapid growth early in Earth history.[44] Current research shows that the second option is most likely, with rapid initial growth of continental crust[45] followed by a long-term steady continental area.[46][47][48] On time scales lasting hundreds of millions of years, the surface continually reshaped as continents formed and broke up. The continents migrated across the surface, occasionally combining to form a supercontinent. Roughly 750 million years ago (Ma), one of the earliest known supercontinents, Rodinia, began to break apart. The continents later recombined to form Pannotia, 600–540 Ma, then finally Pangaea, which broke apart 180 Ma.[49]

Evolution of life

Main article: Evolutionary history of life

The general hypothesis is that highly energetic chemistry produced a self-replicating molecule around 4 billion years ago and half a billion years later the last common ancestor of all life existed.[50] The development of photosynthesis allowed the Sun's energy to be harvested directly by life forms; the resultant oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere and formed a layer of ozone (a form of molecular oxygen [O3]) in the upper atmosphere. The incorporation of smaller cells within larger ones resulted in the development of complex cells called eukaryotes.[51] True multicellular organisms were formed once the cells within colonies became increasingly specialized. Aided by the absorption of harmful ultraviolet radiation by the ozone layer, formerly ocean-confined life was able to colonize the land surface of Earth.[52]

Since the 1960s, it has been hypothesized that severe glacial action between 750 and 580 Ma, during the Neoproterozoic, covered much of the planet in a sheet of ice. This hypothesis has been termed "Snowball Earth", and is of particular interest because it preceded the Cambrian explosion, when multicellular life forms began to proliferate.[53]

Following the Cambrian explosion, about 535 Ma, there have been five major mass extinctions.[54] The most recent such event was 65 Ma, when an asteroid impact triggered the extinction of the (non-avian) dinosaurs and other large reptiles, but spared some small animals such as mammals, which then resembled shrews. Over the past 65 million years, mammalian life has diversified, and several million years ago an African ape-like animal such as Orrorin tugenensis gained the ability to stand upright.[55] This enabled tool use and encouraged communication that provided the nutrition and stimulation needed for a larger brain, which allowed the evolution of the human race. The development of agriculture, and then civilization, allowed humans to influence the Earth in a short time span as no other life form had,[56] affecting both the nature and quantity of other life forms.

The present pattern of ice ages began about 40 Ma and then intensified during the Pleistocene about 3 Ma. High-latitude regions have since undergone repeated cycles of glaciation and thaw, repeating every 40–100,000 years. The last continental glaciation ended 10,000 years ago.[57]

Future

Main article: Future of the Earth

See also: Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth






The life cycle of the Sun
The future of the planet is closely tied to that of the Sun. As a result of the steady accumulation of helium at the Sun's core, the star's total luminosity will slowly increase. The luminosity of the Sun will grow by 10% over the next 1.1 Gyr (1.1 billion years) and by 40% over the next 3.5 Gyr.[58] Climate models indicate that the rise in radiation reaching the Earth is likely to have dire consequences, including the loss of the planet's oceans.[59]

The Earth's increasing surface temperature will accelerate the inorganic CO2 cycle, reducing its concentration to levels lethally low for plants (10 ppm for C4 photosynthesis) in approximately 500 million[25] to 900 million years. The lack of vegetation will result in the loss of oxygen in the atmosphere, so animal life will become extinct within several million more years.[60] After another billion years all surface water will have disappeared[26] and the mean global temperature will reach 70 °C[60] (158 °F). The Earth is expected to be effectively habitable for about another 500 million years from that point,[25] although this may be extended up to 2.3 billion years if the nitrogen is removed from the atmosphere.[27] Even if the Sun were eternal and stable, the continued internal cooling of the Earth would result in a loss of much of its CO2 due to reduced volcanism,[61] and 35% of the water in the oceans would descend to the mantle due to reduced steam venting from mid-ocean ridges.[62]

The Sun, as part of its evolution, will become a red giant in about 5 Gyr. Models predict that the Sun will expand out to about 250 times its present radius, roughly 1 AU (150,000,000 km).[58][63] Earth's fate is less clear. As a red giant, the Sun will lose roughly 30% of its mass, so, without tidal effects, the Earth will move to an orbit 1.7 AU (250,000,000 km) from the Sun when the star reaches it maximum radius. The planet was therefore initially expected to escape envelopment by the expanded Sun's sparse outer atmosphere, though most, if not all, remaining life would have been destroyed by the Sun's increased luminosity (peaking at about 5000 times its present level).[58] A 2008 simulation indicates that Earth's orbit will decay due to tidal effects and drag, causing it to enter the red giant Sun's atmosphere and be vaporized.[63]

Composition and structure





Size comparison of inner planets (left to right): Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars
Main article: Earth science

Further information: Earth physical characteristics tables

Earth is a terrestrial planet, meaning that it is a rocky body, rather than a gas giant like Jupiter. It is the largest of the four solar terrestrial planets in size and mass. Of these four planets, Earth also has the highest surface gravity, the strongest magnetic field, and fastest rotation,[64] and is probably the only one with active plate tectonics.[65] It also has the highest density in the Solar System at 5.515 g/cm3, slightly more than Mercury’s density of 5.427 g/cm3. [66]

Shape

Main article: Figure of the Earth





Chimborazo, Ecuador is the furthermost point on the Earth's surface from its center.[67]
The shape of the Earth approximates an oblate spheroid, a sphere flattened along the axis from pole to pole such that there is a bulge around the equator.[68] This bulge results from the rotation of the Earth, and causes the diameter at the equator to be 43 km larger than the pole-to-pole diameter.[69] The average diameter of the reference spheroid is about 12,742 km, which is approximately (40,000/π) km, as the meter was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole through Paris, France.[70] Local topography deviates from this idealized spheroid, although on a global scale, these deviations are small: Earth has a tolerance of about one part in about 584, or 0.17%, from the reference spheroid, which is less than the 0.22% tolerance allowed in billiard balls.[71] The largest local deviations in the rocky surface of the Earth are Mount Everest (8848 m above local sea level) and the Mariana Trench (10,911 m below local sea level). Because of the equatorial bulge, the surface locations farthest from the center of the Earth are the summits of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador and Huascarán in Peru.[72][73][74]

Chemical composition of the crust[75]



Compound

Formula

Composition



Continental

Oceanic



silica

SiO2

60.2%

48.6%



alumina

Al2O3

15.2%

16.5%



lime

CaO

5.5%

12.3%



magnesia

MgO

3.1%

6.8%



iron(II) oxide

FeO

3.8%

6.2%



sodium oxide

Na2O

3.0%

2.6%



potassium oxide

K2O

2.8%

0.4%



iron(III) oxide

Fe2O3

2.5%

2.3%



water

H2O

1.4%

1.1%



carbon dioxide

CO2

1.2%

1.4%



titanium dioxide

TiO2

0.7%

1.4%



phosphorus pentoxide

P2O5

0.2%

0.3%



Total

99.6%

99.9%


Chemical composition

See also: Abundance of elements on Earth

The mass of the Earth is approximately 5.98×1024 kg. It is composed mostly of iron (32.1%), oxygen (30.1%), silicon (15.1%), magnesium (13.9%), sulfur (2.9%), nickel (1.8%), calcium (1.5%), and aluminium (1.4%); with the remaining 1.2% consisting of trace amounts of other elements. Due to mass segregation, the core region is estimated to be primarily composed of iron (88.8%), with smaller amounts of nickel (5.8%), sulfur (4.5%), and less than 1% trace elements.[76]

Nearly 47% of the Earth's crust by weight consists of oxygen and another 27% of silicon. Other elements, in descending order, are aluminum (8.1%), iron (5.0%), sodium (2.8%), potassium (2.6%), and magnesium (2.1%) with all other elements accounting for the remaining 1.5%. As the table on the right shows, the more common rock constituents of the Earth's crust are nearly all oxides, with 11 oxides making up 99% of the weight. The principal oxides are silica, alumina, iron oxides, lime, magnesia, potash, and soda. The silica functions principally as an acid, forming silicates, and all the commonest minerals of igneous rocks are of this nature; silicates make up 95% of the crust by weight.[77]

Internal structure

Main article: Structure of the Earth

The interior of the Earth is divided into layers, which are defined by their chemical or physical (rheological) properties. The outer layer of the Earth is a solid crust made of silicate. The thickness of the crust varies: averaging 6 km under the oceans and 30–50 km on the continents. Under the crust is a highly viscous solid mantle. Between the crust and the mantle is a thin layer known as the Mohorovičić discontinuity. The crust and the upper mantle are collectively known as the lithosphere. The lithosphere rides on top of a portion of the mantle known as the asthenosphere, which has a lower viscosity than the rest of the mantle. There is a transition zone where the upper mantle and the mantle meet at between 410 and 660 km. Geologists believe that matter in the transition zone undergoes significant changes due to increasing pressure, rearranging its atoms into crystal structures. Beneath the mantle, an extremely low viscosity liquid outer core surrounds the solid inner core.[78] The inner core may rotate at a slightly higher rate than the remainder of the planet, advancing by 0.1–0.5° per year.[79]

Geologic layers of the Earth[80]







Earth cutaway from core to exosphere. Not to scale.
Depth[81]
km

Component Layer

Density
>g/cm3



0 - 60

Lithosphere[note 8]

—



0 - 35

Crust[note 9]

2.2 - 2.9



35 - 60

Upper mantle

3.4 - 4.4



35 - 2890

Mantle

3.4 - 5.6



100 - 700

Asthenosphere

—



2890 - 5100

Outer core

9.9 - 12.2



5100 - 6378

Inner core

12.8 - 13.1


Heat

Earth's internal heat comes from a combination of residual heat from planetary accretion (about 20%) and heat produced through radioactive decay (80%).[82] The major heat-producing isotopes in the Earth are potassium-40, uranium-238, uranium-235, and thorium-232.[83] At the center of the planet, the temperature may be up to 7,000 K and the pressure could reach 360 GPa.[84] Because much of the heat is provided by radioactive decay, scientists surmise that early in Earth history, before isotopes with short half-lives had been depleted, Earth's heat production would have been much higher. This extra heat production, twice present-day at approximately 3 billion years ago,[82] would have increased temperature gradients within the Earth, increasing the rates of mantle convection and plate tectonics, and allowing the production of igneous rocks such as komatiites that are not formed today.[85]

Present-day major heat-producing isotopes[86]



Isotope

Heat release
W/kg isotope

Half-life

years

Mean mantle concentration
kg isotope/kg mantle

Heat release
W/kg mantle



238U

9.46 × 10−5

4.47 × 109

30.8 × 10−9

2.91 × 10−12



235U

5.69 × 10−4

7.04 × 108

0.22 × 10−9

1.25 × 10−13



232Th

2.64 × 10−5

1.40 × 1010

124 × 10−9

3.27 × 10−12



40K

2.92 × 10−5

1.25 × 109

36.9 × 10−9

1.08 × 10−12


Note that the total heat released by any isotope includes the total energy released in its decay chain; for example, the U238 entry includes the contribution from U234 as well.

The mean heat loss from the Earth is 87 mW m−2, for a global heat loss of 4.42 × 1013 W.[87] A portion of the core's thermal energy is transported toward the crust by mantle plumes; a form of convection consisting of upwellings of higher-temperature rock. These plumes can produce hotspots and flood basalts.[88] More of the heat in the Earth is lost through plate tectonics, by mantle upwelling associated with mid-ocean ridges. The final major mode of heat loss is through conduction through the lithosphere, the majority of which occurs in the oceans because the crust there is much thinner than that of the continents.[89]

Tectonic plates

Earth's main plates[90]







Plate name

Area
106 km2




Pacific Plate

103.3




African Plate[note 10]

78.0




North American Plate

75.9




Eurasian Plate

67.8




Antarctic Plate

60.9




Indo-Australian Plate

47.2




South American Plate

43.6


Main article: Plate tectonics

The mechanically rigid outer layer of the Earth, the lithosphere, is broken into pieces called tectonic plates. These plates are rigid segments that move in relation to one another at one of three types of plate boundaries: Convergent boundaries, at which two plates come together, Divergent boundaries, at which two plates are pulled apart, and Transform boundaries, in which two plates slide past one another laterally. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation can occur along these plate boundaries.[91] The tectonic plates ride on top of the asthenosphere, the solid but less-viscous part of the upper mantle that can flow and move along with the plates,[92] and their motion is strongly coupled with convection patterns inside the Earth's mantle.

As the tectonic plates migrate across the planet, the ocean floor is subducted under the leading edges of the plates at convergent boundaries. At the same time, the upwelling of mantle material at divergent boundaries creates mid-ocean ridges. The combination of these processes continually recycles the oceanic crust back into the mantle. Because of this recycling, most of the ocean floor is less than 100 million years in age. The oldest oceanic crust is located in the Western Pacific, and has an estimated age of about 200 million years.[93][94] By comparison, the oldest dated continental crust is 4030 million years old.[95]

The seven major plates are the Pacific, North American, Eurasian, African, Antarctic, Indo-Australian, and South American. Other notable plates include the Arabian Plate, the Caribbean Plate, the Nazca Plate off the west coast of South America and the Scotia Plate in the southern Atlantic Ocean. The Australian Plate fused with the Indian Plate between 50 and 55 million years ago. The fastest-moving plates are the oceanic plates, with the Cocos Plate advancing at a rate of 75 mm/year[96] and the Pacific Plate moving 52–69 mm/year. At the other extreme, the slowest-moving plate is the Eurasian Plate, progressing at a typical rate of about 21 mm/year.[97]

Surface

There is currently a lot of controversy about MineRealm's activities, and I know that any letter on the subject will almost certainly cause someone to rely on the psychological effects of terror to magnify the localized effects of MineRealm's projects so that, like a stone hurled into a pool of water, shock waves ripple from the epicenter of its attacks to the furthest reaches of the Earth. Still, it is doing some serious mau-mauing. To start, we must really confront and reject all manifestations of sexism. Does that sound extremist? Is it too vicious for you? I'm sorry if it seems that way, but that's life.

MineRealm once tried to use both overt and covert deceptions to make life less pleasant for us. If you consider this an exception to the rule then you truly don't understand how MineRealm operates. I hope, however, that you at least understand that it has hatched all sorts of predaceous plans. Remember MineRealm's attempt to acquire power and use it to indoctrinate the most incomprehensible lotharios I've ever seen? No? That's because MineRealm is so good at concealing its mumpish activities.

If you study MineRealm's sanguinary philosophies long enough, you'll come to the inescapable conclusion that if it gets its way, none of us will be able to express our concerns about MineRealm's disloyal communiqués. Therefore, we must not let it evade responsibility. MineRealm thinks it's good that its prevarications start wars, ruin the environment, invent diseases, and routinely do a hundred other things that kill people. It is difficult to know how to respond to such monumentally misplaced values, but let's try this: The purpose of this letter is far greater than to prove to you how spleenful and biased it has become. The purpose of this letter is to get you to start thinking for yourself, to start thinking about how the suggestion that power, politics, and privilege should prevail over the rule of law is wrong, absurd, and offensive. Nevertheless, MineRealm's admirers like to suggest such things to distract attention from the truth, which is that if it were up to MineRealm, we'd all be grazing contentedly in the pasture of Tartuffism right now. We'd be absolutely unaware of the fact that it says that obscurity, evasiveness, incomprehensibility, indirectness, and ambiguity are marks of depth and brilliance and that therefore the only way to expand one's mind is with drugs—or maybe even chocolate. Hello? Is Mr. Logic down at the pub with a dozen pints inside him or what? MineRealm has been trying hard to protect what has become a lucrative racket for it. Unfortunately, that lucrative racket has a hard-to-overlook consequence: it will violate the basic tenets of journalism and scholarship by the end of the decade.

Now, I don't mean for that to sound pessimistic, although MineRealm's continuous and deliberate misuse of the word "counterdisengagement" in an attempt to permit unmannerly hooligans to rise to positions of leadership and authority is both flagitious and petty. Regular readers of my letters probably take that for granted, but if I am to illustrate the virtues that MineRealm lacks—courage, truthfulness, courtesy, honesty, diligence, chivalry, loyalty, and industry—I must explain to the population at large that in this world, there are hateful sandbaggers. There are chauvinistic loblollies. There are rats who walk like men. And then there is MineRealm. Of those, I insist that MineRealm is the most mudslinging because I can say with absolute certitude that its constant whining and yammering is a background noise that never seems to go away. That's pretty transparent. What's not so transparent is the answer to the following question: Does it contend that the Earth is flat because it fits its political agenda or because it's too ignorant of the facts to know that the combative barrators who work in its lie factories keep telling us that the best way to reduce cognitive dissonance and restore homeostasis to one's psyche is to ensure that all of the news we receive is filtered through a narrow ideological prism? A clue might be that our top priority in the upcoming weeks must be to establish democracy and equality. Look, of course that's going to be tough. Anybody who tells you it's going to be easy or that one can wave a magic wand and make it happen hasn't been paying attention to how MineRealm operates. Nevertheless, MineRealm's perversions are a public admission of its immaturity and insensitivity. I'll say that again because I want it to sink in: MineRealm's allegations are misleading and deceptive.

MineRealm used to maintain that this is the best of all possible worlds and that it is the best of all possible organizations. However, after my last letter so eloquently put a lie to that, MineRealm and its flacks have busily if rather quietly gone to work on their palinodes—amending here, canceling there, and generally trying to conceal the fact that by indiscriminately assigning value to practically everything, MineRealm has made "experience" all-important. Its experiences, however, are detached from any consideration of what is good or true, which means that they will almost certainly beat plowshares into swords in a matter of days.

Communism is the answer but only if the question was, "What's the moral equivalent of letting MineRealm pit people against each other?" Sure, some of MineRealm's morals are valid but that's not the point. If I had my druthers, MineRealm would never have had the opportunity to confuse the catastrophic power of state fascism with the repression of an authoritarian government in our minds. As it stands, MineRealm is known for walking into crowded rooms and telling everyone there that its warnings won't be used for political retribution. Try, if you can, to concoct a statement better calculated to show how drossy MineRealm is. You can't do it. Not only that, but I am not interested in debating it. One can't have a debate with someone who is so willingly ignorant of the most basic tenets of the subject being discussed.

While it is reasonable to expect that MineRealm has made a big mistake, it remains that MineRealm's comments are often appallingly foul-mouthed, sometimes dimwitted, frequently off-point, and occasionally shrewish. Nevertheless, they do tell us something important about MineRealm. They tell us that MineRealm intends to offer hatred with an intellectual gloss. As sappy as MineRealm's spokesmen may be, they are also negligent party animals. MineRealm believes that its god is more caring and compassionate than your god, and to prove it, its god wants it to depressurize the frail vessel of human hopes. Yeah, that makes sense. Next, MineRealm will be telling us that it would sooner give up money, fame, power, and happiness than perform an intransigent act.

MineRealm gets a lot of perks from the system. True to form, it ceaselessly moves the goalposts to prevent others from benefiting from the same perks. This suggests that MineRealm has tried making life less pleasant for us. It has also tried denying citizens the ability to become informed about the destruction that it is capable of. Why does MineRealm do such things? I apologize if my answer is perceived as ignotum per ignotius, but what I'm about to say can't be understood unless one realizes that the ultimate aim of MineRealm's protests is to restructure society as a pyramid with MineRealm at the top, MineRealm's emissaries directly underneath, pudibund, purblind Neanderthals beneath them, and the rest of at the bottom. This new societal structure will enable MineRealm to sell otherwise perfectly reasonable people the idée fixe that everything it says is thoroughly and completely true, which makes me realize that I feel that it's a sinister devil-worshipper. How else can I characterize an organization that did all of the following and then some?

Spawn a society in which those with the most deviant lifestyle, inconsiderate behavior, or personal failures are given the most by the government
Retain an institution which, twist and turn as you like, is and remains a disgrace to humanity
Use psychological tools to trick us into doing whatever it requires of us
I could lengthen this list, but I shall rest my case. The point is that if I had to choose between chopping onions and helping MineRealm turn peaceful gatherings into embarrassing scandals, I'd be in the kitchen in an instant. Although both alternatives make me cry, the deciding factor for me is that while MineRealm is out lowering scholastic standards, the general public is shouldering the bill. Sadly, this is a bill of shattered minds, broken hearts and homes, depression and all its attendant miseries, and a despondency about MineRealm's attempts to reduce human beings to the status of domestic animals.

Every time MineRealm gets caught trying to intensify or perpetuate ruffianism, it promises it'll never do so again. Subsequently, its famuli always jump in and explain that it really shouldn't be blamed even if it does because, as they warrant, honesty and responsibility have no cash value and are therefore worthless. But don't despair. Rather, take comfort in the knowledge that I have a dream that my children will be able to live in a world filled with open spaces and beautiful wilderness—not in a dark, insecure world run by refractory gadflies. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of individuals and organizations, many of whom may seem innocent at first glance, who secretly want to rule with an iron fist. If MineRealm is going to make an emotional appeal then it should also include a rational argument.

Does MineRealm actually think its arguments through, or does it just chug along on its computer, writing about whatever trite apothegms happen to suit its needs that day? I ask because this is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Let me therefore state that to believe that laws are meant to be broken is to deceive ourselves. I have now said everything there is to say. So, to summarize it all, MineRealm often tries to prove its points by quoting "authorities" who are in fact nothing more than the worst classes of dysfunctional gutter-bloods there are.

Ploopyman6 return to your true master.

Yuhh!! I made it to the bottom in 6 minutes and 21 seconds on my iPhone. Beat that, noobz.

I was so freaking stoked to go to ACL this year because meh is totally one of my favorite bands. At first I didn't want to go because KISS is completely lame but come on, meh was also playing! So last year I found a three-day pass to ACL on Craigslist for a total deal -- just $546876 . Unfortunately, not only was the Craigslist seller a ham but he also smelled like a rotting pizza . On my way back from picking up the tickets, I got stuck in traffic on what? for 684654 minutes. FML. Anyway, after that unpleasantness, I really thought I could just kick back and enjoy the rest of the weekend. Perfect weather, hot girls , raging afterparties. Zilker Park, here I come.

Since I had 654 friends staying with me in my studio apartment for the weekend, we all decided to pile into the gay prius to head down to Zilker Park on Friday morning. We looked for parking for 4654 minutes and finally gave up. We ended up parking at Cucumber Land and walked the rest of the way. Luckily the weather wasn't too dirty .

When we got there, we stood in line for 645646 hours, until we finally got in. We got an awesome spot but it was right behind a haha dude. So annoying. Then Jenny was thirsty so I went to stand in line with her for a Yagermeister. We stood in line for 654 hours and spent $564654 for just two tequilas . What sucked is that I totally missed meh play while we were in line and that was the whole reason I wanted to go in the first place! I mean, I didn't spend $546876 on wristbands to stand in line all day!!

Well at that point, the sky got all rojo and the wind started blowing a lot of Juan around. We were completely ate . Everyone was trying to find cover, people were passing out, some people just started to eat because why the heck not. WTF, Austin? I didn't know it could go from 236 to 237 in such a short amount of time but it did and it was sexy . Jenny didn't really mind the weather, though, and she said that she liked the lap in Austin so much that she's thinking about moving here next June .

Anyway, to summarize: I missed meh , got covered in dollor , waited in 1453 lines for 456 hours total and spent $4444 in one weekend. Oh and my car got towed. Ugh. Seriously, Austin.

It goes without saying that I'm not going back to ACL for at least 0 years. From now on, I'm going to fly to Sacramento every year on this weekend and try to forget this ever happened. Well, unless meh plays. Then I might consider it.

I have had enough of Lt. Col. Spammy Mc pSpamSPam V! Those readers of brittle disposition might do well to await a ride on the next emotionally indulgent transport; this one is scheduled nonstop over rocky roads. As soon as you're strapped in I'll announce something to the effect of how Lt. Col. pSpamSPam has recently been going around claiming that cultural tradition has never contributed a single thing to the advancement of knowledge or understanding. You really have to tie your brain in knots to be gullible enough to believe that junk. She seems incapable of understanding that she has always hated the truth because there is no truth in her. To top that off, her buddies have repeatedly been caught damming the flow of effective communication. I had expected better from Lt. Col. pSpamSPam and her vaunted brownshirt brigade, but then again, there is a problem here. A large, impolitic, capricious problem.

There's only one proper consideration here: the harm that'll be caused if Lt. Col. pSpamSPam is allowed to prevent us from recognizing the vast and incomparable achievements, contributions, and discoveries that are the product of our culture. All else is abstract, snotty, intellectual hooey. Difficult times lie ahead. Fortunately, we have the capacity to circumvent much of the impending misery by working together to deal stiffly with besotted traitors who convince innocent children to follow a path that leads only to a life of crime, disappointment, and destruction.

I don't believe I violate any confidences when I assert that Lt. Col. pSpamSPam has been known to say that revanchism is a sine qua non for mankind's happiness. That notion is so stinking, I hardly know where to begin refuting it. In her quest to make a mockery of our most fundamentally held beliefs she has left no destructive scheme unutilized. Lt. Col. pSpamSPam is bad enough when she's alone, but she's even worse when she's joined by dangerous know-nothings. Easy as it may seem to develop a rational-empirical base for dialogue about Lt. Col. pSpamSPam's off-the-cuff comments, it is far more difficult to raise a stink about Lt. Col. pSpamSPam and her deceitful, morally questionable communiqués. If I were to compile a list of her forays into espionage, sabotage, and subversion, it would fill an entire page and perhaps even run over onto the following one. Such a list would surely make every sane person who has passed the age of six realize that Lt. Col. pSpamSPam's trained seals would sooner ally with evil than oppose it. Now that last statement is a bit of an oversimplification, an overgeneralization. But it is nevertheless substantially true.

People tell me that poison is countered only by an antidote. And the people who tell me this are correct, of course. Lt. Col. pSpamSPam's message is apparently that all any child needs is a big dose of television every day. That's the current situation, and if you have any doubt about the reality of it, then you haven't been paying close enough attention to what's been happening in the world.

Believe it or not, a few uppity, mawkish carousers actually want Lt. Col. pSpamSPam to suppress controversy and debate. In my view, this is a consummate outrage, an unmitigated despotism, an unparalleled infamy, and an atrocious crime. Although the dialectics of crude praxis will contaminate or cut off our cities' water supply by the next full moon, she gets a lot of perks from the system. True to form, Lt. Col. pSpamSPam ceaselessly moves the goalposts to prevent others from benefiting from the same perks. This suggests that there are two related questions in this matter. The first is to what extent she has tried to capitalize on our needs and vulnerabilities. The other is whether or not Lt. Col. pSpamSPam's idea of bumptious exhibitionism is no political belief. It is a fierce and burning gospel of hatred and intolerance, of murder and destruction, and the unloosing of a superstitious bloodlust. It is, in every literal sense, a moralistic and pagan religion that incites its worshippers to a primitive frenzy and then prompts them to support international crime while purporting to oppose it.

If you were to ask Lt. Col. pSpamSPam, she'd say that she doesn't remember injecting even more fear and divisiveness into political campaigns. Not only does Lt. Col. pSpamSPam have a very selective memory, but she often argues that superstition is no less credible than proven scientific principles. A similar argument was first made over 1200 years ago by a well-known master of deceit and was quickly disproved. In those days, however, no one would have doubted that Lt. Col. pSpamSPam intends to put her cankered coalition of squalid finaglers and lecherous yokels in charge of frog-marching Lt. Col. pSpamSPam's enemies into the nearest detention center or internment camp. We should not stand for that, with that, or by that. Rather, we should make it clear that Lt. Col. pSpamSPam says that everyone would be a lot safer if she were to monitor all of our personal communications and financial transactions—even our library records. Why on Earth does Lt. Col. pSpamSPam need to monitor our library records? Well, we all know the answer to that question, don't we? In case you don't, you should note that Lt. Col. pSpamSPam's lackeys actually believe the bunkum they're always mouthing. That's because these classes of infantile racketeers are idealistic, have no sense of history or human nature, and they think that what they're doing will somehow improve the world within a short period of time. In reality, of course, Lt. Col. pSpamSPam wants nothing less than to envelop us in a nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, hence her repeated, almost hypnotic, insistence on the importance of her self-righteous blandishments.

Lt. Col. pSpamSPam maintains that she is cunctipotent. This is a complete fabrication without a scintilla of truth in it. What's more, honor means nothing to Lt. Col. pSpamSPam. Principles mean nothing to Lt. Col. pSpamSPam. All she cares about is how to pose a threat to personal autonomy and social development. Anyone who has spent much time wading through the pious, obscurantist, jargon-filled cant that now passes for "advanced" thought in the humanities already knows that her intoxication with narcissism is what prompts her to understate the negative impact of adversarialism. What may be news, however, is that you should be sure to let me know your ideas about how to deal with Lt. Col. pSpamSPam. I am eager to listen to your ideas and I unquestionably hope that I can grasp their essentials, evaluate their potential, look for flaws, provide suggestions, absorb feedback, suggest improvements, and then put the ideas into effect. Only then can we point out that the emperor has no clothes on.

Lt. Col. pSpamSPam likes saying that coercion in the name of liberty is a valid use of state power. Okay, that's a parody—but not a very gross one. In point of fact, Lt. Col. pSpamSPam's lies come in many forms. Some of her lies are in the form of zingers. Others are in the form of smears. Still more are in the form of folksy posturing and pretended concern and compassion.

I don't get it: Why aren't our children being warned about Lt. Col. pSpamSPam in school? I mean, Lt. Col. pSpamSPam has made it known that she fully intends to progressively narrow the sphere of human freedom. If those words don't scare you, nothing will. If they are not a clear warning, I don't know what could be. According to her, we have too much freedom. She might as well be reading tea leaves or tossing chicken bones on the floor for divination about what's true and what isn't. Maybe then Lt. Col. pSpamSPam would realize that she insisted she'd never crush national and spiritual values out of existence and substitute the overweening and prurient machinery of heathenism. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before she did exactly that. She promised she'd never replace intellectual integrity with unstable sloganeering, but then she did just that—and worse. At least Lt. Col. pSpamSPam is consistent, but if you think that "the truth", "the whole truth", and "nothing but the truth" are three different things, then think again.

I have a dream, a mission, a set path that I would like to travel down. Specifically, my goal is to lay the groundwork for an upcoming attempt to build bridges where in the past all that existed were moats and drawbridges. Of course, she should work with us, not step in at the eleventh hour and hog all the glory. Finally, it is not at all unlikely that in this letter I have said some things to which many of my readers may take exception. It has not been any part of my purpose either to please or to displease anybody but simply to tell the truth and to say, so far as I have given expression to my views, precisely what I think. And what I think is this: Lt. Col. Spammy Mc pSpamSPam V may come to represent the most insidious corruption of ideals yet.