After receiving what could only be a chain email, I did a little research on it and found this History of a Chain E-Mail. I vaguely recalled something like this in the past, and it turns out this originated (or so it is claimed on the link) on November 18, 1997 as a joke between two friends. (A quick caveat: it would be ironic if this "history lesson" were itself attempting to create an urban legend in true double, double-cross fashion by creating a false history, but I am going to take it for truth, since in the end it doesn’t really matter.)

I always struggle with how to respond (or not respond) to emails like these, since inevitably, they came from well-intentioned friends and are usually not malicious. In this case, I did respond with a quick link and a happy holidays message.

My thinking: 1) it really does cost money, at least from an economics standpoint (bandwidth, productivity); 2) there were probably 300 or more email addresses that might be available for an enterprising spammer; 3) we have to do a better job of evaluating our email messages.