mail bomb

messaging To send, or urge others to send, massive amounts

of electronic mail to a single system or person, with intent

to crash or spam the recipient's system. A successful mail

bomb may cause the victim's disk quota to be exhausted, the

disk holding his mailbox to fill up, or his computer to spend

a large proportion of its time processing mail.

Mail-bombing is sometimes done in retaliation against someone

persistently abusing Usenet and violating netiquette.

While it may inconvenience the intended victim (if they gave

their real address), it will probably also inconvenience other

users and administrators of the computers and networks

involved. Mailbombing is thus a serious offense itself.

See netiquette for the correct way to respond to perceived

violations.

Compare letterbomb, nastygram.

[Jargon File]

(1995-04-04)