Hackers, Programmers Gather at MIT to Discuss Spam

Hundreds of hackers and software programmers gathered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hoping to apply their collective brainpower to a problem that has grown from an annoyance to a menace: e-mail spam, the flood of unwanted e-mail messages advertising mortgages, Viagra, pornography and more. Organizers had expected a small gathering of 40 to 80 code programmers, hackers and Internet activists, but several hundred packed an auditorium to hear the latest anti-spam theories.