Slashdot Mirror
Where's Sanford Wallace Now?
capt.Hij writes "There is a story at Fosters about Sanford Wallace who is described as once being the 'King of Spam.' The story describes how he made lots of money in the early days of the internet but got tired of fighting the spam fighters. He is now the owner of a night club in New Hampshire. Here is how he describes his life now: 'Back in the day, I used to make lots of money surrounded by computers. Now, I make lots of money surrounded by beautiful women.'" If "Sanford Wallace" doesn't ring a bell, you need to read some old stories.
Definately a decent trade-up in lifestyle. What's the statute of limitations on the associated crimes?
Come play Moral Decay!
Sounds cool. But AFAIK the average lifespan of nightclub owners is pretty short. Also, it's like working in a PC shop. Eventually the nice bodywork all looks the same.
Sigh. I should be so unlucky.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Poor guy! Went from lots of money and computers to actually having to leave the house!? Shame
He went from from silicon to silicone :)
*twitch* I had mercifully forgotten about that bastard.
"I didn't think there was anything wrong with what I was doing. It wasn't as annoying as telemarketing, because with e-mail, I wasn't interrupting anyone's dinner," Wallace said.
To me, this is one of the biggest problem. These people don't realise that what they are doing is wrong, or they flat out don't care. When it comes to telemarketing I can always tell them to f**k off and never call me again, har to do with a spam mail which return adress is a fake.
Who gives a shit?
he used to send mails about hot girls
...
now he pays others to send spam for him ?
no, jokes aside, i wonder if an ex spammer WOULD use spam to promote his own new shiny bussiness
Mirror anyone?
Spam king switches tune: Net ad guru finds new life running nightclub
By NATE PARDUE
Staff Writer
Sanford Wallace, the owner of Plum Crazy nightclub on Route 11 in Rochester, poses at the DJ station where he spends the majority of his time. (Mark Avery/staff photo)
ROCHESTER -- He may be known as "DJ MasterWeb" now to his nightclub regulars at Plum Crazy, but Sanford Wallace once ruled the Internet as the king of spam.
By his own account, Wallace, who owns the hopping night spot Plum Crazy on Route 11, was, at one time, responsible for about 80 percent of direct Internet mailings sent to in-boxes around the globe.
The mailings are popularly known as "spam" in the Web world and are virtually impossible to avoid, despite constant efforts to do away with them.
But in the early 1990s, not many people had even heard of the Internet, never mind Internet spam.
"It was junk mail. I have no problem using the term," said the 35-year-old Wallace.
Wallace first learned the craft of computer programming in 1990 from the Chubb Institute, a couple of years before the Internet boom of 1993 and 1994.
Prior to that, the Internet was mainly used by the government and military -- certainly not widely available to the passive computer owner.
When the Web became accessible to the general public, Wallace's entrepreneurial mind began churning.
Much like the junk mail that came through his old-fashioned mailbox every day, Wallace thought there must be a way to transfer that method to the rapidly growing cyberworld.
Wallace found ways to collect a massive list of personal e-mail addresses. He then contacted businesses big and small and asked if -- for a fee -- they would be interested in getting their names out to hundreds, if not millions of people.
In turn, the companies would send their information to Wallace, who formed a Philadelphia, Pa.-based company under the name Cyber Promotions in 1994. He would create advertisements, and send them off into the World Wide Web.
Over the next three years, Wallace sent as many as 30 million e-mails a day to consumers from 10,000 clients, and made millions of dollars in the process.
"I didn't think there was anything wrong with what I was doing. It wasn't as annoying as telemarketing, because with e-mail, I wasn't interrupting anyone's dinner," Wallace said.
But some heavy hitters with very deep pockets didn't quite see it that way.
From 1995 until 1997, Cyber Promotions was involved in 16 separate lawsuits, with companies like America Online and CompuServe.
The basis of many of the lawsuits was that unlike phone lines, computers were considered private property, and Wallace was accused of violating that privacy.
"People were essentially lining up at my virtual door," Wallace said. "I made a lot of lawyers very rich."
Wallace also attracted the ire of Internet enthusiasts -- or computer geeks, as he classifies them -- who strongly voiced their disapproval and outright loathing of Wallace on message boards throughout the Web.
The distaste infamously earned him the nickname "Spamford" in online circles around the country.
The negative reactions and relentless lawsuits started to take their toll, and Wallace decided to get out of the business in 1997.
"I was getting tired of the controversy. My goal was never to bother people," Wallace said.
Wallace took another stab at Internet spamming with SmartBot, a permission-based system where marketers and consumers would agree to be sent spam e-mail, similar to the check boxes found on most online registration pages.
The business lasted for a few more years until the dot-com crash of 2000, when hundreds of self-made millionaires lost their shirts on investments that peaked and fell in just a couple of years.
That was it for Wallace's life as "Spamford."
"A lot of people lost a lot of money. I did too, but there were people out there who got it a lot worse,"
Sure, he made a lot of money on spam. And now he's surrounded by drop-dead gorgeous women.
I also understand that he's incredibly handsome, hung like a horse, rescues puppies, and can cure leprosy with a mere laying-on of hands. He's on the Pope's short-list, can beat Kasparov in any chess match, and walks on water. Further, he is the inventor of a working perpetual motion machine, has single-handedly saved a small third-world nation from disaster, and loves his mother.
He is not, of course, a habitual liar.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
And if you think Sanford Wallace was the original "Spam King", you need to read some even older stories.
"Now, I make lots of money surrounded by beautiful women...
who find me repulsive.
A nightclub in NH? Somehow I am doubtful that is a very 'happening' place. Even better would be how easy it probably is to find the Night Club he is talking about. I mean, it is New Hampshire. A state that pays for social services an education by exploiting the vices of out-of-staters by cheap State-run liqour stores placed right on the border with Massachusetts.
Something intelligent here.
Do the women there get free breast enlargment pills? Do they get free penis enlargment pills?
Fight Spammers!
Way back then he declared on stage in Philadelphia that he was through sending spam (this was 1999) and his company would be legit. Didn't happen. Glad he is out of the tech world - BTW how does anyone know or even care about whether he has gorgeous women around him - I am pretty sure he was married back then. Ah well - one less spammer....
Seacoast NH is actually a fun place to go out. It's actually a decent club. They have free limo service too, which is cool.
Although last time I was there someone got a bottle broken over their head and got their neck cut up. Cops came, wouldn't let anyone leave, took everyone's name, etc.
These people look deep into my soul and assign me a number based on the order I joined.
Shameless plug: the O'Reilley book "Stopping Spam" has a good history of Sanford Wallace, the so-called "Spam King".
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Condolences from all of us who wish him well in his new life. I hope this worked out ok.
Check out the club's webpage at
http://www.clubplumcrazy.com/
(Which amusingly has a free vip signup via email...)
Or just wish him well via email. it lists an address of:
masterwebfanclub@aol.com
(I guess he did not want to deal with spam on his own domain, thus the aol account.)
Finally, there is a newsgroup if you wish to find out more about the club itself:
http://pub89.ezboard.com/bclubplumcrazy
Lets be mature about this and not abuse these points of contact.
Have you read the Moderator Guidelines yet?
And guess what - you DON'T NEED TO WEAR A BULLET PROOF VEST... (quoted from Fosters about an event at the competition, 360 nightclub, Saturday Oct 11)... "a gun had been fired on the property" ... "He fired one round" ... You don't need to worry about gun fights at Plum Crazy! People come to Plum to dance and have fun, not to get involved in attempted first degree assault and gun shootings!
Damn, I'm always seeking out the hot "first degree assault and gun shootings" scene...
Sounds like someone's more than a bit jealous. You should probably work on not being quite so obvious.
Damn straight. If the people in MA and ME are dumb enough to live there, we're gonna get 'em for everything they're worth.
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
Why is this news in the first place? Like I really wanna hear about a loser spammer who is a white trash pimp. C'mon ladies, post good stuff!!
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
This club is almost as tired as all the spam email chubby used to send out. I think you'd be "Plum Crazy" to spend your time driving out to that spot in the sticks. I can tell you that his DJ skills are terribly lacking, and if it weren't for UNH (located a mere 15 miles from this club) he'd still be interested in turning a buck by sending out that garbage.
-A.M.
Pimpin' all the Karma Hoes!
wonder what cocky-boy would do if every slashdot member sent him a single piece of snail-mail once a week...
if you really read the interview, this asshole hasnt "reformed". he is still the same jerkoff that is proud to do whatever he can get away with to make a dollar at anyone else's expense.
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
I thought he was still running that junkyard/garage... oh, sorry, wrong sanford.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Whenever I see that headline, I keep hoping the answer is "In hell, sharing hot lava enemas with Canter and Seigel".
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
"Oh, this time its real, I'm a-comin' 'Lizabeth"
I guess he just doesn't have any type of values. From Spam to a Night Club owner. Although I admit that a nightclub is better for society then Spam is. But still its shady type of job, dealing with barely legal business. In short I is just a scummy person, and he moral guidelines is roughly based if its legal then it is OK. Which is absolutely wrong reasoning.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Rt. 11
Rochester, New Hampshire
Summary:
Price: Low
Cover Charge: Always
Patron Age: College Age
Description:
Plum Crazy is a Bar/Pub that has 2 bars with 15+ beers on tap. It also has pool tables and a dance floor. There is street parking available.
Review:
Great bars if your into drunken reprobates, and women with teeth you could count on one hand. Dance floor wreaks of fromunda cheese (fresh nightly). Overall, an experience I can only rank up with alien abduction, or a visit to the local church for "confession" with a priest.
So Sanford can't run a good club, either.
I can understand why he is surrounded by beautiful women.. his penis must be enormous! I'm sure he wouldn't have sent out those member enlargement emails if he didn't test the product first!
Plum Crazy nightclub on Route 11 in Rochester NY burned to ground in an overnight fire. The structure was a total loss. A statement form Rochester Fire Chief, Floyd Madison, "We have ruled this fire suspicious in nature. Perhaps the most bizarre thing is the number of charred cans of spam we found".
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
...what are the police going to do when he winds of face down in a river? Narrowing down a field of a couple hundred million suspects who all have a motive could be a lot of work.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
A recent thread about it on GeekVillage is at:
http://geekvillage.com/forums/showthread.php?s=3a
Read down a ways to see where he comes into the thread - he actually posts defending his site.
...setting missile coordinates..
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This guy doesn't look much like Mel Gibson. But if he says he's surrounded by beautiful women I guess he must have something going for him.
Seastead this.
And guess what - you DON'T NEED TO WEAR A BULLET PROOF VEST... (quoted from Fosters about an event at the competition, 360 nightclub, Saturday Oct 11)... "a gun had been fired on the property"
Sounds like a GREAT place. Someone *please* get me outta this country...
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
dude, it's the wrong one. he's in new hampshire...
He's a truly sad human being. The best we can hope for is that he never reproduces. By his looks and persona this shouldn't be a problem.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
... he deserves a righteous ass-kicking.
Doesn't sound like my kind of club when this disclaimer is on the front page.
... "He fired one round" ... You don't need to worry about gun fights at Plum Crazy! People come to Plum to dance and have fun, not to get involved in attempted first degree assault and gun shootings!
:)
"UPDATE! Yes, it's true! The dress code is HISTORY at Plum -- You CAN wear bandanas, skull caps, jerseys, caps, anything! Just keep it stylish and clean.
And guess what - you DON'T NEED TO WEAR A BULLET PROOF VEST... (quoted from Fosters about an event at the competition, 360 nightclub, Saturday Oct 11)... "a gun had been fired on the property"
"
From Spam to Thugs.. who woulda thunk it
FWIW, he never sent me an invoice, and he also never paid one of mine.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
Also, if you go to his website, you might want to hit reload 1000 times.
Get revenge: Unsolicited Commando
He went from degrading my broadband to degrading broads.
Karma: NaN
I wonder if his penis has been enlarged, his mortgage shrunk and if he earned his masters overnight too!? Everyone should sign up his nightclub for all kinds of mailing lists, might I recommend Viagra, Rogaine, mortgage brokering firms... and I wonder if he's on the do not call list...
Whatever happened to Canter and Siegel?
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
If there was, he'd be in the deepest pit of hell.
Yet Another Web Site
We should all get together and go down to his club, then instead of going in, stand out side screaming various slogans like "Reduce your loan payments" "Enlarge your member" "Teen XXX" and while legally staying off the premisis, be an eye-sore in the way so he cant get "real" customers through as easily. Basically do something that parallels spam in terms of annoyance. Or im sad and have too much time on my hands - but seriously you guys we have to piss this guy off somehow!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
What happened to Lamont?
I hear they have a great pyrotechnic show.
Quoting from the article:
The mailings are popularly known as "spam" in the Web world.... But in the early 1990s, not many people had even heard of the Internet.... Prior to that, the Internet was mainly used by the government and military.... When the Web became accessible to the general public, Wallace's entrepreneurial mind began churning.... Wallace found ways to collect a massive list of personal e-mail addresses.... He would create advertisements, and send them off into the World Wide Web.
Stupid clueless reporter. Doesn't even know the difference between the Web, email and the Internet.
With people such as this bringing us our news and information every day, no wonder the American public is so hopelessly uninformed....
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
I don't know how many of you know any nightclub owners personally, but I've had the dubious "pleasure" of knowing several - and they all seem to fit a common profile.
Usually, they're "has beens" or "wanna-be" rich and famous individuals who came into some money in the past (often via questionable means), and thought owning a nightclub was a great next step to take in their lives.
The average nightclub only turns a decent profit for the first 6 months to a year it operates. Once it's not "new" anymore (and you've collected cover charges for all the "first tme" visitors who just wanted to check the place out), it's really tough to keep it hyped up and popular. Having a really creative niche helps immensely -- but even then, a niche is just that; catering to a small segment of the population who shares a love of whatever you're offering.
There are many things more likely to make you decent money than owning a nightclub. So why do people throw their money at it? Simple.... They're fairly lazy and don't want to actually work at a job that makes them get up early each morning, and they yearn to be "cool". (If you aren't attractive enough to have a good-looking woman of your own, at least you can brag about all the ones surrounding you each night who really don't care if you live or you die.)
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
> Please elaborate. When would you consider him "reformed"? When he's crouched on his broken kneecaps, begging for your forgiveness for sending you a few unsolicited mails?
How about when he's paid back the money for all of the bandwidth he stole, or makes some kind of restitution (community service or the like) to repay all the time wasted by everyone he bombarded?
That'd be a start, but he doesn't seem to be interested in any of that. The only reason he's not spamming any longer is that AOL's lawyers are holding a financial gun to his head. That's not reformed, in any sense I'll accept.
Virg
Lawyer
MS Programmer
RIAA Spokesperson
Spammer
Prostitute
Stripper
Night Club Owner
Used Car Dealer
Food Service employee
Food Service manager
Local resteraunt owner
Teacher
Professor
Doctor
Lawyer
goto MS... etc.
Frightening no?
Little Brother, watching the watchers
I want to send him a few million emails asking him if he needs a larger penis.
In a world that is Free and Open, who needs Windows and Gates?
I wonder if we could get Great White to play this club?
Actually, Wired News did this story two weeks ago.
Walter Rines. Walter Rines ... associate of "Spamford"... sounds familiar... oh yeah... the schmuck from whom I stole his girlfriend and married her... and then promptly divorced. A year later. Yeah, that's right... it's all coming back to me now.
Worst day of my life (up to that point - I've had worse since) was when an issue of a popular computer magazine showed up in my mailbox (subscription) and the cover had a big honkin smilin' picture of my wife's ex. That was awesome. She wouldn't shut up about "walter" and his "internet company". Yadda yadda yadda... walter walter walter. Jeez the 90's were gay.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Sanford is a ball-like, greasy fuckface. How could anything he does actually make anybody happy?
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
...The Club Plum did fine." Methinks he is serving up something else in there besides alcohol. Going back to your old ways again, eh Samford?
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
This guy is living on his own planet.
Beautiful women??? If you find sweatshirts and stretch pants stretched to the limit, or you are a connoisseur of camel toe, maybe. Actually, if you're in to teens who smoke and drink NH might be the place for you. That and Mechanixville, NY.
The entire concept of "New Hampshire" and "night club" being in the same sentence is hilarious, especially when we're talking about Rochester NH. The only thing near Rochester is Canada. I'm surprised they even have electricity, or maybe they run generators on pinecones and permafrost. The highlight of my life in NH was living across the street from the place they broadcasted live candlepin bowling every weekend. There was a club near me, too, but there was a biker knife fight and then a fire and then it snowed and the building collapsed.
The only silicone I know of is in Southern NH, and that's in children in middle school. (I know this because my wife and I volunteered, I did not go checking out preteens, thank you very much). What kind of parent lets their kid do that, nevermind buy them for quinceanera (sweet 15) presents???
You may have seen NH in the news for the fratricide shotgun murder over how to open a bag of potato chips, or the murder over who drank the last beer, or the town that banned Shakespeare for promoting homosexuality.
He was the one behind the netscum list. For those who don't remember it, it was a list of anti-spammers that Spamford didn't like. When I made the netscum list, I was kind of ticked off about being slandered on the Internet by him. But it quickly became something of a mark of distinction, at least for a while.
I want to personally kill him with my own hands. I truly hate that man and want him dead.
It'd be cool if when he's 80 or so, someone punched him in the gut. Anti-spammer actions should be like the mafia... You never escape from them.
Good thing I don't live in New Hampshire, because then I'd have to hate the fact that I'm too law abiding to do it myself.
Translation: None of the millions of people, whose inboxes I clogged with some of my billions of pieces of spam were ever bothered by it. But a few corporations and lawyers thought they could make money off me, and that bothered me. Why wouldn't people leave me alone?
Boo Fscking Hoo.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Spamford, you reading this? This is a message from an old "friend". Fuck off and die.
Someone should get printed up poster sized printouts of spam and stick them all over the outside of the club.
'Enlarge your penis' 2 metres high!
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
SPAM
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major