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FTC Files Spyware Case Against Sanford Wallace
An anonymous reader writes "Legendary reformed spammer Sanford Wallace is apparently back in business, under suspicion by the Feds for advertising a trojan spyware removal tool. Wallace 'admit[s] no wrongdoing', but in the next breath says 'The FTC is trying to enforce a law that hasn't even passed', referring to the proposed anti-spyware legislation currently in Congress."
Wallace 'admit[s] no wrongdoing', but in the next breath says 'The FTC is trying to enforce a law that hasn't even passed'
If you're selling spyware as anti-spyware, that's fraud, genius.
Maybe he's hoping that the public will stand up for poor little him.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The Union Leader has more information. The part about the bankruptcy tells much about Wallace's character.
"You're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older."
Huh? Advertising a program that is supposed to protect/remove spyware but acts as spyware or a trojan does not at all compare to being pulled over by a cop.
This guy is guilty of fraud.
"J" (who in his anger may have been under the mistaken impression that I'm associated with Spy Wiper) intends to sue Spy Wiper. He says that when Spy Wiper opened his CD-ROM drive, it popped his infant in the eye. The infant had to be taken to the emergency room.
This is so creepy - I dreamed last night (in between the alien invasion and the date with Bon Jovi) that I had let a friend of a friend check her email on my computer, and when I came back to it there were spyware, pr0n, and other assorted nasties covering the screen. Every time I deleted one, two more popped up in it's place. I had just dealt with this on my laptop in real life and this bitch fubar'd my new machine!
/.
Now this story shows up on
Coincidence?
FRY THE BASTARD!
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
It's more like the mafia. You need protection from what we just did to you. Pay up *and* continue to suffer all at the same time.
> there's surely something else he can be chared with.
Lighter fluid?
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
This seems a bit more like extortion to me as he's doing something obnoxious to somebody and then asking for money to stop.
This may be the tactic that the FTC goes with in prosecuting.
It's like being charged with spyware offenses by the FTC while new spyware legislation is making its way through Congress.
Fuck your analogies. Wallace is still guilty of the 1000-year-old crime of fraud and they're going to nail him for it. New legislation may help further convictions. Film at 11.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
Is there anything else the entire industry has accepted that you want to suggest is wrong?
There's a good article about fatass, er Wallace over on Wikipedia.
In short:
- Wallace use to junkfax until the junk fax law went into place.
- Wallace formerly ran Cyber Promotions, the biggest spammer on the planet at the time, and specialized in things like relay repaying, false return addresses, and outright lying about his lists being "opt-in". It took a permanent injuction to get him to stop.
- Now he's doing spyware and demanding money from people with infected computers.
It's been said before and it's worth repeating again: Wallace has repeatedly shown little respect for other peoples' property and resources. He has no place in society. As far as I'm concerned, he should be locked up for the rest of his natural life.
If I sound bitter, it's because I had to deal with Cyberpromo junk (and that from their rogue ISP, AGIS, if anyone remembers them!) back in the 90's and know exactly how incorrigible he is.
And, be sure to fact-check ANYTHING that comes out of his mouth. I mean it.
How popular is/was Internet Explorer? The largest resaon so much was found in IE was so much attention was given to IE since it is the largest browser by far, and was even larger in the past. Now, as Firefox is growing, it's being targeted. I've started seeing sties that try to send you a mozilla installer package if you are using Firefox, an ActiveX control if oyu are using IE.
If you seriously think Firefox is bug free, well you are sticking your head in the sand. The question isn't if Friefox has exploitable bugs, it does, everything does, the question is when one is found, what happens? The OSS community argues that this is where the strength is, it'll be fixed in a big hurry, so consumers don't have to worry.
Well the thing is, receant events are calling that in to doubt. Salshdot has reported on the two big security bugs in the last couple of months that sat unfixed for YEARS, basically until a big public stink was made about it. So it may be that in reality Firefox is LESS safe.
I use it, since I like it better, but if you think that it has some magic OSS shield that protects you, think again.
Also, the vast majority of spyware, including the spyware in the article, gets on through user stupidity, not exploits. This particular software is the popup/banner nature. It tells you to download it. Users do that, and then it's got them. Others provide some feature people want, like comet cursor, that then also spys on people. Still more just piggy back on top of other software, like the loads of shit that comes with Kazaa.
The FTC lawsuit is against Seismic Productions, which used to be registered to Walt Rines, Wallace's old spamming partner. Rines currently distributes a Trojan horse program called Kazanon that (falsely) claims to make users of the Kazaa file-sharing program invisible to the authorities. When asked about the legality of Kazanon, Rines said "If there's a grey area, I'm all for taking the opportunity, from a marketing standpoint."