Whatever Happened To Sanford "Spamford" Wallace?

Tackhead writes "People of a certain age — the age before email filters were effective, may remember a few mid-90s buzzwords like 'bulletproof hosting' and 'double opt-in.' People may remember that Hormel itself conceded that although 'SPAM' referred to their potted meat product, the term 'spam' could refer to unsolicited commercial email. People may also remember AGIS, Cyberpromo, Sanford 'Spam King' Wallace, and Walt Rines. Ten years after a 2003 retrospective on Rines and Wallace, Ars Technica reminds us that the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Comments

Why isn't he in jail?

[Somebody Is Using My]

He's in debt to the courts for millions, fails to show up for his court appearances and has repeatedly returned to a life of crime. It's not even as if his lawyer is getting him off. He's a continual recidivist and shows no intention of reforming his ways. Even if the cases themselves were merely civil disputes, his failure to live up his court-ordered responsibilities should have consequences.

Why isn't this jackass in jail yet? He's far more deserving than some poor punk who had the bad luck to get caught with a baggie of pot in his pocket.

Re:Why isn't he in jail?

[Tom]

Because our justice system has turned from protecting the public good and society in general towards protecting individual property and particular interest laws.

That's why you can spam millions of people for years (do the math, even at half a second per mail, that's quite a few wasted lifetimes) and get a slap on the wrist ($4 mio? if he weren't a fool that would've been pocket change for an Internet criminal - see Kimble).

But copy a few MP3s and you're down for your life savings. Have a bit of pot on you and off to jail.

It's an entirely different tragedy of the commons - the justice system utterly fails to protect the public at large from deaths by a million cuts, i.e. by small offenses that multiply into the thousands and millions.

Re:Why isn't he in jail?

[girlintraining]

Why isn't this jackass in jail yet? He's far more deserving than some poor punk who had the bad luck to get caught with a baggie of pot in his pocket.

You seem to be misunderstanding: A failed businessman is much less of a problem than a failed worker. Smoking pot = less productivity. That's why we throw him in jail for years at a go, whereas the failed businessman at least was making an attempt to improve the glory of our lord and savior, the Dollar. I only wish this statement was entirely sarcastic, instead of merely mostly. :(

Re:Why isn't he in jail?

[nuonguy]

Who is the slow learner here, him or the legal system that failed at prosecuting him? He recognised a (criminal) opportunity before everyone else and has the wits to stay out of jail. Crime doesn't pay unless you do it well.

double opt-in

[fahrbot-bot]

I saw a movie with that title once, but (to my surprise) it wasn't about Email...

Re:Email filters are NOT effective

[marka63]

If you thing SPF as made a difference to the amount of spam being sent I have a bridge to sell you.

SPF was never about preventing spam. It has only ever been about preventing your email address being used as the from address in spam. It reduces the amount of blowback to your account and nothing else. The only reason SPF appears to be a effective anti-spam tool is that there is that the number of sites filtering using SPF hasn't risen to the level where the spammers need to stop using SPF protected address as the from addresses.

Another thing SPF does is cause spammers to use hijacked credentials to send spam through legitimate sources.

This shouldn't be seen as a reason to stop using SPF records. But if you think SPF will stop spam you are deluding yourself.