Lumber Cartel

Lumber Cartel

The Lumber Cartel was a facetious conspiracy theory popularized on USENET that claimed anti-spammers were secretly paid agents of lumber companies.cite book
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=kUp6p5P8waoC&pg=PA109&dq=lumber.cartel+spam&sig=_mVXjVzCIL_Kea1ltz3sKTj4qGU
title=Spam Wars: Our Last Best Chance to Defeat Spammers, Scammers, and Hackers
author=Danny Goodman
year=2004
publisher=SelectBooks
isbn=1590790634
]

In November 1997, a participant on news.admin.net-abuse.email posted an essay to the newsgroup. The essay described a conspiracy theory:

The reasoning provided in the essay was that certain companies first destroy forests and make paper out of them, which is in turn used to send bulk mail. Since sending e-mail spam doesn't use paper at all, the essay argued, the lumber companies would want to stop it before it would surpass paper-based bulk mailing, and consequently only those in the pay of the lumber companies would be anti-spam.

The rationale was based in disclaimers in certain spam messages that they were using electronic means in order to save paper. The joke eventually led to a club and numerous parody websites, most of which have long since disappeared. [cite book
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=h1K1bIcfhjcC&pg=PA35&dq=lumber.cartel+spam&sig=UDx02J0rzgMDiYrrQ2DDVr00VPk#PPA34,M1
title=Spam Kings: The Real Story behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and %*@)# Enlargements
author=Brian S. McWilliams
year=2005
publisher=O'Reilly Media
isbn=0596007329
]

Gatherings of anti-spammers on Usenet began to ridicule proponents of this theory, and many participants in news.admin.net-abuse.email chose to dub themselves as members of "the Lumber Cartel" in their signatures, followed immediately by the acronymic disclaimer "TinLC" (There is no Lumber Cartel), reminiscent of the There Is No Cabal catchphrase.

References

External links

* The Jargon File: " [http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/L/Lumber-Cartel.html Lumber Cartel] "
* [http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,35776,00.html Other Ways to Fry Spam] at Wired
* [http://www.ahbl.org/docs/glossary.php Glossary at the Abusive Hosts Blocklist]
* [http://gamblingmagazine.com/articles/34/34-15.htm Gambling Magazine's 1999 article on spam, mentioning the Lumber Cartel]
* [http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/11/12/spam/index2.html Salon.com's 1999 article on anti-spam efforts, mentioning the Lumber Cartel]
* [http://www.dotcomeon.com/cartel.html How the Lumber Cartel started]
* [http://www.lumbercartel.ca/ The Canadian Branch of the Lumber Cartel (local 42)]
* [http://www.lumbercartel.org/ The Lumber Cartel's DNS-based blackhole list]
* [http://bobcathoh.50megs.com/tinLC/ The Lumber Cartel's "Offishul" page.]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать реферат

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Backbone cabal — The backbone cabal was a group of large site administrators who pushed through the Great Renaming of Usenet newsgroups during most of the 1980s.Credit for organizing the backbone about 1983 is variously claimed for Mark Horton [… …   Wikipedia

  • News.admin.net-abuse.email — (sometimes abbreviated nanae or n.a.n a.e, and often incorrectly spelled with a hyphen in email ) is a Usenet newsgroup devoted to discussion of the abuse of email systems. Steve Linford, the founder of The Spamhaus Project, sometimes posts in… …   Wikipedia

  • news.admin.net-abuse.email — Nanae redirects here. For the town in Japan, see Nanae, Hokkaidō. For the fictional character, see Nanae Fujieda. news.admin.net abuse.email (sometimes abbreviated nanae or n.a.n a.e, and often incorrectly spelled with a hyphen in email ) is a… …   Wikipedia

  • Culture jamming — Anti consumerism Ideas and theory Spectacle · Culture jamming · Corporate crime · Media bias · Buy Nothing Day · Alternative culture · Simple living · …   Wikipedia

  • National Industrial Recovery Act — Front page of the National Industrial Recovery Act, as signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 16, 1933. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), officially known as the Act of June 16, 1933 (Ch. 90, 48 Stat. 195, formerly codified… …   Wikipedia

  • Business and Industry Review — ▪ 1999 Introduction Overview        Annual Average Rates of Growth of Manufacturing Output, 1980 97, Table Pattern of Output, 1994 97, Table Index Numbers of Production, Employment, and Productivity in Manufacturing Industries, Table (For Annual… …   Universalium

  • Colombia — Colombian, adj., n. /keuh lum bee euh/; Sp. /kaw lawm byah/, n. a republic in NW South America. 37,418,290; 439,828 sq. mi. (1,139,155 sq. km). Cap.: Bogotá. * * * Colombia Introduction Colombia Background: Colombia was one of the three countries …   Universalium

  • List of Sons of Anarchy characters — This is a list of characters from Sons of Anarchy. Sons of Anarchy is a drama on the American TV network FX; it focuses on the lives of an outlaw motorcycle club in Northern California. Contents 1 Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club 1.1 Active SAMCRO …   Wikipedia

  • Economic Affairs — ▪ 2006 Introduction In 2005 rising U.S. deficits, tight monetary policies, and higher oil prices triggered by hurricane damage in the Gulf of Mexico were moderating influences on the world economy and on U.S. stock markets, but some other… …   Universalium

  • United States — a republic in the N Western Hemisphere comprising 48 conterminous states, the District of Columbia, and Alaska in North America, and Hawaii in the N Pacific. 267,954,767; conterminous United States, 3,022,387 sq. mi. (7,827,982 sq. km); with… …   Universalium

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”